Term of the Moment
geek
Definition: cloud
A communications network. The word "cloud" often refers to the Internet, which more precisely means datacenters full of servers connected to the Internet performing services such as website hosting, email, video calling and streaming.
A Cloud = Any Network
A cloud can be a public wide area network (WAN) like the Internet, a private wide area network (WAN) that spans a large geographic area or a private local area network (LAN) contained within a building or complex. See private cloud, personal cloud, WAN and LAN.
Clouds Existed Long Before the Internet
Today's Cloud: The Internet
A Cloud = Any Network
A cloud can be a public wide area network (WAN) like the Internet, a private wide area network (WAN) that spans a large geographic area or a private local area network (LAN) contained within a building or complex. See private cloud, personal cloud, WAN and LAN.
For more than half a century, a cloud symbol has been used to reduce any network into entry and exit points when the details of the network infrastructure were not needed. Every cloud contains servers, routers and switches cabled together. See router and switch.
The Internet comprises tens of millions of rack-mounted servers in huge datacenters run by Amazon, Google, Microsoft and other cloud computing providers. The cloud also includes millions of servers in public and private organizations. See cloud computing, cloud storage and rack mounted.