ABSTRACT
Cloud computing, with the revolutionary promise of turning computing into a 5th utility, after water, electricity, gas, and telephony, has the potential to transform the face of Information Technology, especially the aspects of service-rendition and service management. “The Cloud” is based on the idea of generating computing facility on demand. Cloud Computing is based on two main techniques — Service Oriented Architecture and Virtualization. Cloud Applications are not only developed with a business perspective but also take into account activities oriented towards socializing and sharing information. Cloud computing should not be confused with Grid Computing, Utility Computing and Autonomic Computing. Grid computing consists of clusters of loosely coupled, networked computers acting in concert to perform very large tasks. Cloud Computing plays a significant role in varied areas like e-business, search engines, data mining, virtual machines, batch oriented scientific computing, online TV amongst many others.
