An analogy
What is cloud computing?
General
Worry Less
When you hit the switch to turn on the light, the light turns on. You don't have to think about the process behind the light turning on - from the power provider (source), down the transmission line, distributed to your street and forwarded into your accomodation thereby providing electricity for your light bulb.
All that complex gibberish is hidden away behind the clean interface of a switch that you simply flip one way to turn the light on, and the other way to turn off. And really, that's what you want in life. You don't want to have to worry about how confusing the internals of things are or how they work every time you hit the switch - you just simply want it to work and see that bulb glow.
So all the process that provides power to the light bulb is HIDDEN behind that simple light switch. The hardest thing you have to deal with is paying for the bill - as electricity has become a utility for you. Just by paying for electricity you not only have the ability to turn on your lights, but also power your gas, get your fridge running, access the Internet and much more!
Electricity as a utility
As electricity is a utility, there are several benefits that come with it. These being:
Pay for what you use (variable cost)
You don't need to pay your provider an up-front fixed bill each month. Unlike your phone plan, or your Netflix subscription where you're contracted to pay $8 or $30 a month, you only need to pay for the electricity that you use. This means that those months where you didn't use as much electricity or where you needed a little more power averages out to save you more in the long run.
Scaling
As well as cost, you don't need to worry about the disadvantages that come with demand and scaling the amount of electricity you can use. For example, if you need more data, you'll be additionally charged on top of your regular subscription fee to do so. However, if you don't use all that data that you paid for, it all goes to waste and you're left feeling sad having spent more than you needed. There's no easy way for you to go up and down according to your needs.
On the other hand, electricity is always guaranteed as just like a tap you can choose how much you need at different times. If you need more or less, you can simply do so without any hassle. Moreover, with more people using the electricity there isn't a worry on the "electricity running out".
Up-to-date
Developers
Cloud computing is an abstraction of computing services that is bundled together such that people are able to easily access these services at their discretion. These services can range from hosting servers, databases, computing power, artificial intelligence and more. Having these concentrated in an area encourages the democratisation of technology that would otherwise be difficult to procure by normal means for both individuals and businesses alike.
In a sense, these are stored online in the "cloud", a space that can be access from virtually anywhere providing you have an internet connection. Access to the services that cloud computing provides is typically tied to a pay-for-what-you-use model where you "rent" technology for use. This makes it easy for people to scale up and down accordingly to their changing needs.
For example, say you want a storage container that holds 32GB, but you quickly find that you have ran out. Cloud computing has the capability to stretch your limit to what you need to use (e.g. 32.1 or 32.0003GB) and charges you appropriately for such.
Some advantages in subscribing to cloud platforms like Azure is the benefits that come with technology associated by the cloud provider (in this case Microsoft). Having Microsoft behind the development of the technology and infrastructure guarantees that Azure is always up-to-date, reliable and secure.
Summary
Put simply, cloud computing is essentialy
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