So what is cloud computing?
A widely accepted definition of cloud computing
stems from early work done by the National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a U.S.
Department of Commerce agency that promotes
innovation and industrial competitiveness via
measurement science, standards and technology.
Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient,
on-demand network access to a shared pool of
configurable computing resources that can be
rapidly provisioned and released with minimal
management effort or service provider interaction.
In other words, cloud computing allows organizations
to provide their staff with access to the applications,
infrastructure or platforms they need to do their jobs —
all via a simple front-end interface, such as a web
browser. They might need access to these resources
for a few minutes at a time or for a longer period.
Depending on the deployment model in use, companies
can pay on a utility basis only for what they use.
If a cloud computing model seems more amorphous than
is typical of IT initiatives, that’s because it is. It is a further
evolution of the strategic principles of virtualization,
which rid the organization of “this application runs on
this server” designations of legacy IT environments.
In a cloud infrastructure, computing resources are
pooled and ready for the taking by any application
as needed. These computing resources, typically
virtualized, are infinitely scalable on the fly. They can
scale upward to meet rising demand and then back
down once this application need subsides, creating
unprecedented levels of operational efficiency.
Any enterprise can benefit from this ability to handle
unpredictable demand spikes quickly and efficiently.
For example, a media company could access a large
amount of processing power for a one-off project to
reorganize a database. Retailers can turn to the cloud
to link networks of stores to ensure more perfectsupply chain management. Likewise, car dealers can
use the cloud to run financials, service, sales and
more, all consumed from a central data center.
Computing capacity is not the only pooled resource
within the cloud. Other resources include client, storage
and network capacity, which enable organizations
to acquire disk space and bandwidth as needed


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