"Cloud computing, which itself is an analogy or possibly a metaphor wrapped in a euphemism, has seen more than its fair share of linguistic tricks applied to it over the years. Among the more frequent is the so-called "power grid" analogy. It goes like this, "Cloud computing is like plugging into a central power grid instead of generating your own power." OK, don't like that one? There's always the thermostat analogy, "

An article about the language used to describe renting an off site server vs. having owning and maintaining you own server on site.