Perspectives on cloud computing: Interviews with five leading scientists from the cloud community

Abstract

Cloud computing is currently one of the major topics in distributed systems, with large numbers of papers being written on the topic, with major players in the industry releasing a range of software platforms offering novel Internet-based services and, most importantly, evidence of real impact on end user communities in terms of approaches to provisioning software services. Cloud computing though is at a formative stage, with a lot of hype surrounding the area, and this makes it difficult to see the true contribution and impact of the topic. Cloud computing is a central topic for the Journal of Internet Services and Applications (JISA) and indeed the most downloaded paper from the first year of JISA is concerned with the state-of-the-art and research challenges related to cloud computing. The Editors-in-Chief, Fabio Kon and Gordon Blair, therefore felt it was timely to seek clarification on the key issues around cloud computing and hence invited five leading scientists from industrial organizations central to cloud computing to answer a series of questions on the topic. © 2011 The Brazilian Computer Society.