Cloud computing is an overloaded term and vague at that. I would define it as the outsourcing of your IT services to 3rd parties over the Web. Remote access only to these services may sound incomplete since it suggests interaction with people rather than applications integration, and leaving aside the outsourcing and subsequently the utility like service consumption that are the novel elements of the Cloud.

The Cloud is, in fact, a business concept even though created by the IT world. But so are SOA and Enterprise Architecture. And it should refer only to the services cloud of your Enterprise. Each and every firm may have its own cloud, that would overlap sometimes at multi tenant service providers. As a simple picture, it looks like an Enterprise Cloud of Services surrounding and serving your core company.

It consists of a few component service concepts (types of outsourcing services): SaaS, PaaS (XaaS)... (Application, Platform, Infrastructure, Security... as a Service). PaaS (platform) and all its variants, part of the computing cloud, offer the opportunity to outsource not only your data center but platforms for your Web presence, content management... Integration as a Service is an emerging service providing the orchestration and integration of the XaaS services.

The cloud covers both the IT application and technology layers of an Enterprise Architecture. Imagine, the EA Business Architecture layer resting on top of a fluffy Cloud of distributed, outsourced IT Application and Technology layers. The cloud symbol, coming from the networking world, signifies Internet distribution. Mind you, you still need to understand the overall Enterprise Architecture, but you need not bother with technology detail any longer.

Because of the mapping between various XaaS. a few business models are possible. At one end, your applications would be outsourced to different SaaS providers in the Cloud providing their own technology layer. At the other end, applications from various providers are housed by one or more Infrastructure/Data Centers providers, managed by 3rd parties.

Is the Cloud a technology? To start with, it is the business concept of outsourcing IT services, really. As with SOA, companies such as Amazon, Google, Salesforce.com, Microsoft... provide various technological platforms/centers for you to use. Sometimes I found them called private clouds. A number of them may become part of your Enterprise cloud.

What will be the impact on IT?

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