2.0” and other developments in which the Internet becomes the basic platform for meeting users’ computing needs. It is also not the same as utility computing, though cloud access is currently provided and billed as a utility. Indeed, many cloud applications have no centralised control, monitoring, billing or quality management facilities whatsoever42. Everything as a service43 is a special case of cloud computing involving access to re-usable, fine-grained resources made available over a network. The key characteristics defining a ‘service’ are: low barriers to entry (esp. to small businesses or end-users); minimal capital expenditure requirements (major items are owned by providers); scalability (though this is most important in identifying or characterising mass services); ‘multitenancy’ (allowing costs to be shared among many users); and device, platform and location independence. 1.4.3
Closely related technology trends:
More internet capacity increasing capacity and evolving functionality of the Internet as a network are closely associated with this trend as enablers of access to shared storage and computing resources. Network neutrality policy, which may alter the terms on which computing/service providers and users may interact, will obviously play a role in shaping the evolution of this tech trend. Open source software –collective approaches to Utility Computing service depend on the ubiquity of software performance – applications must be available throughout the grid or cloud in the same or equivalent form, must interoperate independently of platforms and locations, and must not create barriers to uptake, since low or patchy uptake jeopardises the underlying economic model. The first two characteristics can be provided by open-source or dominant proprietary software, but the third is increasingly met only by open source models (e.g. in Linux domination of server software, open-source libraries of grid routines, etc.). 1.4.4
Key uncertainties
Trend breaks: Positive feedbacks can lead to discontinuities (sudden take-off) through which small changes in initial conditions can trigger big changes in outcome. On the user side, demand for content (especially high-bandwidth content) will drive the growth of network storage (especially local peering to conserve backbone capacity and improve performance and capacity utilisation). On the other hand, the growth of user-generated and shared interactive content (Web 2.0 development) will increase the demand for network computing. Both of these are driven by two-way positive feedback loops: high-definition content is linked to shared storage capacity, interactive content creation is linked to network service computing; interactive immersive environments are linked to both storage and computation. The outcomes may vary: the relative early success of scripted (storageintensive) versus fully interactive (computation-intensive) virtual environments can trigger storage-as-a-service or computation-as-a-service. In a storage-based scenario, the (asymmetric) two-sided complementarity between content creators and content users will
42 43
E.g. peer-to-peer networking applications like BitTorrent, eMule, Skype, etc.
See e.g. “Everything as a service” age.com/articles/292231/everything-as-a-service.thtml
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