By definition an operating system (OS) is a set of software that manage hardware components and provide abstraction for computer programs. But with the rise of Cloud computing, I wonder what role OS will play in the future.

Before we jump into the main topic let’s talk about the current state of OS for personal computers. The core of most modern Operating System is comprised of a Kernel, Device Manager, File system, Security and User interfaces (including command line shell). You may have something extra depending on the type of operating system (Windows, MAC, Linux/UNIX, etc...)

With virtualization, OS is moved up in the abstraction layer stack. The role of abstracting and managing hardware is entrusted to the Hypervisor which sits underneath the OS of a virtual machine. Also, the rise of virtual machines like JVM, Mono/.NET, etc... have abstracted the OS to a higher level. Therefore the OS is becoming less significant from an application development point of view as well.

The foundation of cloud computing is the concept of converged systems infrastructure. The software that is usually installed on a personal system is intended to be accessible via the Internet. These cloud applications then use colossal data servers in order to host them and allow for people to operate them fully. I feel this is the future for most programs. Installing and updating software’s on personal computers will be a thing of the past. Web-Browser will become less of software, and more a part of the operating system known as Cloud itself.

But one of the most obvious question which people would ask; wont we need an OS for basic hardware abstraction, get IP and connect to the Cloud applications? Well the answer is Yes!, however the OS on the personal system will be very basic trimmed software. A popular term on the internet to describe such OS is JeOS short for “Just Enough Operating System”. JeOS is not a generic fits-all operating system. It only includes the pieces of an operating system (e.g., kernel) required to support a particular application which in our case is the ability to connect to Cloud applications and services.

However it should be pointed out that there are things that will have to happen before this Cloud OS based abstraction becomes a reality. Internet connections to everyone will have to be much faster and stable. This isn’t something would happen overnight. However, it would definitely happen in the next five to ten years.

Reference:

http://www.novell.com/docrep/2008/08/Advantages_of_Building_Virtual_Appliances_on_SUSE_Linux_Enterprise_Server_Technical_White_Paper_en.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_enough_operating_system
http://www.wolerized.com/opinion/os-cloud-future
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/6616391/Google-Chrome-OS-Are-clouds-the-future-of-computing.html
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/cloudo-your-entire-operating-system-in-the-cloud/

*If you find something is misleading or not correct then please throw some light on it.