We began our series on the business of cloud computing, "Handshake 2.0 Takes on the Cloud," with this imperative:

"Tell me what I need to know about The Cloud in terms I can understand and that I can do something about - or not - for my business, for my customers, and for the greater good." 

Our series addresses those issues and more.  At the end of this post, we've compiled the links to all posts in the series.  To close, we quote John Keats:

"'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,' - that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

We offer the following images in hopes that, about cloud computing, they are "all ye need to know."

Cloud Computing
The cloud allocates just enough computing power
for you to do what you want to do.

Cloud Hosting
Hosting in the cloud gives you more power for heavy traffic
and lower costs for light traffic, all dynamically adjusted.

SaaS
Instead of running on your computer, Software-as-Service (SaaS)
applications run in the cloud, taking instructions from your computer,
then sending the results as output to your computer.
What you wanted to do is done.

***

Our Handshake 2.0 series on cloud computing ran June 12-June 22, 2009.  We've compiled links to the entire series here, each opening in a new window:

Handshake 2.0 Takes on The Cloud - Introduction
Welcome to The Cloud - The Cloud Computing Story
The Cloud I Want - How The Cloud can serve the greater good
Cloud Computing for Small Businesses: More With Less
The Benefit of The Cloud for Businesses: Pay-for-Use
The Cloud is Everywhere and Nowhere at the Same Time
The Cloud:  Immediate, Scalable, Billed by the Hour
The Cloud Can Offer Small Companies an Advantage Over Large Companies
The Cloud:  Bring on the Bursts and the Limitless Software Choices
Cloud Computing - Just Draw Me a Picture - Conclusion (this post)

For contributing their expertise to this series, we thank Cameron Nouri of Rackspace, David Catalano of Modea, Jim Schweitzer of Vision Point Systems, Rob La Gesse of Rackspace, Barry Welch of Internet Databases, and Calvin Ribbens and Osman Balci, Computer Science at Virginia Tech.

Thanks to Alex Edelman for providing context for the series in Welcome to The Cloud, The Cloud I Want, and sketches and captions for the images, Kelsey Jade Sarles, graphic artist, for the series logo and the final images above, and Catherine Fong for her research.