MYTH: THE CLOUD IS THE CLOUD — IT’S ALL THE SAME FACT: CLOUD MODELS DIFFER Cloud computing is an umbrella term for computer services provided over the internet — in the cloud. Cloud-based services allow firms to replace their inhouse servers and resources with third-party servers and support. All cloud providers are internet-based, but two vastly different models exist. In the hosted cloud model, on-premises software providers modify their legacy systems to cloud-based servers, but the architecture of the software remains the same. This approach fails to leverage native cloud capabilities including instant upgrades and updates, immediate scalability, and seamless integration with other applications, and still requires the company to spin up and maintain separate (virtual) servers, similar to an on-premises solution. Additionally, hosted systems tend to retain the technical issues inherent in their legacy counterparts. For this reason and others, tech support is also more complex