Cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of compute power, database, storage, applications, and other IT resources through a cloud services platform via the internet with pay-as-you-go pricing. Whether you are running applications that share photos to millions of mobile users or you are supporting the critical operations of your business, a cloud services platform provides rapid access to flexible and low-cost IT resources. With cloud computing, you do not need to make large upfront investments in hardware and spend a lot of time on the heavy lifting of managing that hardware. Instead, you can provision exactly the right type and size of computing resources you need to power your newest bright idea or operate your IT department. You can access as many resources as you need, almost instantly, and only pay for what you use.

Cloud computing provides a simple way to access servers, storage, databases and a broad set of application services over the internet. A cloud services platform such as Amazon Web Services owns and maintains the network-connected hardware required for these application services, while you provision and use what you need via a web application.