"the cloud" [wikipedia]

-Cloud computing is computation, software, data access, and storage services that do not require end-user knowledge of the physical location and configuration of the system that delivers the services. Parallels to this concept can be drawn with the electricity grid where end-users consume power resources without any necessary understanding of the component devices in the grid required to provide the service.

-Cloud computing is a natural evolution of the widespread adoption of virtualization, service-oriented architecture, autonomic and utility computing. Details are abstracted from end-users, who no longer have need for expertise in, or control over, the technology infrastructure "in the cloud" that supports them.

-It is a byproduct and consequence of the ease-of-access to remote computing sites provided by the Internet.

-The term "cloud" is used as a metaphor for the Internet, based on the cloud drawing used in the past to represent the telephone network, and later to depict the Internet in computer network diagrams as an abstraction of the underlying infrastructure it represents.Typical cloud computing providers deliver common business applications online that are accessed from another Web service or software like a Web browser, while the software and data are stored on servers.

-The Intercloud is an interconnected global "cloud of clouds" and an extension of the Internet "network of networks" on which it is based. The term was first used in the context of cloud computing in 2007 when Kevin Kelly stated that "eventually we'll have the intercloud, the cloud of clouds. This Intercloud will have the dimensions of one machine comprising all servers and attendant cloudbooks on the planet.". It became popular in 2009 and has also been used to describe the datacenter of the future.

-The cloud model has been criticized by privacy advocates for the greater ease in which the companies hosting the cloud services control, and thus, can monitor at will, lawfully or unlawfully, the communication and data stored between the user and the host company.