[Discuss] What Happens when a cloud service shuts down

[dcrookston at gmail.com (Daniel C.)]

On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 2:35 PM, Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org> wrote:
> Theoretically, a cloud is a virtual storage device where the actual storage
> media should be in several different locations fully mirrored.

I understand the value of backups, and I understand the value of
virtual computing, and parallel computing, and other things.  Could
someone (and I apologize if this is OT to the thread) explain to me
what exactly the buzzword "cloud computing" means, exactly?  My BS
detector flashes every time someone says it, but I have been wrong
once (okay, *maybe* twice) in the past.  Is it just a way of saying
that you have a distributed, parallel app whose individual nodes can
come online (or go offline) dynamically without interrupting the
service?  Is it strictly used to reference data storage - as in the
original email in this thread - or does it mean more than that?

Thanks,
Dan