Spring Cloud is a suite of tools designed to facilitate the development of distributed systems and microservices in Java. It builds on the Spring framework, providing essential features such as service discovery, configuration management, and circuit breakers, which are crucial for creating resilient and scalable applications. By leveraging Spring Cloud, developers can easily manage the complexities of microservices architecture, enabling seamless communication between services and simplifying deployment processes. This framework enhances the capabilities of Spring Boot, allowing developers to focus on building robust applications without getting bogged down by the underlying infrastructure challenges.