Did Amazon give birth to cloud computing?

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Amazon considers its launch of Web Services in 2006 as the birth of cloud computing.

In a keynote speech at Storage Expo in London this morning, Simone Brunozzi, Amazon's Web Services Technology Evangelist in Europe, described his company as a trail blazer, comparing the steps it had taken with great artists and thinkers of the past.

“We started building our architecture about 10 years ago to power Amazon.com. We thought there was a business opportunity behind this [thinking] maybe other people need the same flexible on demand infrastructure,” he said.

He added: “We started offering our services in 2006 and considered this the birth year of cloud computing, [as] I think most people would call Amazon cloud computing.”

Brunozzi refused to define the cloud but instead commented on “fundamental words” involved with the technology – on demand, scalable and pay per use.

Even with his positive angle on the technology, Brunozzi accepted there was still fear of adoption among some businesses.

“Human friction is often underestimated,” he claimed, “as most people are afraid of change.”

“It means people might be afraid of Amazon, thinking I might lose my job or I don't know if I can do this. Friction can be avoided though if you fully understand cloud computing. If you can be more efficient [then] your business will be better off,” he said.

Although focusing on Amazon's storage product today, the company has also recently released its own private offering called Amazon's Virtual Private Cloud.

Click here for more news from Storage Expo 2009.

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