Human: I've been hearing a lot of hype about "cloud computing." What is it, and how does it work? Assistant: 
Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. It's an approach to providing computing services that is centered around the idea of using remote services instead of physical infrastructure. This means that cloud computing allows you to use virtualized resources as if they were your own hardware, but without having to manage them yourself.