What is this cloud computing thing all about?

Last summer, David McClure, deputy administrator in the Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies at the General Services Administration, spoke before a House subcommittee on the topic of cloud computing. The approach "enables convenient, rapid, and on-demand computer network access … to a shared pool of configurable computing resources," he said, calling this new way of delivering computer resources "revolutionary."

In McClure's estimation, cloud computing represents an opportunity for the federal government "to close the IT performance gap."

By now, you've no doubt heard about the shift to cloud computing and its potential impact on agency operations. But how does it work in practice? In case you're still wondering, we've prepared a complimentary special report on 10 recent cloud computing breakthroughs.

Download the special report