Why cloud?
Wikipedia defines cloud computing as:
The on demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage and computing power, without direct active management by the user. The term is generally used to describe datacentres available to many users over the Internet. Large clouds, predominant today, often have functions distributed over multiple locations from central servers… Clouds may be limited to a single organisation (enterprise clouds) be available to many organisations (public cloud) or a combination of both (hybrid cloud). Cloud computing relies on sharing of resources to achieve coherence and economies of scale… The availability of high-capacity networks, low-cost computers and storage devices as well as the widespread adoption of hardware virtualization, service-oriented architecture, and autonomic and utility computing has led to growth in cloud computing.
As with any disruptive technology there is now a growing and confusing array of cloud computing providers and virtualisation capabilities; and not all clouds are created equal. Intersect members and customers, particularly researchers, generate some of the most demanding workloads, especially driving new developments in GPU computing. However, the IT knowledge and experience gap continues to widen for cloud computing consumers. This is what motivates Intersect as consumer, supplier, aggregator and broker of cloud services; activities we collectively call CloudTime.
