Within these deployment models, there are four main services: infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), software as a service (SaaS), and serverless computing.

Cloud computing is the delivery of computing services—including servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence—over the internet (“the cloud”) to offer faster innovation, flexible resources, and economies of scale.

Cloud software provides users on-demand access to a variety of computing services (e.g., applications, data storage, processing power, networking) via the internet. These computing resources are maintained in remote servers that are devoted to hosting a variety of applications across a variety of platforms.

The title of the father of cloud computing is attributed to Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider, often referred to as J.C.R. Licklider. His groundbreaking ideas and concepts laid the groundwork for the cloud computing landscape we know today.