Big Data applications are pervading more and more aspects of our life, encompassing commercial and scientific uses at increasing rates as we move towards exascale analytics. Examples of Big Data applications include storing and accessing user data in commercial clouds, mining of social data, and analysis of large-scale simulations and experiments such as the Large Hadron Collider. An increasing number of such data—intensive applications and services are relying on clouds in order to process and manage the enormous amounts of data required for continuous operation. It can be difficult to decide which of the many options for cloud processing is suitable for a given application; the aim of this paper is therefore to provide an interested user with an overview of the most important concepts of cloud computing as it relates to processing of Big Data.