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Cloud computing is the delivery of on-demand computing resources over the Internet. These resources include data storage, processing power, applications, physical servers, virtual servers, development tools, networking capabilities, and more. Cloud computing platforms help businesses build their complete infrastructure in a distributed fashion on the Internet instead of in their in-house data center. This offloads the costs of maintaining a company's own infrastructure to a cloud provider who will bill for only what they use. Cloud platforms offer elasticity to a business so that they can scale services based on workload. Virtualization in a cloud environment enables cloud platforms to provide more value by dividing physical hardware into virtual devices. The distributed nature of the cloud gives every user a low-latency connection, whether at the office or on the road.

Cloud platforms provide a variety of computing services to their customers. They also offer storage for companies to store all data types in the cloud, including PDFs and public images, and private company files. Their granular security allows companies to set access rights down to a specific endpoint, data file, or user. Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is a common cloud service a company can use to manage operating systems, runtimes, data, and applications in the cloud. When a cloud provider offers a platform as a service (PaaS), they provide businesses with hardware that comes with pre-installed software, which helps developers to get started quickly. With software as a service (SaaS), the cloud provider manages software or a software suite for a business, and they just use it. Cloud platforms also offer serverless computing where a company doesn't manage the infrastructure, virtual machines, or servers. Instead, they deploy simple functions they can use on-demand.