What is cloud computing

This first post about benefits of creating your application online. I will explore the benefits and  the alternatives that are available.
Ok , lets see the definition of cloud computing .

"Cloud computing is defined as model of computing where the infrastructure , software resources and data are present outside."

Many points of vital importance are present in this definition which are explained below.
1. Model of computing : Cloud computing is diffrent from existing models of computing like mainframes and client server paradigms.

2. Infrastructure , software resources and data ; these three things are the building blocks of any software application.

•    Infrastructure is the hardware required to host or run the application.
•    Software resources are the building blocks of an application and constitute things like web servers ,   application installers , database etc.
•   Data is well ..data. Anything of importance fed by user or computed by system .

3. Outside. This is the most important part of the definition. Outside implies the people using or developing the application are not responsible for the maintaince , upkeep of the key ingredients (Infrastructure , software resource and data). This is taken care by the people who are expert in this job. We just hire these key ingredients from them for a reasonable price.

Some where on internet I read that a proper anecdote to explain the cloud computing would be : "If you need milk , you dont need to buy the cow. You can buy milk from a store"

the cow here represents the three ingredients while the milk represents the application which we require.

So far so good.