Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is a way of computing, via the Internet, that broadly shares computer resources instead of using software or storage on a local PC.

Cloud computing is a byproduct and consequence of the ease-of-access to remote computing sites provided by the Internet.

It is a paradigm shift from current use of PCs, whereby details are abstracted from the users who no longer have need of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure "in the cloud" that supports them. Cloud computing describes a new supplement, consumption and delivery model for IT services based on the Internet, and it typically involves the provision of dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources as a service over the Internet.

The term cloud is used as a metaphor for the Internet, based on the cloud drawing used in the past to represent the telephone network, and later to depict the Internet in computer network diagrams as an abstraction of the underlying infrastructure it represents. Typical cloud computing providers deliver common business applications online which are accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on servers. (Source: Wikipedia)