Cloud Computing
What is cloud computing?
Cloud Computing
THE “cloud” in cloud computing comes from terminology used to describe large networks such as the internet. Rather than data being stored in and accessed from the drive of an individual computer, that data is held off in the “cloud” of the network.
Cloud computing as a term generally refers to any very large network that can manage large amounts of information and a multitude of applications for multiple users – for example, a grid network (lots of individual computer servers) in a data centre – where applications and services are stored and accessed by computer users, and data may be shared among users. Some describe cloud computing as architecture for setting up a grid-in other words, a subset of grid computing.
“Cloud Computing” is a paradigm in which information is permanently stored in servers on the Internet and cached temporarily on clients that include desktops, entertainment centers, table computers, notebooks, wall computers, handhelds, sensors, monitors, etc.
But in cloud computing, users tend to be enterprises and large organizations, the cloud is firewalled and access limited to employees or members of the organization. The cloud often makes heavy use of “virtualization”, where single computers are set up to run several self-contained operating systems at once, so that they appear to the network to be several “real” computers, and can manage information more efficiently at lower cost. The cloud can do massive computing tasks by spreading out the job between all the cheaper machines and virtual machines in the cloud. The end result is that an organization has access to supercomputing power, but in a more versatile and cost-effective form. (http://communication.howstuffworks.com/cloud-computing.htm)
