From the course: AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) Cert Prep: 1 Cloud Concepts

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A brief history of the cloud

A brief history of the cloud

- [Instructor] How did the idea of cloud computing develop? To start from the beginning, we have to go all the way back to the 1950s with the invention of mainframe computing. Mainframe computing is the concept of having a central computer accessed by numerous user devices. The central computer, which had all the compute capabilities was called the mainframe computer. All the user devices, which sent requests up to the mainframe computer were called dumb terminals. These days, if you peek into a college computer lab, there are computers at every desk fully independent from the ones around it. Back in the fifties, however, computers were extremely expensive to buy and maintain. So instead of placing one at every seat, organizations would buy one mainframe computer and allow the dump terminals to share its compute resources. In the seventies, the concept of virtual machines emerged. Virtual machines are multiple complete operating systems that quote unquote live in a single piece of…

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