CLOUD COMPUTING AND SAAS

Cloud computing is a paradigm of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet.[1][2] Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure in the "cloud" that supports them.[3]

The concept generally incorporates combinations of the following:
infrastructure as a service (IaaS)
platform as a service (PaaS)
software as a service (SaaS)
Other recent (ca. 2007–09)[4][5] technologies that rely on the Internet to satisfy the computing needs of users. Cloud computing services often provide common business applications online that are accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on the servers.

The term cloud is used as a metaphor for the Internet, based on how the Internet is depicted in computer network diagrams and is an abstraction for the complex infrastructure it conceals.[6]

The first academic use of this term appears to be by Prof. Ramnath K. Chellappa (currently at Goizueta Business School, Emory University) who originally defined it as a computing paradigm where the boundaries of computing will be determined by economic rationale rather than technical limits.


-That was according to Wikipedia. You can visit the link below for more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing