When you store data on or run programs from the drive, that's known as local storage and computing. Everything you wish is physically near to you, which means accessing your knowledge is quick and simple, for that one computer, or others on the local network. Operating off your drive is how the computer business functioned for decades; some would argue it's still superior to cloud computing.
Cloud computing is the delivery of on-demand computing services -- from applications to storage and process power -- generally over the internet and on a pay-as-you-go basis. Rather than owning their computing infrastructure or information centers, corporations can rent access to anything from applications to storage from a cloud service supplier. One advantage of using cloud computing services is that corporations can avoid the upfront price and complexity of owning and maintaining their own IT infrastructure, and instead simply purchase what they use, once they use it.
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