We may say that Cloud is one of the aspects of globalization. The complex Internet technologies, combined with the increasing global availability of broadband, allow to distribute data and programs on the network, independently of the geo-location of the users who access them.

For example, when you access Facebook from your computer,  Facebook pages and their contents (our comments, our pictures) are downloaded from the network (from the cloud!) and displayed on the screen.

The same happens with a lot of other things that you prefer to keep on the network stored in your provider's server instead of the disk of your PC: photos, music, movies and documents of all kinds, and the phenomenon is spreading also to programs and business data.

A typical example is the dynamic website with its content management system (CMS), a program that resides on the internet along with all site content. The same happens more and more with business management software and data: customers and web marketing (CRM), sales orders and invoicing (e-commerce), etc...

There are great benefits with this:

• Hosting providers focus on their core activities and provide redundant servers in different geographical locations: in case of failure in one site your programs and data continue to be available!
• Software providers can focus on their applications and provide all-inclusive services at very competitive prices.
• End customers no longer need to acquire and maintain complex network structures with servers and backup systems and their data and programs are accessible everywhere.