What is Cloud Computing?
Cloud computing is everywhere. You probably use some cloud services regularly on a personal level. Maybe you stream shows or music on services such as Netflix or Spotify. Perhaps you share pictures with your friends and family on Facebook or Flickr. Maybe you’ve arranged for a transportation company to pick up a package from your house or use Yahoo! email to talk to your friends from college. You might even subscribe to a service such as Xbox Live or PlayStation Plus to stream games to your handheld devices and video game consoles. Each of these things is an example of a type of cloud service.
Enterprises also use cloud services regularly—many of them for the same types of tasks that you do on a personal level—just at a larger scale.
By the end of this chapter, you’ll be able to clearly identify cloud computing services and provide some real-life examples. But, before we get too deep, let’s talk about cloud computing...