What Do You Gain from Cloud?

According to the 2011 National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) definition, “Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, 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.”

The practical outcomes that companies want to realize from cloud computing include resource elasticity, cost flexibility, and self-service provisioning. Putting these two together, you see that you need to achieve the outcomes by using the services provided by cloud providers. This requires a model that allows you to choose not only what services you want, but where they run, and what vendors or providers you purchase them from. We provide practical examples of these models throughout the book.

Taking a step back and looking at the business intents...