What is a cloud service?

Question

Computer networks

The word "cloudy" appeared several years ago. On the Internet they write that a "cloud service" is a service that provides computing resources remotely. But there were such services before, for example, all sorts of file storages. In general, it has become fashionable to call all services cloudy, although there is nothing new in them for the user, everything is the same as 10 years ago.
It seems to me that "cloudiness" refers to the architecture of the service and means that it runs on some virtual platform from a group of servers.
In general, what is the difference between a cloud service and a non-cloud service?

Answer 1

1. Collocation - you put your computer at the provider and the provider provides accessibility (Internet and electricity).
2. Server rental - the provider gives you access to one of their servers, which they allocate for you.
3. Virtual server - the provider gives you access to a virtual server that he created on one of his servers.
4. A cloud server is the same as a virtual server, but you don't know on which provider's server this cloud server is hosted. In addition, it can be hosted in some kind of cluster, which can dynamically expand and change and move around.