5. Cloud Computing: Why is it called so?

It is interesting to know why is it called cloud computing. The origin of the term cloud computing is obscure, but it appears to derive from the practice of using drawings of stylized clouds to denote networks in diagrams of computing and communications systems. 

The name cloud computing was inspired by the cloud symbol that’s often used to represent the Internet in flow charts and diagrams. Cloud computing is a general term for anything that involves delivering hosted service over the Internet.

                                          Figure 5: Cloud Computing. Why is it called cloud?  Picture source

The word cloud is used as a metaphor for the Internet, based on the standardized use of a cloud-like shape to denote a network on telephony schematics and later to depict the Internet in computer network diagrams as an abstraction of the underlying infrastructure it represents. The cloud symbol was used to represent the Internet as early as 1994. 

One relevant quote " Cloud comes from the early days of Internet where we drew the network as a cloud... we didn't care where the message went- the cloud hid it from us " , Kevin Marks, Google