Over the past few weeks, I've been involved in several trade events and panel discussions on cloud computing. At each of these events, the struggle to define exactly what cloud computing is and isn't continues. One common point of confusion that I frequently encounter is a lack of understanding between cloud computing and virtualization.

Virtualization is a technology that lets us run multiple instances of an operating system or other application execution environment on a single physical hardware platform. While it is important to understand that virtualization is an enabling technology for cloud computing, it needs to be made clear that virtualization is a powerful technology itself and has many uses outside of a cloud environment. Typical applications of virtualization include physical server consolidation, application development and testing, disaster recovery and, yes, cloud computing.

Elements of cloud computing, on the other hand, would not be possible without the benefits of virtualization. Slap down your credit card at Amazon Web Services for an ECC instance and guess what? You've just created a virtual server on Amazon's cloud infastructure that can be paid for by the hour and sized up or down as usage demands.

Understanding the difference between these two technologies will help you decide on their proper application to meet your business goals and needs.