<i>Cloud Computing: Business Trends and Technologies</i> provides a broad introduction to Cloud computing technologies and their applications to IT and telecommunications businesses (i.e., the network function virtualization, NFV). To this end, the book is expected to serve as a textbook in a graduate course on Cloud computing.<br/><br/>The book examines the business cases and then concentrates on the technologies necessary for supporting them. In the process, the book addresses the principles of ¿ as well as the known problems with ¿ the underlying technologies, such as virtualization, data communications, network and operations management, security and identity management. It introduces, through open-source case studies (based on OpenStack), an extensive illustration of lifecycle management.<br/><br/>The book also looks at the existing and emerging standards, demonstrating their respective relation to each topic.<br/><br/>Overall, this is an authoritative textbook on this emerg