What is cloud computing?

Rather than keeping files and programs only on a personal computer or company server, cloud computing stores and runs them on remote machines accessed through the internet. Providers such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud operate enormous data centres around the world. Customers pay for what they use, scaling up or down in minutes rather than buying new servers. Services are commonly grouped into infrastructure, platform and software as a service, with email, photo backup and streaming being everyday examples. Amazon Web Services launched its first major cloud services in 2006, helping turn the cloud into a market worth hundreds of billions of dollars a year.