This workshop provides an overview of cloud computing, predominately for PhD students who may be able to use it to support their own research. It provides a definition of cloud computing, and looks at the various commercial offerings available, including Amazon's EC2, Microsoft's Azure and Google's AppEngine. The workshop discusses the shift from decentralised distributed resources to centralised infrastructure, managed in professional 'data' centres, and illustrates how these may be leveraged to support a range of research projects. We will also provide pointers to key research issues in cloud computing, such as meta-scheduling, workflows, energy management, data mining and the like.