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By Michael Neubarth
An interesting phenomenon that has accompanied the emergence of cloud computing is the need by some industry players to see cloud computing as "nothing new."
For example, Bruce Schneier in his Schneier on Security blog on June 4, 2009, writes that, "This year's overhyped IT concept is cloud computing." Says Schneier, "But, hype aside, cloud computing is nothing new . It's the modern version of the timesharing model from the 1960s, which was eventually killed by the rise of the personal computer."
IBM also promotes the view that cloud computing is nothing new. In IBM's case, the motivation is to position its mainframes as the ideal platform for cloud computing. For example, in an article entitled "On Cloud z" in the March- April 2009 issue of IBM Systems Magazine, Andrea Greggo writes:
"While much of the hype around cloud computing would make it seem this is all new, much mainframe technology pre-dates this new fascination. As we rush into the future with cloud computing, let's revisit the past to identify the roots of this movement that makes the mainframe a perfect fit."
Steve Mills, head of IBM's Software Group, has been promoting this view of cloud computing in the media. In an interview with Kenny MacIver in information-age.com on March 18, 2008, Mills says:
"A thoughtful analysis of this would reveal that this idea has been with us for many decades. I think the venture capitalists like the expression 'software-as-a-service,' because it paints a new-age label on an old technique. You can hype your market value that way because you are part of the next wave."
As an example of old-time time-sharing being essentially the same as cloud computing Mills cites ADP (Automatic Data Processing, Inc.) a 60-year-old, $9 billion provider of processing services for payroll, HR, benefits, etc. Said Mills:
"You are certainly familiar with ADP and time-sharing. ADP scratch their heads and say, 'We were here a long time ago. We are the most successful software-as-a-service model in the world.' There are thousands of companies in the world that do that today. Many of them are in industry, many of them are local. I don't think this market space has been properly characterised."
Interestingly, Dale Kutnick, head of Gartner Group's CIO service, also cited ADP as an example of an old-time service that was essentially the same as cloud computing. Kutnick also professed cloud computing to be nothing new, rather a new twist on the old concept. "As for clouds, they are just the latest entry into the time-sharing vs. local compute battle that's been raging for almost fifty years," said Kutnick.
Been There, Done That
In making the media rounds, IBM's Mills gave an interview to CNET's Dan Farber on April 30, 2008, in which he promoted the view that running multiple customers' applications on single machines, a key aspect of cloud computing, was nothing new and had, in fact, been happening on IBM mainframes for a long time. Said Mills:
"We have been running multitenancy [running multiple customers on a single machine with a single application instance] for decades and decades. It's a mainframe model where things run together but in isolation. ... You need reliability, security, auditing, privacy, data integrity, automation and full isolation."
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