MSDN Documentation

What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is the delivery of computing services—including servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence—over the Internet (“the cloud”) to offer faster innovation, flexible resources, and economies of scale. You typically pay only for cloud services you use, helping lower your operating costs, run your infrastructure more efficiently, and scale as your business needs change.

Core Characteristics

• On-Demand Self-Service: A consumer can unilaterally provision computing capabilities, such as server time and network storage, as needed automatically without requiring human interaction with each service provider.
• Broad Network Access: Capabilities are available over the network and accessed through standard mechanisms that promote use by heterogeneous thin or thick client platforms (e.g., mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and workstations).
• Resource Pooling: The provider’s computing resources are pooled to serve multiple consumers using a multi-tenant model, with different physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according to consumer demand.
• Rapid Elasticity: Capabilities can be elastically provisioned and de-provisioned, in some cases automatically, to rapidly scale out and in commensurate with demand. To the consumer, the capabilities available for provisioning often appear to be unlimited and can be appropriated in any quantity at any time.
• Measured Service: Cloud systems automatically control and optimize resource use by leveraging a metering capability at some level of abstraction appropriate to the type of service (e.g., storage, processing, bandwidth, and active user accounts). Resource usage can be monitored, controlled, and reported, providing transparency for both the provider and consumer of the utilized service.

Key Benefits

• Cost Savings: Reduce capital expenditure on hardware and data centers. Pay-as-you-go models optimize operational costs.
• Scalability and Elasticity: Easily scale resources up or down based on demand, ensuring performance and cost-efficiency.
• Agility and Speed: Deploy new applications and services much faster than with traditional on-premises infrastructure.
• Global Reach: Deploy applications closer to your users worldwide, reducing latency and improving user experience.
• Reliability and Disaster Recovery: Cloud providers offer robust infrastructure with built-in redundancy and disaster recovery solutions.
• Security: Major cloud providers invest heavily in security, often offering advanced security features and compliance certifications.