Discuss the three main areas of service included in Cloud computing.

What will be an ideal response?

Cloud computing includes three main areas of service: Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service, and Software as a Service.

• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is the delivery of a networked computing infrastructure over the Internet. This infrastructure includes high-end servers with increased storage and processing power, Internet connectivity, a secure environment for housing equipment, and online tools to remotely manage and monitor performance. IaaS provides infrastructure for storing files in the Cloud so that users can access them from anywhere and for managing virtual servers using software tools.

• Platform as a Service (PaaS) is the delivery of a computing platform over the Internet. Developers can create and deploy large-scale business Web applications using development tools that are hosted within the Cloud. PaaS provides the tools for storing, running, and monitoring the performance of social networking, business, and computing applications over the Internet.

• Software as a Service (SaaS) is the delivery of software applications over the Internet. Software applications are stored and deployed from servers on the Internet. SaaS provides the ability for business applications such as Salesforce Social CRM, and consumer applications such as Google Docs, an online office suite for collaboratively creating documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, to run over the Internet.