Cloud computing was popularized with Amazon.com releasing its Elastic Compute Cloud product in 2006.[11]
References to the phrase “cloud computing” appeared as early as 1996, with the first known mention in a Compaq internal document.[12]
The cloud symbol was used to represent networks of computing equipment in the original ARPANET by as early as 1977,[13] and the CSNET by 1981[14]—both predecessors to the Internet itself. The word cloud was used as a metaphor for the Internet and a standardized cloud-like shape was used to denote a network on telephony schematics. With this simplification, the implication is that the specifics of how the end points of a network are connected are not relevant for the purposes of understanding it.
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