Accelerating geocomputation with cloud computing

The scientific and engineering advancements in the twenty-first century pose computing intensive challenges in managing Big Data, using complex algorithms to extract information and knowledge from Big Data, and simulating physical and social phenomena. Cloud computing is considered as the next generation computing platform with the potential to address these computing challenges and redefine the possibilities of geoscience and digital Earth. This chapter introduces through examples how cloud computing can help accelerate geocomputation with: (1) easy and fast access to computing resources that can be available in seconds to minutes, (2) elastic computing resources to handle spike computing loads, (3) high-end computing capacity to address large-scale computing demands, and (4) distributed services and computing to handle the distributed geoscience problems, data and users.