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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by MiszaBot I (talk | contribs) at 01:12, 24 March 2013 (Robot: Archiving 2 threads from Talk:Cloud computing.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

Heavy focus on SaaS

Cloud computing is split into three categories: SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS. The article focuses heavily on SaaS, with some parts of the overview only true of SaaS, and not of PaaS or IaaS. I've tried to fix this while making minimal changes to the article structure. The old "Layers" section and accompanying graphic seemed to imply that cloud computing requires a cloud client, a cloud application, a cloud platform, a cloud infrastructure, and a cloud server. Hopefully my edits have clarified that this is not the case.Jbucket (talk) 20:13, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure it really helped — particularly bundling clients with application. Perhaps it is worth explicitly mentioning though that cloud platforms need not be built on top of cloud infrastructure, etc. -- samj inout 23:22, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
Where is the "heavy focus on SaaS"? Got any specific examples to fix? -- samj inout 23:35, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

History of the Cloud

Have just added this section to the History of the Cloud, based on a Cloud Series that I am writing through extensive research on the evolution of the Cloud. "Maturity in the computing and software technologies further fuels supply and is driving it towards total ‘ubiquity and certainty’ in the words of Simon Wardley. Cloud is the paradigm shift that is being created as computing and software pass through this vortex of rapidly growing supply and demand into a mature utility.". This is being done in research for a Book to be published on the cloud and a course at planned at a US University. Look forward to comments. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Watal (talk • contribs) 15:36, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

I've removed it again because you cited it to your own blog. Please propose this on the talk page once you have gotten it published somewhere. See the policy on original research and the guideline on sourcing for details. Thanks. - MrOllie (talk) 16:32, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
The Simon Wardely quote sounds like some marketing/research group hype that you wouldn't put in a defensible research paper. It may be Simon's job to say statements that appear to be profound at conferences, but that doesn't make it true. SteveLoughran (talk) 16:02, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
For what it's worth Simon's generally on point and goes into far more depth with the non-technical issues than most (Joe Weinman is another, and he does publish papers). That said, if his opinions aren't delivered by/with reliable sources then they aren't appropriate for inclusion per WP:OPINON ("the article should represent the POVs of the main scholars and specialists who have produced reliable sources on the issue"). -- samj inout 17:29, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
Can you suggest how do we determine reliability in an area that is still evolving? Or should we continue to say the earth is flat and be afraid of saying the earth is round? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Watal (talk • contribs) 15:29, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
If reliable sources (as our sourcing guideline defines them) say that the earth is flat, Wikipedia says the earth is flat. The threshold for inclusion of information in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. - MrOllie (talk) 15:32, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
Fair point on Truth versus Verifiability. Also thanks to everyone for sharing the relevant policy links. Also see that self sourcing by even an expert is not advised. Still have a question though, would be great if someone can explain. Identifying Reliable Sources page says: "Reliable sources may be published materials with a reliable publication process, authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject, or both." How do we determine if someone is authoritative in an area that is new or evolving? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Watal (talk • contribs) 01:56, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Criticism

Added [citation needed]. If you're going to mention "some have said" or some have noted," a citation should be provided as to whom said what. Navywings (talk) 16:33, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Nomination of Cloud engineering for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Cloud engineering is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cloud engineering until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:44, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

The definition

Where are the references that support the latest definition? Is it used anywhere else, or is it personal research? It is very different to the OED definition, which must have been written by an independent expert. It is also different to many vendor’s definitions, and most end-user, non-expert definitions that I can find. I agree with the need to change the previous definition, partly because it was difficult to understand, but at least there was a reference that supported it (ie NIST).

I was not a party to previous discussions that resulted in the use of the term networks rather than the Internet. Could anyone re-iterate the reasons why this term is used, and only typically the Internet, when most of the uses that I can find say cloud computing is Internet accessible, not just network accessible?

The definition doesn't say what is included and what is excluded. Surely not all network accessible resources are included? Surely web search is excluded – but it’s computing and it’s a service accessible over the Internet? Fcalculators (talk) 02:04, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Refer to the archives for (extensive) discussions on the topic. Regarding "Internet" vs "network", I agree but the market doesn't — there's a huge amount of activity in "cloud" computing that is not connected to the Internet and I think we need to be compatible with this alternative definition (which goes beyond WP:FRINGE). Finally, web search is, arguably, a cloud service. -- samj inout 22:33, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
I have read the discussion as suggested, and I can see that a great deal of effort has gone into arriving at a definition, often in difficult circumstances. However, I don’t think the definition is completely accurate, sufficiently inclusive or specific.
For example, I may be misunderstanding Private Cloud, but if there is only one tenant, then the resources aren’t shared, except among the individual users of the single tenant, but then that applies to all virtualised resources.
It’s a pity that the linked-to article on Service (economics) doesn’t discuss pricing, but there is utility pricing, where consumers pay for what is used (like electricity), and subscription pricing, where consumers pay for a fixed amount whether they use none, some or all of it (like mobile phone calls). I am aware of cloud services that are charged for by both models, but there are also some that are free.
There seems to be universal agreement that cloud refers to the Internet – as a noun it’s a synonym/metaphor, and, as an adjective, it means referring to the Internet or Internet-based. There are authoritative references to support these meanings, and there is a long usage history because of the cloud symbols that have been used to represent the Internet on diagrams, and before that the telephone system. So there seems to be no disagreement about its usage and derivation. Are the developments in “cloud” computing, really just developments in Utility Computing, or in Computing as a Service (CaaS), which is a term that some sources are now using?
It doesn’t say what type of computing is included, and what is excluded. Many sources seem to agree that not everything in the cloud is included, so perhaps the definition should be more specific.Fcalculators (talk) 01:38, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Wireless Synchronization technologies

we need to discuss whether it is important to introduce a new section called Wireless Synchronization, and how most cloud services are built with synchronization technologies and anywhere access in mind. I would be interested to find out if anyone else is thinking about this — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.50.102.28 (talk) 02:10, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree that anywhere-access is a benefit, and it should be included in an Advantages section. However, I don't believe that this article should discuss implementation. It's too complicated, and most people will just want to know what cloud computing is and what it isn't. Implementation is important, but can I suggest a separate article called Cloud computing implementation or Cloud computing technologies? I believe that only a brief mention is needed here, with a link to a more detailed article for the technical readers. Fcalculators (talk) 00:12, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Risks of cloud computing

Risks of cloud computing should be mentioned in this article to balance it. If a full discussion of risk factors is not deemed necessary a reference should be provided. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.77.12.6 (talk) 07:45, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Your risk (e.g. multi-tenancy) is my benefit — hence the "Issues" section which avoids the whole pro/con argument. -- samj inout 22:34, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
I agree with this comment, and I believe that there should be separate Advantages and Risks sections. After all, any development of computing is done because there are advantages, at least to some consumers/providers, but also there are always risks. Any pro/con arguments can be dealt with using references, and by clearly stating who is the beneficiary or risk taker. For example, there are many legal sites that discuss some of the issues/risks, including privacy for consumers, and many IT users agree that one of their benefits is financial - ie reduced TCO. Fcalculators (talk) 00:48, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I came to this page because the article states benefits exclusivly. There is no pro/con argument as there are no cons stated. 188.220.186.57 (talk) 14:39, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with separate risks/cons and benefits/advantages/pros sections, but I believe that tinkering with the article is pointless, and, as I have said in other comments, it needs a complete re-write. Fcalculators (talk) 02:14, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Cloud computing's biggest risk: the transfer of the world's public knowledge to the private hands of a few companies

Various private companies are offering to their users the "free" hosting of their data, including personal and sensible data. Some of this companies (that are now offering free "cloud services" to the general public) are investing huge sums collecting and digitalizing the knowledge stored on public libraries/archives of the world. In this case the word "Cloud" is misleading because this data are phisically transferred and stored on enourmous and very costly, private server farms located in a few rich counties: there is no "cloud" but phisical servers and nets, and the term seems to be an artificial or commercial invention of some companies. In a few words the risk is the rapid transfer of many strategical and public data of the planet to the private hands of few companies, located in the richest countries, without any international law or warranty. With all the immaginable risks. An uncritical acceptance of this phenomenon is certainly dangerous for all. The poor countries, the different cultures, the simple citiziens of the world needs international warranties related the use and the access rights of their collective culture. Computing and information retrival is one of the main activity of today's humanity. Can we give away this strategical activity and the "collective memory" of the world to some private companies? This risk is not mentioned in the voice and when some months ago I inserted it was immediately deleted from someone. --Cornelius383 (talk) 19:44, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

As one of the people who was actively promoting the term "cloud" to describe a number of trends we were observing 5 years ago, I can assure you that it is not as nefarious as it seems (despite ill-conceived efforts by large vendors to try to take control). The concept you describe is an important issue, but your view is unbalanced — the incentives for centralisation (in terms of economies of scale, natural monopolies, etc.) are strong but on the other hand the risks need to be quantified and mitigated using the available options — reject it (not going to happen due to market forces), accept it (dangerous, as you explain), reduce it (for example through backups/synchronosiation/etc) and/or assign it (for example, by taking out insurance). I'm sure people would have argued against the introduction of the power grid (electricity as a service) too, for all sorts of weird and wonderful reasons — remember there would have been a large established industry around the provision and operation of generators (electricity as a product). -- samj inout 21:46, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
This seems to be a discussion of the subject, rather than how to improve the article. Fcalculators (talk) 00:31, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
Because of the above comment that there is no cloud, perhaps the article could be improved if the origins of the term cloud are explained a bit more. As the article says, the word is used because of the cloud symbols that represent the Internet on diagrams, and before that the telephone system. The use of this symbol was a natural extension of the way diagrams were drawn, and the methods used to represent connections between pieces of equipment that were originally near each other in the same place, but that became distributed in different rooms, then different buildings and then different cities, etc. This usage is concrete and goes back decades. So in this sense there is a real cloud - it’s the Internet! But of course the word itself is only applied metaphorically. Fcalculators (talk) 00:54, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Overview and Characteristics

The Overview section contains a few grammatical errors (maybe typographical in origin, maybe resulting from stitching stuff together). In addition, it is still vague. While not really written as an advertisement, this section of the article still seems to be composed mostly of marketing language - it talks around the subject rather than directly describing it in concrete terms. Is cloud computing just spreading data across several servers in several places? Is it transferring workload from one set of servers to another automatically? Being on the web does not necessarily qualify something as cloud computing, just as being a fruit does not necessarily qualify something as being an orange. From this overview, I cannot really derive any concrete idea of what cloud computing is and what it is not.

In the Characteristics section, the article still seems to talk around the subject. There is not really a direct comparison being made. How are the listed examples similar to cloud computing? Also, how are they different? This should be stated explicitly. What is listed instead is simply a description of each example - that's not a comparison.

I would fix it myself, but I'm not an expert on cloud computing. Also, I recognize that it may be that cloud computing itself is just a marketing term that people and companies like to repeat to create a certain impression and it may therefore lack any objective, discrete definition. Blcklbl (talk) 14:42, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree with these comments. Also, other sections are not really adequate. For example, the Architecture section doesn't say very much, and why a Deployment models section, but not Service models, Consumption models or Supplement models?
There are so many inaccuracies and inconsistencies in the article. For example, in the Overview, only some "Cloud computing providers deliver applications" - this is SaaS, what about IaaS, PaaS? Also, this sentence contradicts the definition when it says they "deliver applications via the Internet".
I believe that only a total re-write can fix this article, and this has been suggested before. Fcalculators (talk) 00:01, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
An article revision-history comment by 192.118.35.248 on 3 November, that “This article has been trashed up with inane and poorly written additions”, supports this suggestion for a re-write. Fcalculators (talk) 00:06, 4 November 2011 (UTC)


I would suggest to add a section that has companies that use cloud computing that's free or even a cost. User:Tuckerj4

I don’t see this as part of the definition of what cloud computing is and what it is not. Many types of service are provided for free, so there is nothing unique about cloud services in this respect. For example, there is the freemium article about this specific topic. Fcalculators (talk) 01:53, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Why many people don’t want their data on somebody else’s server

All the strong criticism against the "Cloud" are not evident in this article and are often immediately deleted as soon as inserted from someone. The voice appears strongly unbalanced and it's full of techicalities incomprehensible to most people... Is the Cloud the "coming dream" of mankind or it's something to be avoided to preserve the privacy of each? Why many private companies are offering free "Clouds" to the people? Who pays (and why) it's not clearly explained here. Internet is full of critical positions related with the risks of cloud computing if you only type "against the cloud" on your browser, you can find tons of documents, many are written by experts and researchers: 1)Argument against the Cloud or Why you don’t want your data on somebody else’s server, 2)Google's Blogger outage makes the case against a cloud-only strategy: The same week that Google made its strongest pitch ever for putting your entire business online, one of its flagship services has failed spectacularly by Ed Bott May 13, 2011, 3)Phil Wainewright on zdnet (When will the crowd turn against private cloud?: predicted that private clouds will be discredited by year end), 4)The Twitter case against the cloud, 5)Larry Ellison from Oracle rails against the Cloud and many others you can find yourself --Cornelius383 (talk) 20:08, 1 November 2011 (UTC) Please could you indicate when your edits are minor. Fcalculators (talk) 00:59, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with these comments: there should be a detailed section on Risks (as well as one on Advantages); and it's full of technicalities incomprehensible to most people.
For these reasons and others, I believe that this article is in need of a re-write, even if, as suggested above, there is an Introduction to Cloud Computing article. Even with a re-write, I believe that some topics should be in a separate article for true IT specialists. Fcalculators (talk) 00:57, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
An article revision-history comment by 192.118.35.248 on 3 November, that “This article has been trashed up with inane and poorly written additions”, supports this suggestion for a re-write. Fcalculators (talk) 00:08, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree this should be rewritten. Make it so if you wish.--Ourhistory153 (talk) 18:40, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

I am working on an Introduction to Cloud Computing article first. Fcalculators (talk) 00:13, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Utility computing

I'm confused. If Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility (like the electricity grid) over a network (typically the Internet), then how does it differ from Utility computing, to which, I believe, this article originally redirected? Cloud computing has taken on a life of its own but, judging by the age of its maintenance template, the older Utility computing article seems to have been forgotten about. ClaretAsh 00:11, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree. The original voice was Utility computing. Cloud computing has taken on a life of its own and the older Utility computing article seems to have been forgotten about. I propose to restablish the redirection. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.36.199.190 (talk) 12:43, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
At a rough glance, a merge seems appropriate but in which direction? Which terms has the greater independent currency? ClaretAsh 12:59, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
I believe that the real problem is the definition. Authoritative sources such as the OED don’t mention utility or electricity in their definitions, so why should Wikipedia? Utility consumption and pricing is only an analogy that is appropriate to some types of cloud computing, and so I believe it shouldn’t be part of the definition, but perhaps it could be used to explain some specific examples.
Although they share some characteristics, utility computing and cloud computing are different, and neither is part of the other, so I would support keeping both articles. However, perhaps the current article doesn’t do a good job of explaining the differences, but I don't think there is any point tinkering with the article to improve it in this respect. IMHO, it really needs a re-write. Fcalculators (talk) 00:53, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Please don't think that I'm trying to offend the editors of this article, but if it is so difficult to define "Cloud computing" (as this talk page's history shows), then how do we know that the term has any meaning independent of whichever marketing company is promoting it. By extension, how do we know that different people are using the term to refer to the same field of meaning? I'm not trying to start a discussion here, and again I'm not trying to offend the people who've been arguing back and forth in the process of creating this page, but I do think it's worth thinking about. ClaretAsh 10:50, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree that there have been a lot of changes, discussions and issues, but I believe the term does have meaning independent of the vested interests, and that there is a core meaning that many sources agree on. There are authoritative definitions of cloud computing, such as the Oxford Dictionaries OUP web site, and NIST definitions, and the term has very wide currency that broadly follows these definitions. Neither of these definitions mention utility or electricity. Also, there is a long usage and seemingly unanimously agreed derivation of the word cloud as referring to the Internet, in this context. My point is, with Wikipedia’s verifiability requirements, should we be going past this usage and the authoritative sources? Fcalculators (talk) 00:54, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Why the B-Class rating among computing articles?

Why the B-Class rating on WikiProject Computing’s quality scale? When was this rating decided or applied? Is it ever reviewed? Did it apply to an earlier version that has been substantially changed?

I don’t see this article as “mostly complete and without major issues”, and I can’t agree that “readers are not left wanting”, as is required by the B-Class description.

Mostly complete - with no specific examples, no Service or Consumption Models sections, inadequate Architecture section and a Research section consisting of two bullet points? The Architecture section is very thin when compared with the NIST Reference Architecture and Taxonomy document. Also, it has some meaningless statements and subsections, and there are no architecture diagrams of real examples. Is the Research section needed anyway?

No major issues - what about the Discussion items above, and in the Discussion Archives?

Perhaps non-IT practitioners who don’t know what the subject is about before reading will learn something, and therefore may not be left wanting, but that’s the main problem – it doesn’t discuss many things they may need to know, IMHO. Fcalculators (talk) 03:19, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

I went to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Computing/Assessment#Assessment_requests and put in a B-Class rating assessment request. Fcalculators (talk) 00:06, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Verticle Market Section?

I'd like to suggest we start a section to discuss the verticle markets that have incorporated computing cloud technology. I've been working on white papers for the healthcare industries adoption of cloud based technology and have some contributions to make. --Ourhistory153 (talk) 17:55, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I intend to put something on Vertical Clouds in my introductory article. Fcalculators (talk) 00:24, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Article doesn't follow Understandability Guidelines

I believe that this article doesn't follow the Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable guideline, which says that articles should be as accessible as possible to the widest possible audience of potentially interested readers.

Does anyone else agree with this, and could anyone comment about what can be done to improve the situation from this point of view? One possibility is to write an Introduction to Cloud Computing article, and this is suggested by the guidelines, but there are other options. Fcalculators (talk) 01:05, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

An article revision-history comment by 192.118.35.248 on 3 November, that “This article has been trashed up with inane and poorly written additions”, supports this claim. Fcalculators (talk) 00:11, 4 November 2011 (UTC)


I agree, the legal narrative is way too long and should have a whole new page created for it. There should be a shorter narrative with a link to the main page for legal ramifications. This is an important topic and the trends are in favor for a lot of traffic to this page so we should put some time and effort into cleaning up this article and making it more meaningful to readers.--Ourhistory153 (talk) 18:12, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with these comments.
In particular, the Legal section, whilst it does cover some worthwhile topics, also deals with things that are not quite relevant to what cloud computing is and what it isn’t, as is also claimed by the undue-weight banner. For example, some topics look more like social issues, and some are just common sense business processes. These may be important, but they are not really relevant to an article about cloud computing. Also, there are relevant topics that haven’t been covered, such as the reasons why regulatory or customer-SLA requirements might prevent consumers from using a Public Cloud, or which might oblige them to at least know where their service provider is located, or to allow only restricted access to their cloud systems. These considerations make true location independence and absolutely anywhere access, only typical, rather than essential, cloud computing characteristics. Other relevant information could include the role of cloud auditors and brokers, mentioned in the NIST Reference Architecture and Taxonomy document, in dealing with some of the issues.
I therefore agree that there could be a separate article, perhaps called Cloud computing legal issues, which can cover legal points of relevance to anyone contemplating moving into the cloud, or anyone in the process of contracting for cloud services. Also, some of the topics mentioned could be included in a proper Risks section, with a link to the Legal issues article.
There are other problems with this section that should be fixed. As the above comment says, with the present content, it is too long. For example, the first part is way too long for a lede – the guidelines say 4 paragraphs – so there would need to be more subsections. Also, in the sentence beginning Aspects of cloud computing services where SLAs may be pertinent include, there is no specific mention of data security and privacy, which is surely one of the real concerns. However, it is mentioned in a later paragraph and in the Security section, so this point could be rationalised. In addition, as the undue-weight comment implies, perhaps some parts could simply be omitted. Fcalculators (talk) 04:17, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
Okay good, are we in agreement to make it so? A separate article for the legal ramifications. BTW is the editor for this section okay with this? Perhaps he can have the honor of creating this new article. I'm not sure what the protocol with this is. Can anybody go ahead and create the new article? I think there should be a disclaimer that this is not meant to offer legal advice but maybe that is already covered by Wikipedia. Once we get this taken care we can look at the full article and make further changes. I used a analytics tool and see that this article is getting a lot of traffic compared to others, so I think it deserves some attention.--Ourhistory153 (talk) 18:37, 10 November 2011 (UTC) Apologies for the format changes - once I made an edit they only made it worse, and I couldn't undo it, so the only way forward was to do more! Fcalculators (talk) 00:46, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
Anyone can do this, but maybe wait a little while to see if there are any further comments, or to see if the original editors volunteer to do it - maybe they are legal people? I can contribute, as a technologist, but I am also working on a re-write, and/or an Introduction to Cloud Computing, plus Cloud Computing technology contributions. Fcalculators (talk) 00:46, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Potential audience

The potential audience for this article would include computer users that are, or that may become, cloud consumers. This includes users of common small business applications such as accounting, and medium to large organisation line-of-business, mission-critical applications, such as ERP and CRM, which are now available in the cloud as software as a service. It would also include the management of such organisations, because they may be contemplating changing their IT strategy. Also, cloud storage services can now be accessed by any PC user with an Internet connection, and many people are cloud consumers, albeit perhaps unwittingly, because of iCloud and the use of free cloud services, such as webmail or social and professional networking. Most of these consumers would be non technical people, let alone IT experts.

So most readers would probably not be interested in too much technical detail, and would only want to know what cloud computing means for them. In other words, they would need concrete descriptions of what it is and what it isn’t, plus some specific examples.

The article doesn’t say what type of computing is included or excluded, and does not give any specific examples meaningful to non-expert consumers. Fcalculators (talk) 02:53, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Absolutely agree. This article is written by a technician for other technicians--not for an ordinary consumer-user. I counted more than 50 terms that I was unfamiliar with, and several areas that I thought I didn't need to know to understand what the cloud is (my original intent for accessing this page in Wikipedia.

The first paragraph should start out with an easily digestible definition of what the cloud is and how that affects individual users. Then, that first paragraph should contain a bulleted list of what follows.

The rest of the article should be edited for relevance to end users and grouped accordingly--ordinary readers such as myself/extraordinarily-aware groups of users. Language has to be simplified in the areas not targeted for the more knowledgeable group; and if that "ordinary readers" group has almost nothing here for it--as I think would be the case--then relevant areas of the text should be adapted for it. (British English should be left in--we understand it, after all, and this article has far worse things going on with it.)

(Sudarat64 (talk) 22:04, 9 January 2012 (UTC))

Limitations

One thought that crossed my mind while reading this article is the fact that it would take a truly ridiculous connection speed for cloud computing to be used for gaming and other graphics-intensive programs without hefty local processing power. This limitation is not mentioned anywhere; granted, I couldn't provide a link to a source specifically describing this limitation off the top of my head, but I'm certain that with only a modicum of effort such a reference could be found, and it would be valid point for the article. Cloud computing works great for research, socializing, and even light gaming (existing browser games offer good examples) but it will not work for hardcore and graphics-intensive gaming, such as World of Warcraft as an example, for quite some time. Eventually, maybe, but modern cloud computing just doesn't work yet in such environments. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.2.27.153 (talk) 07:18, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I am including an Examples section in an Introduction to Cloud Computing article, and I have an Unsuitable applications subsection in this. Currently, I mention real-time, heavy transaction processing as such an example, but I could include graphics intensive games as well if a reference can be found. However, what about FetchTV, which is multi-cast over the Internet? Wouldn’t any graphics intensive gaming application be similar in bandwidth requirements to that? Surely the computer power for the processing could be made available at a web site? Fcalculators (talk) 00:39, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Well somebody had to do it, so I did it. I can't see anyone complaining but they may want to embellish the narrative I put in.--Ourhistory153 (talk) 16:24, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with moving the Legal section to a different page, although some of the issues mentioned could be covered more briefly in different sections of the article. Fcalculators (talk) 00:33, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Hacked! resource

from November 2011 ATLANTIC MAGAZINE ... intro ... "As email, documents, and almost every aspect of our professional and personal lives moves onto the “cloud”—remote servers we rely on to store, guard, and make available all of our data whenever and from wherever we want them, all the time and into eternity—a brush with disaster reminds the author and his wife just how vulnerable those data can be. A trip to the inner fortress of Gmail, where Google developers recovered six years’ worth of hacked and deleted e‑mail, provides specific advice on protecting and backing up data now—and gives a picture both consoling and unsettling of the vulnerabilities we can all expect to face in the future." by James Fallows Also see computer insecurity. 97.87.29.188 (talk) 20:58, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I believe that this sort of thing should be outlined in a Risks section, but I don't believe the article should act as a blog for social concerns about technology development - albeit probably valid concerns. Fcalculators (talk) 00:27, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Raise the Importance Level

Importance should be increased to Top or High but something better than Mid

First off I think it deserves it because Cloud computing is a growing trend, and two because the analytics tools proves that this article is generating a high amount of visitors. Plus it is basically qualified to be of Top Importance because in essence it is a form of a Operating System.

Increasing the Importance level would attract more highly skilled editors which would make this article more attractive and more meaningful. --Ourhistory153 (talk) 18:55, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Couldn’t agree more with this comment, but I am not sure how it is done. I was preparing a post on this myself, and I was going to look at traffic comparisons between the Cloud Computing article and some high-importance computing articles such as programming languages. I will post more supporting information when I have done this. Fcalculators (talk) 00:31, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
OK, just some quick comparisons. The Operating system article itself has approximately half the traffic of the Cloud computing article, and similarly for specific articles such as Linux. The Programming language article has fewer than this, and articles on specific very common languages like C++ have even less. So if traffic is a factor in determining importance, then Cloud computing should rank very highly. Of course, the topic is also being discussed very widely by many people connected with IT as consumers or practitioners, and many organisations are moving into the cloud. Fcalculators (talk) 02:09, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Fcalculators, I suppose we need to identify all the editors that are playing a proactive part in the articles formation and get them involved. Also find the editor who put in the legal section and invite them to set up a new article. Do you know who that is? And the other players? I've never been able to communicate with other editors effectively with this system and sure I'm missing out on some better methods .--Ourhistory153 (talk) 14:49, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be an automatic way of finding contributors of specific parts of the article, and the only method I am aware of is to painstakingly search through the History pages. Fcalculators (talk) 03:21, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
This may be helpful. Haven't used it myself but it looks like what you're looking for. --Kvng (talk) 04:04, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I went to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Computing/Assessment#Assessment_requests and put in a assessment request. Hopefully that will attract some attention to some expert editors. Also I think we should start linking cloud computing with other computer related pages where ever appropriate. Follow what I do for this Cloud Computing article and I will follow you. Whenever there is a talk session it seems a good idea to have someone else backup what you are saying.--Ourhistory153 (talk) 15:09, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I have added to your request at the Wikipedia:WikiProject Computing/Assessment page. Fcalculators (talk) 03:21, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
Also, I have requested a B-Class quality rating assessment. Fcalculators (talk) 00:11, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I've assessed the article as requested. Importance has been raised to Top reflecting the huge buzz around the topic at present. If it turns out to be just a fad, we can adjust downwards later. Quality is borderline B or C. Refs are abundant and tidy. There's a lot of room to improve accessibility and remove repetition. I tagged the lead as being too short. --Kvng (talk) 04:18, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Show wp "lock" please, and wikilink Telecommunications Industry Association for TIAonline.org

99.181.130.155 (talk) 07:11, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Vertical Market Removal?

The Vertical Market section was removed. I would like other editors to comment on this rather than leave one editor to make this decision. My intention was this was going to expand into different verticals with links to different articles. I request the opinions of other editors on this issue before I restore it.--Ourhistory153 (talk) 17:52, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Minor Content Mis-match - Servers and the Cloud

Just a minor point...

The current diagram shows "servers" outside the cloud. However, this referenced content statement within the article - Cloud computing extends this boundary to cover servers as well as the network infrastructure.[28] - indicates "servers" are now considered within the cloud. Perhaps a revised diagram could resolve this "inconsistency". I suggest something showing servers both internal and external to the cloud since servers, at times, are like as other "user access devices" and are also cloud components...along with a brief explanation.

Nealct56 (talk) 15:33, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Towards an improved intro for this article

Generally, the intro should be shortened and made more concise. Here are some specific points:

  • "Cloud computing is a marketing term": Well by now, it is more than a marketing term. It is reality in many peoples lives and it is big business.
Done --Bikeborg (talk) 13:55, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
  • (I like the analogy with the electricity grid. Makes the concept better to grasp for non-experts.)
Somebody wiped it out. I will eventually restore it. --Bikeborg (talk) 16:40, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Reference 4 "cloud computing defined" appears to be a scam to generate clicks on somebody's web page. The cloud computing definition should be here on Wikipedia and not elsewhere. Should be removed.
  • The remarks on thin client applications and screen sharing are too specific for the introductory part of the article.
Maybe we need a separate section where we can go into more detail about certain cloud aspects. Maybe into the Characteristics section?
  • I am not familiar with the term "converged infrastructure". Is that a Wikipedia notable concept or a marketing term?
  • Reference to US government initiative: There are many many cloud initiatives in business and administration across the world. We should not discuss them here in the introduction.
I was bold and removed it. Please let me know if you disagree --Bikeborg (talk) 13:55, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

--Bikebot (talk) 11:05, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Good list. I have replaced the unreliable ref. Converged infrastructure is definitely notable. --Kvng (talk) 14:59, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

The more I study the article the more it appears to me to require an overhaul. For example:

  • The characteristics section talks more about the benefits than the characteristics. Should we separate benefits (value prop) and characteristics into two sections?
  • Section 4.1: Looks like a Google afficionado entered the examples. Seriously: Devices specifically designed to be cloud clients are still the exception. Most devices are multi-purpose. I will try to clarify the policy on product examples.(see Wikipedia:spam)
  • Section 4.5: Server: Isn't the server part of the infrastructure layer? As well as the network?
  • The list of references needs a major review. There is a lot of them that are more incidental than fundamental reference literature.

--Bikeborg (talk) 13:55, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Revision of Layers Section

I am currently working on a revision of the Layers section. The main problem I see currently is that the current text does not prominently reflect the Service Models (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS) that everybody talks about and that are also defined in the NIST paper.

Also, cloud client and cloud servers are different beasts from the service models.

Therefore, I propose to do the following changes:

  • Make one section called Service Models describing IaaS, PaaS, SaaS
  • Make a separate section about cloud clients.
  • Create a new picture

I am working on a draft text here - but it will take some time. Any help appreciated.

--Bikeborg (talk) 16:03, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Private Cloud statement "must buy, build, operate" is not true...

Private cloud infrastructure CAN BE and IS procured "as a service" that is billed monthly as a utility and based on allocated capacity. Utility billed private cloud infrastructure is currently in operation in several Federal government agencies, and originated in the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). DISA is the Department of Defense Combat Service Agency that provides centralized enterprise IT and global communications to the U.S. Military and other Defense Agencies). Payments are made monthly to capacity services vendors and include all maintenance, support, and tech refresh.

Additional users of "capacity services" IT infrastructure as a service offerings include, at the least, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Air Force Medical Support Agency (AFMSA), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

HISTORY DISA began procuring mainframe and client server computing capacity as a service in 2001 and 2003, respectively. Storage as a service began in 2003. The 2001 acquisition was to Unisys for Unisys mainframe and storage. In 2003, the acquisition vehicle was called ACE, for Assured Computing Environment, and included IBM mainframe equipment, plus storage.

In 2005, several multi-year "Server Processor Environment" contracts were awarded by DISA for on-demand compute capacity as a service. Winning vendors included: SUN, Hewlett Packard, ViON Corporation, and Apptis. The award of these contracts was discussed in this article: http://gcn.com/articles/2006/10/24/disa-on-demand.aspx

In 2007, storage as a service was procured on its own multi-year contract, Enterprise Storage Services (ESS), which is discussed in this article: http://www.military-information-technology.com/mit-home/367-mit-2011-volume-15-issue-10-november/4995-storage-on-demand.html

Note: the vendor-owned equipment provided under the Enterprise Storage Services contraact provides the "private cloud storage" that is included in the DISA RACE DoD Private Cloud offering. The DISA RACE private cloud was launched in 2008. "RACE" stands for Rapid Access Computing Environment. RACE features user-self provisioning for highly virtualized client server computing (X-86, Linux, Solaris) and enterprise storage capacity on demand in a cloud offering.


The initial Federal breeding and testing ground for the "capacity services" (capacity on demand) method to acquire IT infrastructure as a service was the DISA data centers (called "Defense Enterprise Computing Centers" or "DECCs"; and "Tactical Enterprise Computing Centers" or "TECCs"). The DISA DECCs are built and operated at Tier IV+ standards, and DECC-equivalency is the defacto standard for U.S. military and defense agency data centers. Discussion about what constitutes "DECC-equivalency" is not widely discussed in unlassified forums, however reference to "DECC equivalent" sites can be found in this unclassified DoD budget document: http://www.dtic.mil/descriptivesum/Y2006/DISA/0303170K.pdf

These recurrence of Federal government acquisitions of computing and server infrastructure, plus the addition of a new network equipment "as a capacity service" has proven across many years that the use of vendor-owned equipment provisioning computing, storage, and network infrastructure as-a-service inside government-owned and operated data centers is cost effective and significantly lowers risk of security breach. In fact, security breaches were so effectively negated that in 2011 the Department of Defense determined the DISA DECCs to be more secure and cost effective hosting environments than the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) can provide for itself, and the VA began using the DECCs to host its data. This is significant because the CIO of the VA must report to Congress on a quarterly basis its status in protecting against additional data breaches, following the 2006 data breach whereby 26.5 million records were inappropriately downloaded from the VA.


IN CONSIDERATION of the facts and examples detailed above, involving highly credible customers (U.S. Federal government agencies; large and well-regarded multi-national technology manufacturers as well as innovative small businesses) and occuring for many years, I request that you correct the article to indicate that Private Cloud infrastructure is, in fact, available in on-premise, on-demand, and billed as a utility.

Thank you in advance! — Preceding unsigned comment added by LaFemmeTech (talk • contribs) 18:27, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Cloud computing ancestor.

In the early sixties, MIT's Project MAC aimed at provide shared computing resources at a time when one who needed computing power had to record his own programs and data on punched cards. In these days the most common, not to say unique, communication tool was the TTY teleprinter.

Unhappily the first experiments of on-line computing, by linking a TTY to a computer, accepted a very limited number of simultaneous users. The reasons were the low performance and capacity yielded by the hardware available in the sixties.

Nonetheless, from an architectural design standpoint, Project MAC outlined a general computing environment, including a high degree of security/privacy and a real ability to take advantage of more powerful hardware to come.

MULTICS systems, designed and engineered by General Electric, have represented a milestone in the project development. Bell Laboratories operated several of these machines for their computer developments, including UNIX (allegedly named after "MULTIX"), as General Electric/Honeywell did for their software factories (PL1 being the main working language).

On the other hand, General Electric made commercial offers for "utility computing services" based on the same platforms, by 1968.

Astonishingly, the concept and the services they marketed were similar to those provided by the present "cloud computing".

"Independent" personal micro computers were by large more in line with the mood of that period, and Utility computing did not emerge as a success ! A simpler version, Time-sharing, had been a little more successful.

Bernard Huet193.248.13.239 (talk) 13:28, 18 March 2012 (UTC) 193.248.17.158 (talk) 21:28, 15 March 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.248.13.239 (talk)

Technical Gibberish

This article is written by a technician for other technicians--not for an ordinary consumer-user. I counted more than 50 terms that I was unfamiliar with, and several areas that I thought I didn't need to know to understand what the "cloud" is (my original intent for accessing this page in Wikipedia.

The first paragraph should start out with an easily digestible definition of what the cloud is and how it affects individual users. Then, that first paragraph should contain a bulleted list of what follows.

The rest of the article should be edited for relevance to end users and grouped accordingly: ordinary readers such as myself/extraordinarily-aware groups of users. Language has to be simplified in the areas not targeted for the more knowledgeable group; and if the "ordinary readers" group has almost nothing here for it--as I think might be the case--then relevant areas of the text should be adapted for it. (British English should be left in--we understand it, after all, and this article has far worse things going on with it.)

I didn't understand what the "cloud" was before I accessed this page, and felt so talked down to, that I never did realize my goal at the end.

(Sudarat64 (talk) 22:11, 9 January 2012 (UTC))

The criticism is valid. I don't believe the article deserve a B rating. I have taken it down a notch to C. I will try to find time to give this some love. --Kvng (talk) 17:01, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
There is now an generally accessible Introduction to cloud computing article, which I believe overcomes these criticisms.
Fcalculators (talk) 02:51, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
I gave this article only two stars for objectivity, since there isn't a lot of it to be found—the entire article reads like sales literature. In my mind, cloud computing is another synonym for snake oil. The concept stinks from a security standpoint. "Lessee, we'll give control of our data to some unknown entity, who may well steal it for nefarious needs." Sounds pretty stupid to me. If you don't own it you can't control it.
Bigdumbdinosaur (talk) 01:55, 16 March 2012 (UTC)


Gibberish - yes, Technical - hardly. As pointed above, whole article reads as sales add, probably because "Cloud computing" is not a technical term, but fashionable weasel word invented by marketing people trying to rebrand decades old concepts as something revolutionary.

Unfortunately it is in frustratingly common use usually by non-tech personnel in tech meetings, presentations etc. Unsurprisingly when asked to elaborate and be more specific, we usually get either more weasel words or description of simple web service. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.61.64.216 (talk) 07:22, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

History: AWS Launch Date

Article claims: " launched Amazon Web Service (AWS) on a utility computing basis in 2006" which leads to a conclusion that AWS was launched in 2006. However, AWS was launched in July 2002, as noted on the Wikipedia AWS page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Web_Services) the source of which is Amazon's mediakit timeline, undoubtedly reliable source: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-corporateTimeline

The sentence should be reworded if it meant some more specific connotation and some sort of clarification about 2002 date must be added. In current form article leaves an impression that first commercial cloud service (AWS) was offered 4 years later than it actually was. That's no small difference. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Inadarei (talk • contribs) 05:00, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

MERGING USING CLOUD TECHNOLOGY WITH DEFINITIION

I don't think Wikipaedia should merge the two subjects. A definition of what Cloud technology is, should preview a discussion of how it works and how to use it. In the UK, Cloud is still a foreign term and will not be adopted by the vast majority of businesses anytime soon.

For starters, let's work out what it is rather than how to use it.

To get the ball rolling, I think - in a personal capacity - it is great news that our data is being hosted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by D.N.Smith (talk • contribs) 15:53, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Archiving bot adjustment

I've adusted archiving to preserve discussion for 180 days but reducing the minimum number of discussion from 7 to 5 (default). There are some unanswered discussions on the page that are at risk of being prematurely archived. I've fond on other articles that 30 days is too short for many technical topics. I have reviewed previous discussion and think these changes reasonably accommodate stated requirements there. --Kvng (talk) 17:23, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Introduction to Cloud computing

Deletion discussion of the fork was closed as delete.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Introduction to Cloud computing popped up on a new article list, and whilst I appreciate the huge amount of work that has been put into it, I think it might infringe the WP:NOTGUIDE or WP:NOTTEXTBOOK guidelines. The title alone seems wrong for an encyclopedia. But as this isn't my area of expertise, I thought I'd raise it here for those more involved to decide whether it's a useful article or not. -- The-Pope (talk) 16:18, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

I posted the Introduction to cloud computing article in order to improve the Wikipedia content for this subject. As you can see if you read the past discussions, there have been many complaints about the main article, and often from an understandability or end-user point of view (such as the Technical gibberish comment above). I have called for improvements to (or even a re-writing of) the article, and I was responsible for the call to have it downgraded to a C rating. In the discussions, I suggested that one way forward was to write an introductory article. There are many such articles (you can see all/many of them by typing "Introduction to" or "Introduction to a" - or b, c etc - into the search box). The article has been edited by a member of the computing group, and described by that editor as a "generally accessible, non-technical article", so it seems that others accept it.
I still believe that the current article needs much improvement, and because of the introductory article, I believe it can be more openly technical. Fcalculators (talk) 03:09, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
I don't assume we need an introductory article. The topic is not all that technical. The problem here is that the current article needs work. I think it can be improved by incorporating this new work into it and deleting a bunch of the difficult to understand material. I have put up merge banners. --Kvng (talk) 21:01, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
I agree that the current article needs work, but I believe that the subject can be quite technical, especially if the article explains how it all works by dealing with the architecture of cloud datacentres, and the implementation technologies. Also, I believe it would be beneficial to cover the following from a more technical point of view: all types of service, deployment and typical characteristics, with specific diagrams; the various ways that providers can operate, using in-house resources and/or other service providers (as evidenced by comments in the discussion archives, the layers diagram can confuse some readers by implying that each layer must be built on top of the ones below); details of specific examples, rather than just one or two-sentence descriptions; P2P versus client-server examples; the NIST Reference Architecture.
This is a top-importance, extensive subject with a large and wide audience of technical and non-technical readers, and with aspects ranging from simple facts to in-depth technologies for consumer access and provider implementations. Also, the examples of cloud computing cover the whole range of activities, professional and personal. So I can’t see that a single article can cover all of this adequately, without being too long or difficult to follow for many readers.
My idea with the introductory article was to deal with the basics, especially for the non-technical section of the audience, so that the cloud-computing article itself could then be more technical without end-users complaining that they couldn’t understand it. Fcalculators (talk) 01:30, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
Introduction? Really? It is longer than this "main" article, and, it did not seem to be any easier to figure out than this. 85.217.20.177 (talk) 09:33, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
There's no problem that it's longer than the main article, since it's an "introduction to the topic", not "the introduction of the article". As Fcalculators points out, they have different audiences with different needs; the Introduction article should include a general description of the field, and the main article a detailed explanation of the primary technical concerns. "Introduction to..." articles are common for several high profile topics (we even have a template for it). As long as it doesn't try to teach "how to build your own cloud service" and keep itself with defining the basic terms, it should be fine. Diego (talk) 13:04, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Support merge I would support a merge, just so that a central high quality item can emerge. In terms of overall quality these two are actually better than many of the other ProjComputing articles out there. But it would still make sense to have a really nice item as a show case of how Wikipedia can actually achieve scholarly status. However, I did oppose merge of Cloud computing security into here. History2007 (talk) 23:02, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Support merge. I don't seem to grasp the logic of an Encyclopedia holding a universe of articles plus another parallel universe of "Introduction To..." articles on the same subjects. It would be not only unnecessary, it would be simply ridiculous. --AVM (talk) 16:37, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Support merge BUT This article is already uncomfortably long, and merging the very valuable content from Introduction will push it beyond practical. Likely we will need to split off bits and pieces soon anyway, and some elements of Introduction might then rate their own, something like specialised language of cloud computing, &c. YamaPlos talk 19:11, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Support merge. I suspect that, once merged, users would benefit from seeing terms such as "Platform as a Service", "Software as a Service", etc, and "Public Cloud" and "Private Cloud" being the focus of the article. When I say focus, I mean these things should appear first and be prominent. A Wikipedia article isn't a treatise or a thesis on a topic. Words like 'metaphor', 'model' and 'heterogeneous', 'abstraction' and 'denote' obfuscate the topic. The tone of many Wikipedia articles seems to be more about the practical and less about the theoretical, especially with regard to an article like this. Both articles could use a lot of editing (removal of content) once merged. SunKing2 (talk) 09:54, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm trying to perform this merge. I've reviewed Introduction to cloud computing and finding that material there is already included here or is of dubious quality/reliablity. In short I'm not finding anything of value in Introduction to cloud computing to merge. I've attempted to contact the primary author user:Fcalculators but have received no response. Therefore I have WP:PRODed Introduction to cloud computing. If anyone thinks it needs to be rescued and would like to take a crack at it, please follow the WP:PROD procedures to abort my proposed deletion. --Kvng (talk) 18:14, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

My PROD was contested by user:Fcalculators who then promised to provide some justification for separate existence of the intro article but has not despite multiple prompts. So I've gone ahead and redirected the intro article here. If that needs to be reverted, please discuss it here first. --Kvng (talk) 03:01, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

I can’t quite understand this move, given the recent events concerning the deletion banner.
The banner was posted with a 7-day period for objections, which itself seems short, but, in any case, the deletion happened even well before this short period had elapsed – what was the rush?
The instructions say that anyone can object to a deletion proposal simply by removing the banner, which I did. The instructions also say that once removed, the banner cannot be replaced, which must mean that the deletion can’t be performed. Therefore, I believe that it should be undone, unless I am misunderstanding something.
People have been voting with their feet, and the article has had between 11000-20000 viewers per month, with some viewers making useful content changes and reasonable talk-page contributions on specific details. So it seems that many people value the content. There have been no talk-page claims concerning dubious quality or reliability, and, on the contrary, the article was rating quite highly for Trustworthiness, Objectivity etc.
It was included in the Computing project – wouldn’t it be a good idea to see how it is rated as part of this project? Fcalculators (talk) 02:20, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for joining the conversation here. As editors, we collaboratively decide how to organize information on the encyclopedia. There is a clear consensus above that we don't need or want two articles on this subject. I don't find your new arguments particularly persuasive. The intro article had 12,120 views in June. In comparison, cloud computing was viewed 433,043 times. I am one of the (self-appointed) assessors on the computing project. The intro article was never assessed but I would give it, at best, a C rating. The cloud computing article has not been reassessed since recent improvements but it is almost a B at this point. --Kvng (talk) 14:38, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

I have re-read the articles on merging, consensus and deletion, and, from this material, I believe that, for the following reasons, the deletion and re-direction of the introductory article have not been following documented processes:

• From the merge article, in row IV of the merge steps table, it says that “In … controversial cases, this determination that a consensus to merge has been achieved is normally done by an editor who is neutral and not directly involved in the merger proposal or the discussion”. I am not aware of anything abnormal about this particular merge case, so it seems that the consensus was not arrived at according to this process.

• In any case, I don’t believe that a consensus existed, because, in the consensus article, it states that, when reaching consensus through discussion, “The result might be an agreement that does not satisfy anyone completely, but that all recognize as a reasonable solution”. I certainly don’t regard the outcome as a reasonable solution, and I don’t believe that even some of those who supported the merge would think so either, when they talk about “very valuable content” and “so that a central high quality item can emerge”.

• Also from the consensus article, under determining consensus, it says that ”no consensus normally results in the article … being kept”.

• There were only a very few contributors, with some for and some against, so not even a clear majority supported the merge. I believe we can include the comment on not merging the definitions in those against, even though it was placed at the top of the page, rather than in the discussion section. I believe the comment on “parallel universe” can be discounted because it is against introductory articles in general, even though they are allowed for in the guidelines, and there is the following quote from the Deletion guidelines for administrators, when discussing consensus: “Arguments that contradict policy … are frequently discounted”? More people contributed to the introductory article talk page and made edits than participated in this discussion.

• In the merge article, under reasons for merging, it says that “Merging should be avoided if …. The separate topics could be expanded into … standalone … articles.” Common sense says that this is the case here, and there can be two separate articles, one for beginners and one for a more technical audience, and, if this can go ahead, there will then not be the overlap that exists at present. Other contributors to this talk section agree with this approach, it is allowed for in the guidelines, and common sense says that it is appropriate for a top importance subject with a very wide audience, including large groups that have different needs.

• In the deletion banner, it says that “You may remove this message if you improve the article or otherwise object to deletion for any reason”, so I objected to deletion and removed the message. The banner also says that, “If … removed, it should not be replaced”, which must mean that the deletion can’t subsequently be performed.

For the above reasons, I have reverted the re-direction edit. With the article visible, it may give an independent editor the opportunity to rate it as part of the computing project. If you have any concerns about the content, and if you think that some of it is of dubious quality or reliability, please can you detail your specific concerns on the talk page?

I agree with your comment above, that producing articles is a collaborative process, but I am not exactly sure of the point that you are making. I have been collaborating by contributing to these discussion pages for some time, and, at a point in the past when there was quite a bit of controversy about the content, I suggested that one way forward was to produce an introductory article. This suggestion was present for quite some time, and no one objected, so, since it was allowed for in the guidelines, I proceeded to write one.

I still don't believe that this main article is of very good quality, and I will provide some detailed criticisms shortly. Fcalculators (talk) 02:09, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. If I took any liberties with procedures, I apologize. I think I used them appropriately and they have had the desired effect of bringing you into the discussion when more polite requests for input had failed. I still don't see a good justification in what you've said for the existence of a separate intro article. Sure, they're allowed but that doesn't mean one is desired for Cloud computing. I have requested that other editors weigh in on this (again). --Kvng (talk) 15:13, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

I nominated the fork for deletion, please discuss the issue there. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 17:22, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Problems in first paragraph

  • I don't understand why reference 1 is used twice in the same sentence. Can't we just cite it once at the end of the first sentence?
  • Reference 1 doesn't really provide the same definition as given in the first sentence.
  • Although I don't dispute the stated origin, the use of two two primary references here makes me suspect original research. We need to find a better reference for this. --Kvng (talk) 13:50, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
Both references have amorphous symbols identified as clouds that represent networks and both mention the Internet, so there is no OR there. The first reference (patent 5,485,455) was cited because it was the earliest (Jan 1994) I could find in the patent files. The second reference (patent 6,069,890) was filed more than two years later, but was cited because it has more details in the diagrams. Greensburger (talk) 04:54, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
Please read WP:OR. Research for Wikipedia is done a bit differently than other research. We prefer secondary sources. The patents are primary sources and while it is possible they are where the term "cloud computing" comes from, they don't actually say anything about the origin of the term. --Kvng (talk) 21:28, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
U.S. Patent 6,069,890, the second source cited in this article, is a secondary source and refers to its primary source U.S. patent 5,790,548 Fig. 1 which is copied exactly as Fig. 1 in the secondary source as part of the "Background" section in which prior technology is described. Fig. 1 in described in both patents as "a simplified diagram of the Internet" and includes multiple cloud symbols. Patent 5,790,548 column 5 lines 56-57 refer to "the cloud indicated at 49 in Fig. 1" which is copied in secondary patent 6,069,890 for Fig. 1. Patent 6,069,890 Figures 4 and 8 include an amorphous symbol which is labled "INTERNET" and has a reference number 106 which is referenced as "cloud 106". The inventors listed in patent 6,069,890 are not the same as the inventors in patent 5,790,548.
U.S. Patent 5,485,455, the first source cited in this article, was cited solely to establish that the network symbol was already being called a "cloud" in January 1994. Primary sources can be cited as evidence of priority, just as the original U.S. Constitution can be cited to prove that it said what it was later reported to have said. Secondary sources are actually less reliable than primary sources in such instances, because of editorial bias or misinterpretation.
The two sources cited are not intended as sources for the expression "cloud computing" which would requires a third reference. Greensburger (talk) 05:56, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
The refs are attached to the following statement in the article: "The name comes from the use of a cloud-shaped symbol". If these are not intended as sources for the expression it seems like they're misplaced. --Kvng (talk) 22:50, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
These patents are very interesting but the second patent is not a reliable secondary source. A reliable secondary source would be an newspaper or magazine article or a book that referred to the patents and drew conclusions about them. Jojalozzo 22:58, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
The second patent 5,790,548 was not the unedited writings of four engineers that was rubber stamped and printed by the US Patent Office. This patent was rewritten by patent lawyers working for the independent law firm of Meyertons, Hood, Kivlin, Kowert & Goetzel and further edited by the US Patent Office examiner. The rewrite process provided by the lawyers was every bit as rigorous and critical as that provided by the editorial staff of a book publishing or newspaper or magazine publishing company. And their polished work was given further critical review by the patent examiner whose job is to reject ambigous, vague, or misleading text or drawings, mistatements of fact, and self-serving puffery. If the expression "cloud" as a metaphor for the Internet had been deemed too silly or confusing, one of the lawyers or the examiner would have required a different expression. Patents that were edited by law firm lawyers are reliable sources. Greensburger (talk) 21:39, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
Patents are not sources for statements about who originated certain terminology and neither of these patents make any claims about originating the term. That could be a trademark issue but not patent issue. We need a source that states this is the origin or even "one of the earliest uses" of the term. It's not our role to do that research ourselves. I have removed the citations as unnecessary in the lead. If we have consensus here to use those sources to show the origin of the term they can be used in a terminology or etymology section. Jojalozzo 22:11, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
I agree that a reliable reference for origination of the "cloud" symbol would be a good addition to this article. But the references to the patents bear on a different issue, the fact that the term "cloud" was and is a generic symbol for the Internet or similar network, without providing the complex details of its structure, just as a picture of a car is a generic symbol that implies the complex internals (engine, ignition circuitry, etc), regardless of who first used the symbol. Greensburger (talk) 02:42, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
The statement where they were used for reference concerned a) the source of the term and b) the use of a cloud as an graphical abstraction of complex infrastructure. We agree that the referenced patents do not support (a) and I see no support for (b) either. They just say they use a cloud, not why they use it. There must be more recent sources that support (b) directly. You are clearly an excellent researcher and I'm sure you can locate what we need. However, we don't need references in the lead as long as we cover the statements later in the main body of the article. Jojalozzo 03:12, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Reference 1 holds only definitions for IaaS, Paas and SaaS

Now there are now 10 types of cloud computing listed, but the reference mentions only 3. Needs improvement. Step0h (talk) 18:33, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the reference given includes only the usual three services, and so it is inappropriate for the whole list, but this isn't the only issue. For example, the list isn't exhaustive, and, because it is only a simple list, some readers could get the incorrect impression that the items are mutually exclusive. Together with the inappropriate reference, this gives the appearance that the additions to the list are ill-considered. Also, why have such a list in this section at all, when there is a Service Models section? The items in the list should really be part of that section, with some of them included as part of the three main services.
There are many other issues with this article, including further inappropriate references. For example, the analogy with electricity utilities is incorrectly supported by a reference to the NIST Definition, but the NIST material doesn't use these words or such an analogy at all.
Besides the inappropriate references, some whole sections have no references, and some of the claims aren't supported by a reference, which gives the impression that they are personal opinions.
Lack of references, or inappropriate references, is against one of the most fundamental of Wikipedia requirements - to be encyclopaedic, all material must be supported by an appropriate reference. Fcalculators (talk) 02:09, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Patently awful article

For a top-importance subject with a very large and wide audience, this really is an inadequate article. Many criticisms of it can be found throughout the Talk Archives, even before the comments under Technical gibberish above. Some of these criticisms still apply, and there has been no substantial improvement in the article over a long period.

It contains too many inaccurate, contradictory, confusing, half-true, meaningless, vague or completely incorrect statements, as well as some disorganised, insubstantial or pointless sections. As stated in the Technical gibberish comments, there is too much jargon and irrelevant material, especially for end-users, who would make up a significant section of the audience. Also, with no references, some of the material appears to be only personal opinion.

It has been a C-rated article for a very long time - officially since January, which is itself too long, but it had really been at C level well before then. There have been several hundred thousand viewers per month during this period, and this amounts to millions in total. At least some of these viewers would not be impressed with the article, to say the least, but only a very few would take the trouble to voice their opinions. Worse still, many of these viewers would know no better than to take the material at face value, and so they are not being at all well served.

It is clear that many of the 1000s of piecemeal edits made over recent years have not really been an improvement. Sensible changes are often overwritten, and the article has never attained any sort of stability or sustained improvement. So it seems that a different approach is required, if coverage of this important topic is to be at least adequate. Fcalculators (talk) 01:54, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

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