What is Cloud Computing?
Cloud computing is a combination of software and computing delivered as a networked service that provides a model for enabling anytime access to a shared pool of applications and resources.  These applications and resources can be accessed using a simple front-end interface such as a Web browser, and as a result enables users to access the resources from any client device including notebooks, desktops and mobile devices. 



Why consider Cloud Computing?
The core goals of utilizing a cloud-based IT ecosystem are to pool available resources together into a highly efficient infrastructure where costs are aligned with what resources are actually used, services can be made accessible and available from anywhere at anytime, and the infrastructure can be quickly and easily scaled as an organization's business requirements evolve. 

• Create a highly efficient IT ecosystem where resources are pooled together and costs are aligned with what resources are actually used.
• Access services and data from anywhere at anytime.
• Scale your IT ecosystem quickly, easily and cost-effectively based on your evolving business needs.

What are your top goals?

• Consolidate IT infrastructure into a more integrated and manageable environment.
• Reduce costs related to IT energy/power consumption.
• Enable or improve "anywhere access" for your users.
• Rapidly provision resources as needed.

What are the Types of Cloud Computing?
Cloud computing is most commonly deployed as eith private clouds, public clouds, or a combination of the two.

Private clouds are typically deployed within an organization's own internal ecosystem, often leveraging the organization's own private datacenter.  Datacenters can be virtualized to create more efficient server availability, and applications can be installed on internal virtualized servers and made accessible using the organization's intranet.  Private clouds typically rely on the organization having trained IT staff onsite to manage the private cloud ecosystem.

Public clouds are hosted by a third party datacenter located off premise at multiple locations outside of an organization's building.  Public clouds are often hosted on virtualized multi-tenancy datacenters where different organizations have access to shared pooled hardware and power resources, yet can run their applications and data in secure, isolated environments.  These organizations can access server availability and their software applications from these offsite third party datacenters via a secure connection to their organization's location.  Also, certain software companies now make their applications available as a service hosted from their own back-end servers.  These services can be easily deployed by an IT administrator to clients such as notebooks, desktops and mobile devices.  The software companies automatically push down updates to the clients, and as a result free up an IT administrator's time from having to manually manage the updates.

Hybrid clouds are a combination of using some services delivered via a private cloud internally and other services delivered via a public cloud externally.  For example, an organization may choose to run an ERP system from their private cloud, and utilize a public cloud for offsite backup and disaster recovery purposes.