Cloud computing

Article By:

Grove, Ralph F., Jr. Department of Computer Science, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Last reviewed:April 2019

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1036/1097-8542.963500

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• Cloud computing, published June 2014:Download PDF Get Adobe Acrobat Reader

A model for offering computing as a commonly purchased service (that is, a utility) for storing data and providing access to computing resources (for example, programs) via the Internet, instead of on a local computer. The notion of a “cloud” of computing resources comes from the indistinct nature of the set of resources that it comprises. A cloud service provider (CSP) may have computing resources at any number of installations around the world. The users of a cloud do not necessarily know or care where the computing resources that they lease are physically located, although they do care about regional service level guarantees, such as maximum response time. From their perspective, the resources are “out there” on the Internet somewhere. The compute cloud appears to them as a vague collection of resources with an indistinct location and boundaries, which corresponds to the nature of a cloud. The success of cloud computing has been tied to technical innovations that create opportunities for businesses to profit by outsourcing the function of maintaining a computing infrastructure. See also: Internet

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