What is cloud?

[skillets]

new to this. and i dont know what everyone is talking about when u all say "cloud". i've seen where i can print thought something called cloud on the internet. but i dont even have that in my setting like it says on the web. why now? what am i missing?

[CBowley603]

Anything that is stored on the cloud is anything stored not on your machine. Something you can access from any computer, like your emails and contacts on Gmail, any photos you have on Facebook or Picasa etc.

[fventura03]

basically virtual storage of your data.

[1991-C4]

basically virtual storage of your data.

Well actually, there is nothing virtual about it at all. It is "real" storage and refers to stuff not stored on your local machine, but on another computer somewhere else.

[skillets]

well that was pretty simple.lol. thanks

[searayman]

here is a short article I wrote explaining cloud computing:

What is Cloud Computing and Why Should I Use It? - Associated Content from Yahoo! - associatedcontent.com

Enjoy!

[topcat]

Actually, cloud computer is different from the Internet. Cloud computing is storing the information on MANY computers at once. It's a cloud of computers. When you access your Google doc, it's not stored on one computer but spread across maybe a hundred computers. No one can point to a computer and say, "Your data is stored there."

Basically, it's the cloud of computers that Google (and not other companies) have set up for storage.

Yeah, it now seems to be seeping to anything stored on the Internet.

[CBowley603]

How do you define "internet" ...?

[topcat]

The "Internet" is an interconnected system of networks that connects computers around the world via the TCP/IP protocol. I was referring to an app that will store info across many computers housed by a single company, such as what Google does, as a "cloud".

I do realize that the definition seems to be expanding now. But I think Google is trying to get people to think of the "Internet" as "the cloud" because they're trying to push what they do.

[NSILMike]

well that was pretty simple.lol. thanks

It comes from early discussions and/or explanations of what the 'internet' was. The typical white board diagram included a bunch of PCs (or just terminals, if you go back far enough) surrounding a cloud containing resources and applications. The cloud analogy was meant to imply that you, the user, did not need to know much, if anything, about the physical location or configuration of the resources that were delivering the services you and others were using. It was just 'out there... in the cloud...'