Computer terms

Cloud computing

A term used to describe services over a network by a collection of servers. These computers or cloud of computers enable the users visiting to have access to a much faster computers or servers, be able to access programs and services from anywhere with Internet access often without having to install other software, and get access to the services from any device capable of reaching the network or Internet.

Windows Azure

A platform and collection of services provided by Microsoft that is a cloud computing setup that allows clients to easily develop services that can easily scaled depending on the current requirements. This allows a company or service to be setup online and be able to handle a small amount or large amount of traffic or heavy processing needs without having to worry about hardware upgrades or changing the network infrastructure

Server farm

Sometimes referred to as just a farm, server farms are collections of computers (at least 10) working together or in conjunction with one another. One of the largest, if not THE largest server farms, is maintained by the popular search engine Google. At last report Google had over 10,000 computers in its server farm. In the picture to the right, is an example of a server farm with several hundred 1U rack mountable computers.