Definition: 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 flowcharts and diagrams. A cloud service has three distinct characteristics that differentiate it from traditional hosting. It is sold on demand, typically by the minute or the hour; it is elastic -- a user can have as much or as little of a service as they want at any given time; and the service is fully managed by the provider (the consumer needs nothing but a personal computer and Internet access). Significant innovations in virtualization and distributed computing, as well as improved access to high-speed Internet and a weak economy, have accelerated interest in cloud computing. A cloud can be private or public. A public cloud sells services to anyone on the Internet. (Currently, Amazon Web Services is the largest public cloud provider.) A private cloud is a proprietary network or a data center that supplies hosted services to a limited number of people. When a service provider uses public cloud resources to create their private cloud, the result is called a virtual private cloud. Private or public, the goal of cloud computing is to provide easy, scalable access to computing resources and IT services. Infrastructure-as-a-Service like Amazon Web Services provides virtual server instanceAPI) to start, stop, access and configure their virtual servers and storage. In the enterprise, cloud computing allows a company to pay for only as much capacity as is needed, and bring more online as soon as required. Because this pay-for-what-you-use model resembles the way electricity, fuel and water are consumed, it's sometimes referred to as utility computing. Platform-as-a-service in the cloud is defined as a set of software and product development tools hosted on the provider's infrastructure. Developers create applications on the provider's platform over the Internet. PaaS providers may use APIs, website portals or gateway software installed on the customer's computer. Force.com, (an outgrowth of Salesforce.com) and GoogleApps are examples of PaaS. Developers need to know that currently, there are not standards for interoperability or data portability in the cloud. Some providers will not allow software created by their customers to be moved off the provider's platform. In the software-as-a-service cloud model, the vendor supplies the hardware infrastructure, the software product and interacts with the user through a front-end portal. SaaS is a very broad market. 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. Cloud computing is a technology that uses the internet and central remote servers to maintain data and applications. Cloud computing allows consumers and businesses to use applications without installation and access their personal files at any computer with internet

access. This technology allows for much more efficient computing by centralizing storage, memory, processing and bandwidth. A simple example of cloud computing is Yahoo email or Gmail etc. You dont need a software or a server to use them. All a consumer would need is just an internet connection and you can start sending emails. The server and email management software is all on the cloud ( internet) and is totally managed by the cloud service provider Yahoo , Google etc. The consumer gets to use the software alone and enjoy the benefits. The analogy is , 'If you only need milk , would you buy a cow ?' All the users or consumers need is to get the benefits of using the software or hardware of the computer like sending emails etc. Just to get this benefit (milk) why should a consumer buy a (cow) software /hardware ? Cloud computing is broken down into three segments: "applications," "platforms," and "infrastructure." Each segment serves a different purpose and offers different products for businesses and individuals around the world. In June 2009, a study conducted by VersionOne found that 41% of senior IT professionals actually don't know what cloud computing is and two-thirds of senior finance professionals are confused by the concept,[1] highlighting the young nature of the technology. In Sept 2009, an Aberdeen Group study found that disciplined companies achieved on average an 18% reduction in their IT budget from cloud computing and a 16% reduction in data center power costs. List of cloud computing providers Service providers Cloud computing Amazon ElasticHosts Microsoft Azure Logicworks Google.[1][2] Joyent[3] Jitscale Linode Maximizer Software Rackspace Cloud Salesforce Skytap

Cloud storage Amazon S3[4][5] Box.net Dropbox Nirvanix Spideroak Windows Azure

Cloud Faxing Providers Graphnet, Inc[6]

Cloud platforms Abiquo[7] CA 3Tera AppLogic Cloud.com (formerly VMOps[8]) ElasticHosts ElasticStack[9][10] Enomaly ECP Eucalyptus Flexiant Extility[11] Gluster InContinuum CloudController[12] Nimbus (cloud computing) Mezeo (Storage only)[13] OnApp[14] OpenNode[15] OpenStack.org Parallels

Joyent VMware vCloud Witsbits Go Cloud[16] Zimory[17]

Multi-cloud services and tools API Translators Deltacloud, API Translator service running on your local machine [18] Libcloud, a standard client library for many popular cloud providers, written in python and java[19]

Dashboards Cloudkick, unified cloud dashboard/monitoring covering 8 public clouds[20] Geckoboard Nimsoft, unified cloud dashboard/monitoring[21] RightScale, unified cloud dashboard/monitoring

PaaS on IaaS Makara, PaaS on IaaS[22] rPath[23]

IT firms involved in cloud computing Accenture CA Technologies[24] Cisco[25] Citrix Dell[26]

EMC[27] Enterasys Fujitsu Hewlett Packard[28] Hitachi Huawei[29] IBM[30] Microsoft NetApp Red Hat[31] VMware

Cloud storage technology providers Microsoft SQL Azure Gluster

Cloud Testing Providers Qutesys[32] QSIT[33]