Cloud computing involves delivering computing services over the Internet. It evolved from concepts in the 1950s but was popularized in 2006 when Amazon launched AWS. Cloud computing has three main components - clients that access the cloud, distributed servers that host applications and data, and datacenters that house the servers. There are different types of clients and deployment models for cloud services including public, private, hybrid and community clouds. Key benefits of cloud computing include reduced complexity, flexibility, scalability, and not having to purchase and maintain your own software/infrastructure.