Glossary term: Cloud Computing
Cloud Computing is an alternative method of storing data and programs that focuses on online storage. Originally, software, data, and other information that a user needed to access was stored on a computer's hard drive. For example, your word documents are saved on your computer as is the Microsoft Word software program.The cloud is a metaphor for the internet as a location to store information, instead of the computer's hard drive. The concept behind cloud computing is that documents and software, even operating systems can be stored online. Google Docs is a good example of cloud computing. With Google Docs, if a user wanted to edit a document, they would open it up from an online location and edit it without ever having to download anything. This means computers will need less memory space because the computer will function as a portal to the information in the internet "cloud" but won’t actually store it.