Introducing Cloud Computing

You will begin your Cloud+ journey with a general overview of cloud computing. With a strong understanding of cloud terminology and architectures, you will have a good base to understand the details of the cloud, which in turn means you’ll be better prepared for the Cloud+ exam and be effective when deploying and supporting cloud deployments.

Cloud computing is essentially outsourcing data center operations, applications, or a section of operations to a provider of computing resources often called a cloud company or cloud service provider. The consumer of the cloud services pays either monthly or by the amount of service used. You will explore many models and types of cloud computing in this chapter and throughout this study guide.

This book will be referencing the National Institute of Standards (NIST) SP 800-145 as the main source of cloud computing definitions. NIST defines cloud computing as follows:

…a model for enabling convenient, on...