A more formal definition that encapsulates the key benefits of cloud computing from a business perspective as well as its unique features from a technological perspective given by Sean Martson et al. [4] in their research paper is as follows:
“It is an information technology service model where computing services (both hardware and software) are delivered on demand to customers over a network in a self-service fashion, independent of device and location. The resources required to provide the requisite quality-of service levels are shared, dynamically scalable, rapidly provisioned, virtualized and released with minimal service provider interaction. Users pay for the service as an operating expense without incurring any significant initial capital expenditure, with the cloud services employing a metering system that divides the computing resource in appropriate blocks.”