There are many applications that are called Cloud applications. As an example, those companies who deliver a web-based application for lots of customers (e.g. Salesforce) over the web call their application a Cloud App. On the other hand, many people know Cloud-based Apps as the ones built on top of Hadoop or similar technologies that could scale-up to many computing resources.
Now the Q is, is there an exact definition of a Cloud App? Is there any good resources on Cloud Apps? There is a nice link here, but it is a little bit old.
As far as I can tell, there’s no clear definition.
The loosest is simply any application that does most of the work on a server, not on the local client’s device.
The strictest definition I’ve heard is an application that runs almost entirely on a cluster of virtualized servers that are provided as a service, not hosted on-site. And the client device does almost nothing; probably just a simple web browser with minimal scripting.
Any definition in between could make sense in context.
I wouldn’t get too caught-up by it. “Cloud” is mostly just a marketing buzz-word with no serious technical definition.