I'm not sure about that. Cloud can involve virtualized resources that can be provisioned or deprovisioned dynamically based on demand but, it doesn't necessaril

I'm not sure about that. Cloud can involve virtualized resources that can be provisioned or deprovisioned dynamically based on demand but, it doesn't necessarily imply that the software / data in the cloud is ephemeral. Both can be designed to be persistent and durable, with long-term storage and retention. I think you're confusing an accident for an essence.