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There’s been a good deal of confusion of late between the general concept of cloud computing, which I define as “Internet (’Cloud’) based development and use of computer technology (’Computing’)”, and its various components (autonomic, grid & utility computing, SaaS etc.). Some of this confusion is understandable given issues get complex quickly when you start peeling off the layers, however much of it comes from the very same opportunistic hardware & software vendors who somehow convinced us years ago that clusters had become grids. These same people are now trying to convince us that grids have become clouds in order to sell us their version of a ‘private cloud’ (which is apparently any large, intelligent and/or reliable cluster).

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