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Clouds

Most of this is based on the NIST definitions.

NIST Characteristics

On-Demand

  • Unilateral, no human interaction

Broad Network Access

  • Works on phones, laptops, desktops

Resource Pooling

  • Multi-tenant
  • Location independence

Rapid Elasticity

  • Capabilities can be provisioned and released, in some cases automatically
  • Resources often appear unlimited
  • Scales with demand

Measured Service

  • Resource usage is monitored controlled and reported

Service Models

SaaS — Software as a Service

Running a providers app on their cloud infrastructure.

  • Microsoft 365 (MS Teams)
  • Salesforce (CRM)
  • Atlassian (Agile)
  • Adobe Creative Cloud

PaaS – Platform as a Service

Deploy your own apps into a cloud.

  • AWS: Elastic Beanstalk (Java, Python etc.)
  • Azure App Service
  • Google App Engine
  • IBM Cloud Foundry

IaaS — Infrastructure as a Service

Provision compute, storage, and networks on a providers cloud network.

  • AWS (Amazon)
  • Azure (Microsoft)
  • Google Cloud Platform

Deployments

Private

  • Provisioned exclusively for one organization
  • The organization can have multiple customers
  • Can be on or off premise

Community

  • Provisioned exclusively for a community with a shared concern
  • Mission based
    • Security requirements
    • Policy Requirements
    • Compliance Requirements.

An example is is credit unions.

Public

Open for use by the public.

Hybrid

Merging some private cloud resources, with a public cloud offering.

  • Adding AI capability.

References

800-145 The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing

What is Hybrid Cloud? | IBM

Last Modified • Thursday, June 4, 2026. 10:22 pm UTC+00:00 • Commit: 6317c70