Cloud

Cloud refers to the delivery of computing services over the internet. Rather than owning their own physical servers or data centers, companies can access technology services like servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics and more on an on-demand basis from a cloud provider.

The cloud provides several benefits compared to traditional on-premises IT. Companies can avoid large upfront infrastructure costs by paying only for the cloud services they use. Resources can scale up and down to match demand. Services are accessed via the internet from anywhere. The cloud provider handles maintenance and upgrades. Common examples of cloud services include Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform. Companies are increasingly shifting workloads to the cloud for greater agility, flexibility and cost savings. Cloud-native applications are designed specifically for cloud infrastructure.