(ISO: Geneva) -- If the cloud computing trend sounds a bit nebulous to you, you’re not alone. Many enterprises that opt for these services end up with complicated multicloud deployments that become unmanageable. These are complex systems with complex failures, which are in urgent need of systemization. Happily, two new ISO/IEC standards have put some order in the chaos.

The sky’s the limit for cloud computing, which seems set to change the entire computer industry. This revolutionary concept has reached unexpected heights in the last decade and is recognized by governments and private-sector organizations as major game-changing technology.

But what exactly is it? Until recently, most software programs ran on your personal computer. With cloud computing, they now run on large networks of remote servers that enable the sharing of data-processing tasks, centralized storage, and online access to computer services—all over the Internet.

Beyond its technical definition, cloud computing holds a host of benefits. By maximizing the effectiveness of shared resources, it achieves coherence and economies of scale, much like the electricity grid, for example.

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