What is Cloud Computing and What Does This Stupid Buzzword Mean?

The other day a reader wrote in asking if cloud computing could help save his hard drive space, which made me realize that it’s time to talk about exactly what this moronic buzzword really means.

What is Cloud Computing?
According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the definition for “Cloud Computing” is this incomprehensible piece of nonsense clearly written to be as confusing as possible:

Cloud computing is a model for enabling 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.

So what’s a definition for real people?

Cloud Computing = Web Applications
That’s all there is to it. If you’re using a web or internet-based application from a major provider like Google or Microsoft, you’re using cloud computing. Congrats!

Every web application that you’ve ever used, like Gmail, Google Calendar, Hotmail, SalesForce, Dropbox, and Google Docs, are based on “cloud computing”, because when you connect to one of these services, you’re really connecting to a massive pool of servers somewhere out there on the internet. The client doesn’t need to be a web browser, but that’s the direction everything is heading.

Think there’s more to it than that? Don’t believe me? Just listen to Larry Ellison, the CEO & co-founder of Oracle, talk about how moronic this term really is

Read more: How-to-geek

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