Cloud technology is used to store, process and retrieve data in a decentralised manner in "the data cloud". The computing power, storage capacity and applications are therefore not stored and operated locally, but in the cloud, i.e. on cloud servers. The most common cloud technologies are the public cloud, multi-cloud, private cloud and hybrid cloud.
Public cloud refers to cloud services that are "public", i.e. publicly available. This includes applications for private users, such as Google Drive, as well as classic company services, such as Salesforce. Multi cloud simply refers to the combined use of these public providers. A private cloud, on the other hand, refers to technologies that are available to a company "completely privately". This means that only the company itself has access to these applications. Many companies use both private cloud and public cloud services, which in turn is referred to as a hybrid cloud.