The Cloud: Buzzword Or Revolutionary Invention?

It’s only understandable if you don’t want to listen to the words “cloud” or “digitization” anymore. Overused, intangible, and all too often just used as “buzzwords” for somehow modern and progressive. Although most of them have understood what the cloud is all about and no longer look up to the sky, the fundamental nature of this technology is often misjudged. It has enabled access to digital networking for the masses and has become indispensable for companies and private users.

How It All Began And The Principle Of Sharing

To explain, we should take a step back and understand the basic principle of the cloud: The core idea is sharing resources, which is nothing less than a civilising achievement of humans. We apply the code in many areas. We share a common infrastructure in the form of roads, bridges, and railways. And can you imagine how time-consuming it would be if you were responsible for generating your electricity? That could not be easy, which is precisely why the principle of the cloud is so important in our digital age.

Let’s jump back to the 1950s: John F. Kennedy was still a relatively unknown US Senator, and computers were space-filling monsters that required power lines and enormous cooling systems. Computing time cost millions of dollars and was therefore out of reach for most people. This gave the US scientists an idea that can be described as the origin of cloud computing. McCarthy wanted to make computing time shareable and accessible to anyone who couldn’t own a computer. For this, he developed terminals with which several users could access the actual computer simultaneously. They shared the available processing power but felt they could use a computer.

The Cloud Only Had Its Breakthrough With The Internet.

The idea was comparable to today’s car-sharing concept: Why does everyone have to have a car that is only used by a single owner and is parked in the parking lot most of the time? If we share cars flexibly, we can use them more effectively and give people a vehicle who don’t want to or can’t afford their own. The cloud principle works similarly. Companies and private individuals can access computing time without their hardware or the time-consuming maintenance of server software. And at an affordable price, McCarthy could only dream of 60 years ago!

Some readers will probably ask themselves: But today’s computers are no longer boxes the size of a car and affordable for most people? That’s right, the proliferation of inexpensive personal computers also damaged the cloud approach in the 1980s. Suddenly you no longer had to share a computer, and you were your master of computing power. A while before the Internet, especially smartphones, became popular, the cloud experienced a revival. The Internet itself does not necessarily have to be based on the principle of the cloud; instead, it is originally a network of computers so they can send data to each other. However, they do not necessarily share resources or engage in an intelligent division of labour.

The Internet is separate from the cloud. But the need for it. Our need for the fast exchange of large amounts of data has grown enormously, and a large part of our communication and economic performance is dependent on the Internet. Three billion people use the Internet. If each of them had a small server to share their photos, run a blog or receive emails, it would be an insecure patchwork.