Cloud computing and virtual hosting is making the world of computing an absolute doddle for anyone who doesn’t want the burden of physical servers, but where did it all start?
Virtual hosting is a revolutionary technological advancement that has changed the way that computer technology is delivered both in the home and in a corporate environment. More and more businesses are jumping on board in order to save money and cut back on resources – this is a new way to compute and gives us all a sneaky peak into the future of technology. But how did it all begin?
The fundamental concept of virtual hosting started in the 1960s. This was when John McCarthy, the computer scientist, preached that computation would eventually be organised as a public utility. This is exactly what has happened today with virtualisation.
John McCarthy – The Computation Scientist
Born in 1927, this American scientist received the Turing Award in 1971 for his major work in the field of artificial intelligence” – he was responsible for formulating the term and its definition. He predicted that modern computing would be delivered from a communal utility, and with the success of virtual hosting, the future of IT could be completely led by virtualised servers. McCarthy is responsible for renowned written pieces such as Computer Programming and formal systems (1963), Electronic Transactions on Artificial Intelligence (1999), and many other notable publications.
Virtual Hosting = Cloud Computing
The term ‘cloud’ is a term borrowed from telephony, and refers to the internet. The virtual cloud is where all the servers are pooled and shared with users. Although McCarthy’s theory was first discussed in 1960, it wasn’t until 1997 that the first academic definition was provided by Ramnath K. Chellappa – he called it a “computing paradigm where the boundaries of computing will be determined by economic rationale rather than technical limits.” In reference to telephony, the term ‘cloud’ had come into commercial use in the 1990s to refer to ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) networks. Today, cloud computation describes the virtual hosting services that we use in business and in the home.
Later came SaaS (Software as a Service) through the development of web services and this was embraced by Microsoft in the year 2000. In 2007, large scale virtual hosting research was conducted by Google and IBM, and today, it is a huge part of our everyday processes.
SwitchLink – Virtual Hosting from Just £5.99
If you are looking for a virtual hosting package, visit SwitchLink to find out what they have available to individual users or SMEs. You can purchase packages from just £5.99 and be set up in less than 5 minutes.