By Andreas M. Antonopoulos
Network World Data Center Newsletter, 02/15/05

“Utility computing” is the term most often used to describe “metered” use of computing resources, perhaps purchased from a third party. The idea behind utility computing is that you don’t need to build a data center that meets your peak demand; you can build a less powerful one and then buy access to another data center at peak times. For data center managers, the dream of buying compute resources on a competitive market may seem a bit far off - but there are a lot of benefits in adopting the utility computing model, even if you never intend to buy resources from outside your company.