The other Cloud sessions in Catania were also well attended. Presentations ranged from people who just added the word "Cloud" five times to their slides to people who ported a Grid to people who tried to give an overview of the Grid/Cloud area. Some presenters stressed that Cloud computing is the same paradigm as the Power Grid: computing on tap instead of electricity on tap. Probably they knew that this was the Grid vision too, but they just could not resist. Others tried to compare the Grid and the Cloud and lists are already appearing of when a Cloud is a Cloud.

In these comparisons a very limited approach to Grid computing was taken: the e-Science Grid with Globus or gLite middleware and a closed certificate system for authentication. Grids used in companies were ignored. Nice for comparison, but not correct.

However, I am not too negative about this all. It is good to rethink what you are doing once and a while, and new words like Grid or Cloud can help, whether they are new paradigms or just new marketing terms. And yes, I will try to use the label Cloud for some of the things I am doing in the near future.