To recap: For individuals Cloud Computing means that instead of using personal programs that sit, along with our personal data, on our computers we use applications that sit on computers somewhere else – along with our data – that we access via the Internet. For example, Google email is an example of a Cloud-based application. This is important because Cloud Computing is the direction that computing as a whole is heading, for many businesses as well as for the individual.

So that’s what’s going on to a first approximation. But what exactly is the definition of the Cloud?

In the rest of this post I try to come up with a personal draft working definition of the Cloud. This is because I think there is something going on in the Cloud that is exciting and will help us navigate the tricky terrain we face ahead in our relationship with the Web and the power of social media. If I can’t get a handle on it I can’t define the next part, which is to conjure a World from the Cloud.

I built it using the draft NIST working definition of Cloud Computing from the previous post.

My personal draft working definition of The Cloud (nothing more than that) is that it’s a “shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g. networks, servers, storage, applications, and services),” available conveniently and on-demand via the Internet.

I use the word Internet because that’s the network with which Cloud Computing is now overwhelmingly associated (and see the beginning of this keynote by Paul Sagan, President and CEO of Akami at the Structure09 conference in SF, 06/25/09).

What does the Cloud look like?

Since the Cloud is a product of Cloud Computing it must be composed of the Cloud Infrastructure, Platform and Software offered as a service plus the so-large-as-be-next-to-no-nevermind-infinite storage available on the Net.

Everyone talks about only one Cloud, so at the moment my personal image of the Cloud is of a circle made of three pie slices, each accessible independently or working together in some fashion, each slice containing one of the three above, surrounded by an outer circle representing storage.

So, for example, in the NIST Working Definition of Cloud Computing, the SaaS delivery model is defined this way:

“The capability provided to the consumer is to use the provider’s applications running on a cloud infrastructure and accessible from various client devices through a thin client interface such as a Web browser (e.g., web-based email). The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure, network, servers, operating systems, storage, or even individual application capabilities, with the possible exception of limited user-specific application configuration settings.”

and therefore the Cloud Software “slice” contains “the provider’s applications running on a cloud infrastructure accessible from various client devices through a thin client interface such as a Web browers (e.g. web-based email)” made available conveniently and on-demand over the Internet. Those applications are attached to as much storage as required. And these are then “Cloud-based applications,” (with the restrictions specified).

And similarly for Cloud Infrastructure and Cloud Platform. But the Software slice is key for the third and final post in this series. I have mixed feelings about offering even a personal draft working definition of the Cloud and would welcome any comments you might have.