What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud Computing as the name suggests computing on the cloud. Cloud computing might be more accurately described as "sky computing," with many isolated clouds of services which IT customers must plug into individually. Cloud symbol is often used to represent the Internet in flowcharts and diagrams. In Cloud computing all a user need is a Computer and Internet, rest everything is managed by the service provider. Services can be anything from Web-based email to inventory control and database processing. Because the service provider hosts both the application and the data, the end user is free to use the service from anywhere.

The major cloud service providers include Microsoft, Salesforce, Skytap, Amazon, Google and HP.

Cloud computing is pretty big and is growing bigger everyday. There are basically 3 layers in Cloud Computing i.e. Infrastructure, Platform and Application. Most cloud computing infrastructures consist of services delivered through common centers and built on servers.

Clouds often appear as single points of access for all consumers' computing needs. You can put anything ranging from your website, or application to any software that you can remotely access it. It works the same way as Electricity, when you turn on the light, meter start running and you are billed for the power you consumed. When are you done with it, you switch off the light and meter stops. Key to cloud computing is not to focus on the hardware, you just focus on your website or on your application.

There are 3 reasons why Cloud computing is getting popular
1) Scalability - you can easily grow to your demand.
2) Instant - computer power is instantly available, whenever you need it.
3) Save Money - You only pay for what you use.

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