Cloud computing, which has skyrocketed over the past four years from its beginnings as strictly a public computing utility model, having now also reached the level of private clouds, as further innovation through open source technologies are increasing cloud potential.
Cofounder and CTO Rich Wolski of Eucalyptus Systems said that while public clouds are still being considered a significant breakthrough in technology, “Private clouds have emerged as being almost equally as important.”
Among the most notable recent innovations that are allowing this evolution to occur are from a research group from the University of California Santa Barbara – to which Wolski was formerly a member, and which brought about the creation of Eucalyptus Systems.
The research group from the UCSB started working on the project in 2007 with the purpose of developing its own form of cloud computing through the use of open source elements. The goal was to have the cloud operate on the data centers of the computer science department, which meant that it would require compatibility with the many different vintages of technology that were used there.
The team was able to create a private infrastructure that was able to achieve the functionality of a public cloud. However, at that point they had not yet identified whether or not this technology would appeal to anyone outside of computer research. Wolski explained that as soon as the software was released as open source, the interest from the commercial community was extensive.
The first customers started as companies from the Fortune 10, but this branched out to media companies, Web 2.0 firms, and software developers.
