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What is cloud computing?

8 cited papers · April 1, 2026 · Powered by Researchly AI

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Cloud computing has emerged as a new paradigm for hosting and delivering services over the Internet, attracting significant attention from academia, industries,…

Cloud computing has emerged as a new paradigm for hosting and delivering services over the Internet, attracting significant attention from academia, industries, and government bodies.¹It enables users to access virtualized services on demand, offering a pay-as-you-go model that has driven significant adoption in IT infrastructure.²

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Cloud computing: state-of-the-art and research challengesQi Zhang, Cheng Lü et al.2010Journal of Internet Services and Applications

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A Manifesto for Future Generation Cloud ComputingRajkumar Buyya, Satish Narayana Srirama et al.2018ACM Computing Surveys

On-Demand Service Model — Cloud computing allows enterprises to start small and increase resources only when there is a rise in service demand, eliminating the need for users to plan ahead for provisioning.

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Virtualization — Applications run on dedicated virtual machines (VMs), with each VM hosted on an independent server, enabling flexible and concurrent management of multiple applications.
Service Delivery (SaaS, IaaS) — Cloud computing streamlines on-demand provisioning of software, hardware, and data as a service, achieving economies of scale in IT solutions' deployment and operation.

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Pay-as-you-go Model — Cloud computing offers subscription-based services anytime, anywhere following a pay-as-you-go model, enabling shorter establishment times for start-ups and scalable global enterprise applications.

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1

Cloud computing: state-of-the-art and research challengesQi Zhang, Cheng Lü et al.2010Journal of Internet Services and Applications

2

A Manifesto for Future Generation Cloud ComputingRajkumar Buyya, Satish Narayana Srirama et al.2018ACM Computing Surveys

3

Cloud Computing: Distributed Internet Computing for IT and Scientific ResearchMarios D. Dikaiakos, Dimitrios Katsaros et al.2009IEEE Internet Computing

4

A view of cloud computingMichael Armbrust, Armando Fox et al.2010Communications of the ACM

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Diagram

+------------------+ +---------------------+ +------------------+
| End Users / | | Cloud Service | | Data Centers |
| Enterprises | <---> | Layer (SaaS/IaaS/ | <---> | Virtual |
| (Clients) | | PaaS) | | Machines (VMs) |
+------------------+ +---------------------+ +------------------+
 | | |
 | Internet / Network | |
 +---------------------------+-----------------------------+
 Pay-as-you-go / On-Demand Access

Cloud computing relies on the use of elastic virtual machines and network-based data exchange to deliver services.¹Resource provisioning in cloud environments involves complex requirements including composition, configuration, and deployment, and evaluating provisioning policies under varying system configurations is a significant challenge.¹Recent technological developments such as serverless computing, software-defined networking, Internet of Things (IoT), and edge processing are creating new opportunities for cloud computing while also posing new challenges around scalability, elasticity, reliability, security, and sustainability.²³

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CloudSim: a toolkit for modeling and simulation of cloud computing environments and evaluation of resource provisioning algorithmsRodrigo N. Calheiros, Rajiv Ranjan et al.2010Software Practice and Experience

2

A Manifesto for Future Generation Cloud ComputingRajkumar Buyya, Satish Narayana Srirama et al.2018ACM Computing Surveys

3

A view of cloud computingMichael Armbrust, Armando Fox et al.2010Communications of the ACM

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Several outstanding issues exist in cloud computing, particularly related to SLAs, security and privacy, and power efficiency, as well as data transfer bottlenecks, performance unpredictability, reliability, and software licensing issues.¹²

1

Cloud Computing: Distributed Internet Computing for IT and Scientific ResearchMarios D. Dikaiakos, Dimitrios Katsaros et al.2009IEEE Internet Computing

2

Cloud computing: state-of-the-art and research challengesQi Zhang, Cheng Lü et al.2010Journal of Internet Services and Applications

Cloud computing eliminates the need for upfront infrastructure planning by allowing on-demand resource scaling.

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It has become the backbone of the modern economy through subscription-based, pay-as-you-go service delivery.

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Virtualization is central to cloud computing, enabling multiple applications to run concurrently on shared infrastructure.

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Evaluating and optimizing resource provisioning remains a core technical challenge in cloud environments.

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Security, privacy, and performance unpredictability are among the most critical open research challenges in cloud computing.

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1

Cloud computing: state-of-the-art and research challengesQi Zhang, Cheng Lü et al.2010Journal of Internet Services and Applications

2

A Manifesto for Future Generation Cloud ComputingRajkumar Buyya, Satish Narayana Srirama et al.2018ACM Computing Surveys

3

Cloud Computing: Distributed Internet Computing for IT and Scientific ResearchMarios D. Dikaiakos, Dimitrios Katsaros et al.2009IEEE Internet Computing

4

CloudSim: a toolkit for modeling and simulation of cloud computing environments and evaluation of resource provisioning algorithmsRodrigo N. Calheiros, Rajiv Ranjan et al.2010Software Practice and Experience

5

A view of cloud computingMichael Armbrust, Armando Fox et al.2010Communications of the ACM

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"Comparison of IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS cloud service models"
"Security and privacy challenges in cloud computing"
"Edge computing and its relationship to cloud computing paradigms"

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