Experts in the IT industry believe that cloud computing is the way of the future of IT, but so many are not sure how this will affect their business. Cloud computing when defined sounds like something from outer space and it might just be in – described as a the internet being a cloud and putting your business material out on this cloud away from computers and servers.

In essence cloud computing is nothing more than outsource the maintenance of servers, applications, the ability to access your information anywhere as long as you have an internet connection, and the opportunity to replace large amounts of money on IT with budgeted lower expenditures.

Within the structure of Cloud Computing are utility computing, SaaS, PaaS, laaS, RIA, multi-tenancy, and more. In order to get your business out there you will need to understand the differences found in the Cloud Computing community.

Utility computing – Saving money on installing and maintaining hardware and applications via services that you pay as you need them just like many other services that you use on a daily basis such as the utilities in your home or office.

SaaS (Software as a service) – services that are ready when you need them online instead of using your own software programs. A good example would be Google Docs.

PaaS (Platform as a service) – this is nothing more than operating system or web server that you can find from a cloud provider.

IaaS (infrastructure as a service) – another service providing a type of pay as you go for the use of virtual servers.

RIA (rich internet application) – a rich internet application is one that offers applications that run in the browser offering exquisite graphics and a modern interface.

Multi-tenancy – this is the ability for cloud-hosted applications to be shared by multiple customers with access to only their information.