The overarching concept of delivering computing resources through a global network was rooted in the sixties. The idea of an “intergalactic computer network” was introduced by J.C.R. Licklider, who was responsible for enabling the development of ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) in 1969.” His vision was for everyone on the globe to be interconnected and accessing programs and data at any site, from anywhere”, explained Margaret Lewis, product marketing director at AMD. “It is a vision that sounds a lot like what we are calling Cloud computing.” Other experts attribute the Cloud concept to computer scientist John McCarthy who proposed the idea of computation being delivered as a public utility, similar to the service bureaus which date back to the sixties.

Cloud is the infrastructural paradigm shift that is sweeping across the IT world. Cloud computing has been described as arguably the third revolution of IT, following the personal computer and internet revolutions. Cloud computing is no doubt a a business game changer and will define IT in the second decade of the 21st Century.