The aim of this book is to provide clarity on what cloud computing is, and its place in the modern computing landscape. It will explain to astronomers how to go about assessing costs and evaluating performance, since commercial cloud platforms charge for resources as they are consumed. It will also explain to astronomers where they can make effective use of cloud platforms. This will be done primarily through examples of projects that have already successfully run on cloud platforms.

One particularly important driver for the use of cloud computing is the immense growth in the size and complexity of data, which accelerate in the 2020s, with the commissioning of new instruments such as LSST, SKA, JWST, Euclid, WFIRST. This growth will strain computing resources. Astronomers will have a much greater need to perform to analysis next to the data, on what have become known as science platforms. Cloud computing will assume growing importance in this regard.