We have noticed that there are still many people who seem confused about "The Cloud" and do not really understand what it is, apart from a vague ambiguous word that people randomly talk about. There are not many simple explanations for non-techies to understand. So I'm going to finish it in the simplest way possible and hopefully to clarify a few people about what it really is.
Firstly internet. The easiest way to explain 'the internet' is: all computers in the world are all connected, talking and sharing information back and forth. From the phones in our pocket and the Mac or PC laptops and desktops that we use at work; to Servers (really powerful computers).
Servers offer "services" to other computers such as websites, apps, e-mail, document storage and more. Servers are the backbone and that is where most of the internet we visit every day. Most servers in the world exist in large warehouses with several billions of dollars owned by companies such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft. They are filled with miles of servers that are stacked on top of each other and all connected to really fast internet. These are known as server farms or data centers. Other companies can also have their own smaller private data centers, ranging from a few small servers in someone's living room to thousands of servers for running a large hosting company. Now that you know that the internet is just a bunch of computers talking and sharing information, we can understand what the cloud is ...
First, to understand "The Cloud," we must learn 3 acronyms. The tech world loves acronyms. I'll explain it all, what it is and then you know it.
The first is IaaS. It stands for "Infrastructure as a Service". It is actually a server that you rent from a company that has a data center. It is usually used by an IT person who can remotely access the operating system or operating system (usually Windows or Linux) on the server. He or she would then install and set the things that you want to perform on it. You get on-demand servers that you control without having to buy the physical device or pay for the internet to which it is connected. It is access instead of ownership.
Then we have PaaS which stands for "Platform as a Service". This is the next level higher. PaaS is mostly used by developers and people who build apps and software. It saves them from needing an IT person to install, set up and manage the infrastructure (the previous layer). The various things that servers can perform are available on request and you can usually change the various setting options via a website. Developers would then use those and services to build tools, apps, and software for people.
That brings us to the final layer of the cloud, SaaS. If you have not yet guessed that, it stands for "Software as a Service". Most of the things we use today for computers are online and connected to the cloud. Cloud software can be anything from social apps to file storage, to e-mail and even complex software such as Google Docs and Microsoft Office 365.
They are all internet-based tools that we use to connect, create and share information that is available for any device with an internet connection and browser. At the end of the day, the cloud is just the internet, giving us on-demand access to resources and resources, making it easier to do the things we want to do from anywhere ... as long as we stay connected. That is it! That is more or less all there is, hopefully that helped to clarify things a bit. Leave a comment if you have any questions and I will be happy to answer them with more details.