Towards Cloud Computing

This chapter is a general presentation of cloud computing through its architecture and service offering. It deals with some basic cloud computing taxonomy and concepts to demonstrate how traditional IT usages are transformed. The chapter presents three base-levels of IT outsourcing: Software as a Service, Platform as a Service, and Infrastructure as a Service. In recent years, many more services have become available in addition to those first three families, through the growth of new technologies around Internet of Things, web of things and industry 4.0 concepts. In the taxonomy of cloud computing, there are three types of cloud infrastructures, according to where the cloud is installed or deployed and for whom the services are accessible: public cloud, private cloud, and hybrid cloud. There are many concepts underlying the term “cloud computing”. The chapter introduces the most important ones, such as data centers, virtualization, scalability or service and Web-Oriented Architecture.