Cloud computing is a general term for anything that involves delivering hosted services over the Internet. These services are broadly divided into three categories: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). The name cloud computing was inspired by the cloud symbol that’s often used to represent the Internet in flow charts and diagrams (source).
Infrastructure as a Service is the delivery of computer infrastructure as in resources such as servers, network equipment, memory, CPU, disk space. Visit this link on IaaS to find out more about its characteristics.
Platform as a Service is the delivery of a computing platform and solution stack – a set of software subsystems or components needed to deliver a fully functional solution, e.g. a product or service – as a service. It eases the distribution of applications without the costs and complexity of buying and managing the underlying hardware and software. Visit this link on PaaS to find out more about it.
Software as a Service is is a model of software deployment whereby a provider licenses an application to customers for use as a service on demand. SaaS software vendors may host the application on their own web servers or download the application to the consumer device, disabling it after use or after the on-demand contract expires. Visit this link on SaaS to find out its characteristics and implementations.
To have a further detailed explaination of what Cloud Computing is, please visit the following links:
http://www.infoworld.com/d/cloud-computing/what-cloud-computing-really-means-031
http://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid201_gci1287881,00.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing
And for video explainations, please visit the following links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hplXnFUlPmg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PNuQHUiV3Q
A great example of this cloud computing is Google Docs, which is available for free online via web browser, is essentially your office suite (word processor, spreedsheet, etc.) allowing you to share your work online. Visit this link to sign up for Google Docs.
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