What Is Cloud Computing

Short answer

Cloud computing delivers computing resources over the internet on demand. It eliminates the need to own and maintain physical hardware.

How it works

Providers like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud operate massive data centers. Users rent virtual machines, storage, and services through web dashboards or APIs.

Example

A startup launches a web application on AWS EC2 instances. As traffic grows, they add a load balancer and auto-scaling group without buying physical servers.

Why it matters

Cloud computing reduces capital expenditure and increases agility. Teams can deploy globally in minutes and pay only for what they use.