Okay, you've been reading about it or hearing about it down at the local barbershop. It's the rage they say, the real thing or rather the unreal thing since it is strictly virtual hanging out there in cyberland. So finally you get the courage to ask - Cloud computing, what the heck is that? Cloud shmoud you think to yourself. But wait, it is important to know your Computer Basics so you know what it is you are dealing with and how to protect your assets.

First off, the term cloud is a metaphor for the Internet. And before you ask, why the Internet is thought of as a cloud let me cut you off at the pass and tell you that a cloud is used to portray the Internet in computer network diagrams. It is a simple way of depicting the complexity of the Internet by just drawing a cloud and everyone figuring it is up there somewhere.

Our Mike Williams had this to say:

"Cloud computing uses an Internet based operating service. (Notice the word Service instead of system) Applications and data are stored on a service provider's network and accessed by the end user over the Internet. The web based applications are delivered using a technology known as Software as a Service (SaaS). I saw a blog post from a gentleman named LewisC that described this pretty well." 

"Cloud computing is using the Internet to access someone else's software running on someone else's hardware in someone else's data center while paying only for what you use." And funnily enough this is not much different from the way IBM used to rent out mainframe time a few decades ago. 
So there you have it - probably more than you ever wanted to know but like I said it is important to know your basics and you need to be able to protect your info if you are dealing up in clouds.

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