Cover of Parkhill's The Challenge of the Computer Utility (1966)

Cover of Parkhill's The Challenge of the Computer Utility (1966)

Douglas Parkhill Issues a Predictive Discussion of the Features of Cloud Computing

1966
Cloud computing metaphor graphic

Cloud computing metaphor: the group of networked elements providing services need not be individually addressed or managed by users; instead, the entire provider-managed suite of hardware and software can be thought of as an amorphous cloud. Created by Sam Johnston using OmniGroup's  OmniGraffle and Inkscape.

In 1966 Canadian technologist Douglas Parkhill issued a book entitled The Challenge of the Computer Utility. In this work Parkhill predicted and explored features of cloud computing that became widely established by the second decade of the twenty-first century. These features included elastic provision, provision as a utility, online, illusion of infinite supply, the comparison to the electricity industry and the use of public, private, government, and community forms.

Timeline Themes