When talking about Cloud Computing, there 2 main categories a cloud computing environment can fall into. They are a) the public cloud - which is offered as a service via web applications/web services (usually over an internet connection). Private cloud (or internal cloud) environments are deployed inside (behind) a firewall and managed by the user organization.
In dealing with most Enterprises, it is common that private and public cloud "hybrids" consisting of multiple internal and/or external providers are the more practical option. Even though some providers of cloud services want to stick to a rigid "public cloud" offering, some are adopting the hybrid cloud option for their prospective clients.
A practical example of an enterprise client usage for hybrid cloud computing is the following. Lets take a company that has seasonal traffic, and major spikes of business during certain times of the year, yet on other times, it might only use a fraction of the computing resources. A Greeting card company might be a good example. They still have an on-going need for core computing that won't change, regardless of what time of the year it is, or what holiday is right around the corner. For example they have database servers, that need to be able to process high i/o transactions, or need high security because of the type of SOX, HIPAA, or other compliancies surrounding housing that type of data. This portion of the infrastructure may need to be in a private cloud environment, while other app servers, and web servers, may be perfect to have in the public cloud environment, with the ability to scale up on demand, as needs arise.
Even though there is a need for both environments, they all still have to communicate with one another. Hence, they need to be networked in a hybrid cloud infrastructure.
Cloud Computing is the new age in computing infrastructure that offers high performance IT efficiency and business agility. Cloud computing is a means of delivering IT resources as services that incorporate infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS) all over the internet. No need to purchase ongoing hardware or software. If you want your business operations to be faster, more flexible, highly efficient and more economical then move your IT infrastructure to Cloud Computing.
All you need is a computer, an internet connection and a cloud hosting service provider. Users do not need knowledge of or expertise of the technology infrastructure in the *"cloud". *(Wikipedia describes the term cloud being "used as a metaphor for the Internet, based on how the Internet is depicted in computer network diagrams, and is an abstraction for the complex infrastructure it conceals").
Cloud computing services usually provide common business applications online that are accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on the servers.
Not to be confused with Grid Computing which implies the technology that allows a number of computers working together in a system where here you can get just one computer, and it will be cloud computing, but not grid.
With many companies now moving their IT infrastructure to the cloud the benefits of IT as a service are becoming obvious.
Reduce capital expenditure (no need to constantly invest in new infrastructure)
Dramatically increase hardware utilisation
Increases business operations efficiency
Security and monitoring with your provider will be key. It's all about virtualisation of infrastructure for efficiency and services versus hardware, as IT resources like applications, programming tools and services can be delivered as a service called Cloud Computing.
