What is cloud computing? According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), cloud computing is defined as “a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.”
That’s a mouthful, so, to put it simply, cloud computing involves being able to access services and store data over the Internet rather than relying on a local computing device (e.g., laptop, desktop, tablet) to run the software or store the data. Indeed, many software providers now run their applications over the Internet (in the cloud), which allows end users to access the application from just about any device and/or location.