Cloud Services

What Does Cloud Services Mean?

Cloud services refer to any IT services that are provisioned and accessed from a cloud computing provider. This is a broad term that incorporates all delivery and service models of cloud computing and related solutions. Cloud services are delivered over the internet and accessible globally from the internet.

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Techopedia Explains Cloud Services

Cloud services provide many IT services traditionally hosted in-house, including provisioning an application/database server from the cloud, replacing in-house storage/backup with cloud storage and accessing software and applications directly from a web browser without prior installation.

There are three basic types of cloud services:

  • Software as a service (SaaS)
  • Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)
  • Platform as a service (PaaS)

Cloud services provide great flexibility in provisioning, duplicating and scaling resources to balance the requirements of users, hosted applications and solutions. Cloud services are built, operated and managed by a cloud service provider, which works to ensure end-to-end availability, reliability and security of the cloud.

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Margaret Rouse

Margaret Rouse is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical, business audience. Over the past twenty years her explanations have appeared on TechTarget websites and she's been cited as an authority in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine and Discovery Magazine.Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages. If you have a suggestion for a new definition or how to improve a technical explanation, please email Margaret or contact her…