Resources vs. IT Resources

Artifacts accessible via the World Wide Web are referred to as resources or Web resources. This is a more generic term than IT resources. An IT resource, within the context of cloud computing, represents a physical or virtual IT-related artifact that can be software or hardware-based. A resource on the Web, however, can represent a wide range of artifacts accessible via the World Wide Web. For example, a JPG image file accessed via a Web browser is considered a resource. For examples of common IT resources, see the IT Resource section.

Furthermore, the term resource may be used in a broader sense to refer to general types of processable artifacts that may not exist as standalone IT resources. For example, CPUs and RAM memory are types of resources that are grouped into resource pools and can be allocated to actual IT resources.