Cloud Computing – Introduction
Cloud Computing is the computing paradigm in which software can be deployed on remote infrastructure and accessed over the Internet. The term is used: to hide the complexity associated with the actual infrastructure; and to indicate that the resources in the Cloud are elastic and can be scaled as needed.
The underlying infrastructure for Cloud Computing exploits recent advances in: processor technology, grid computing and virtualization, disk storage, fast broadband Internet access and inexpensive servers.
Cloud computing resources are usually billed per usage and are offered in three forms:
- Platform as a Service – such as the web application frameworks provided by Google App Engine, Aptana Cloud and Microsoft Windows Azure
- Utility computing – such as the web hosting services provided by Amazon EC2 and ElasticHosts
- Cloud-based end-user applications – such as the Web Services or SaaS provided by SalesForce.com
