3. Cloud" and "software-defined infrastructure" concepts

The Cloud, for hosting and managing applications, is also part of the smart city ecosystem. Cloud services enable several things:

• First of all, cloud server systems, thanks to their computing power, can handle the real computational load of applications, because the IP objects connected to the Internet are most often simple, low-capability devices with very limited processor and memory capacity, i.e. sensors or actuators;

• on the other hand, the Cloud makes it possible to intelligently collect and centralize information distributed across dispersed nodes or sub-networks, for a total view of the entire architecture.