Internet & Technology - what exactly is cloud computing, hosting/infrastructure?

It is basically the idea of making services available to end-users transparently. This means that the users are no longer concerned about where the service is installed, how it is maintained, or anything like that.



A simple everyday example is Microsoft Word. You install it on your computer and apply updates to it every so often. If your hardware dies then so does your MS Word. On the other hand is Google Docs. With that word processor, all you care about is that you can edit and save your document. Google will take care of the maintenance.



It's a very broad topic and can get very detailed, this is just an overview.Internet %26amp; Technology - what exactly is cloud computing, hosting/infrastructure?
"the cloud" is just a term for off-site data storage. So, if you upload pictures to a site (facebook, picasaweb, flickr, etc.) and can then access them from anywhere, they are being stored on that company's hard drive, or their cloud.



The cloud is key for mobile device use moreso that home computers, as home computers have sufficient storage for most user's content. However, many smaller mobile devices do not as much storage, and, in addition, people are using multiple devices themselves, so it is easier to have storage available via the web rather than through a hard drive at home.



for more info, try the wiki article below, or microsoft's website.

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