Cloud Computing: Practical Meaning

Cloud computing is new service paradigm. It refers to the provision of computational resources on demand via a network.In its practical and most widely known form this network is the Internet. However cloud can be developed and deployed on network which not necessarily the Internet. When done that way, cloud may resemble a kind of VPN.. The central idea behind cloud computing model is derived and can be can be compared to the supply of electricity and gas, or the provision of telephone, television and postal services. All of these services are presented to the users in a simple way that is easy to understand without the users needing to know how the services are provided. In other words,  benefits are for users and burden is for provider.  The details workings of a system benhind a service always remains a mystery for the end user.


Example: A letter posted in Bangalore will reach its destination say in Gujarat using postal network consisiting of many points where it gets bagged( putting into a bag meant for a destination) and debagged ( when a letter is removed from a bag when it has to reach a different destination). 

However, postal service seeker is not concerned with these detail. Her only one objective is to send/recieve a letter. The behind the scene mechanism always remains mystery but she is given a simple interface A post office to send her letter. This simplified view is called an abstraction. Similarly, cloud computing offers computer application developers and users an abstract view of services that simplifies and ignores much of the details and inner workings. A provider's offering of abstracted Internet services is often called The Cloud ( wikipedia)