Cloud Computing
Is a subscription-based service where you can obtain networked storage space and computer resources. One way to think of cloud computing is to consider your experience with email. Your email client, if it is Yahoo!, Gmail, Hotmail, and so on, takes care of housing all of the hardware and software necessary to support your personal email account. When you want to access your email you open your web browser, go to the email client, and log in. The most important part of the equation is having internet access. Your email is not housed on your physical computer; you access it through an internet connection, and you can access it anywhere. Your email is different than software installed on your computer, such as a word processing program. When you create a document using word processing software, that document stays on the device you used to make it unless you physically move it. An email client is similar to how cloud computing works.
Except instead of accessing just your email, you can choose what information you have access to within the cloud.
The technology is the use of computing resources (hardware and software) that are delivered as a service over a network.
Origin of term:: The origin of the term cloud computing was derived from the practice of using drawings of stylized clouds to denote networks in diagrams of computing and communications systems.
Cloud computing relies on sharing of resources to achieve coherence and economies of scale similar to a utility over a network. At the foundation of cloud computing is the broader concept of converged infrastructure and shared services.
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