Cloud Computing explained —
Cloud Computing is right now, one of the most high-end technologies in the tech industry. But most of us still don’t know what is it? How does it work? Cloud computing remains an extraordinary technology ready to serve the needs of every startup, every top corporate firm, and every small scale business. Let’s know more about it, in this few minutes read about this high-end tech.
“Simply put, cloud computing is the delivery of computing services — servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and moreover the Internet (“the cloud”). Companies offering these computing services are called cloud providers and typically charge for cloud computing services based on usage, similar to how you are billed for water or electricity at home.”
before diving into more of cloud computing, its very definite, that we all think of the questions like, What is Cloud? Why is it called ‘Cloud’ computing anyways? Where is the ‘Cloud’?
To answer all these questions, let’s slide by some quick points.
What is Cloud? — So, the fundamental concept behind Cloud computing is that the location of this inevitable service or what we called the “Cloud”, and it’s fine details such as the hardware or operating system on which it is running, are largely irrelevant to the user. It’s with this ideology in check that the metaphor of the cloud was borrowed from the primitive telecoms network schematics, in which the public telephone network which later became ‘the internet’ was often represented as a cloud to denote that the just didn’t matter — it was simply a cloud of stuff. Cloud computing comes in handy providing a great deal of comfort and security to its clients and customers. So, cloud computing abstracts various processes into one swift and fast system.
Where is Cloud? — The shared pool of all the computer infrastructural resources are stored in a physical location called data center. The cloud providers have multiple data centers around the world. So your data is replicated at multiple sites. Even if a data center goes down because of a natural calamity or any other anonymous reason, it’s still safe in another location.
Let’s see how cloud computing works,
Why is it called “Cloud Computing” anyways? — At the elemental level, Cloud computing is a large number of computers connected via the Internet. It’s not just the computers storing the information on their hard-drive. It’s computers storing and accessing data through the Internet.
At the deeper level, cloud computing solves many of the headaches for its users. For instance, Rather than managing their computer infrastructure or handling their data hub, firms and companies can rent their access to everything from their applications to storage centers from a cloud service. Also, the most important usage and service of cloud computing is that it saves the upfront cost of its IT clients and the complications that arise while managing the own computer infrastructure. Now you might be wondering, what’s in it for cloud computing providers? So, let’s just say, in turn, providers of cloud computing providers benefit themselves from delivering the limited and same services, to an enormous number of customers.
According to Hyperscale cloud computing provider AWS (Amazon Web Services, cloud computing arm of Amazon.com) —
Cloud computing gives you access to servers, storage, databases, and a broad set of application services over the Internet. A cloud services provider such as Amazon Web Services, owns and maintains the network-connected hardware required for these application services, while you provision and use what you need via a web application.
So, by now we know how it works, we might yet be wondering over why to use it? well here are some significant differences you might notice after pushing your business or project with cloud computing: -
- It opens the option of virtual access to many different computers and operating systems very easily.
- It enhances the smoothening in the management of the IT of smaller companies so that they can compete with bigger companies in the market.
- It gives any small business rapid growth and elasticity.
- It gives companies a huge deal of pace for developing applications.
- Most importantly, lowers the cost of computing methods and computing power. (Pay as you go: You pay for the service you use) — Resources and their usage is critically watched, monitored and reported. Hence there is a transparency between the provider and the client.
Also for starters, briefly telling, cloud computing has three types:
I hope this overview will help you know what is cloud computing, and how it works. Since there are too many cloud service providers in the market, some being prominent, some limited to few businesses. Hence I would suggest you go with one alone and play with its cloud computing services.
Also, in the next post, I will focus more on types of cloud computing — IaaS(Infrastructure-as-a-Service), PaaS(Platform-as-a-Service), SaaS(Software-as-a-Service) and get a brief idea on how to dive deep more into cloud computing and its types. We will also talk about how cloud computing injects features like scalability and flexibility into your projects.
Some additional Resources are: -
https://aws.amazon.com/what-is-cloud-computing/
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/overview/what-is-cloud-computing/
https://cloud.google.com/what-is-cloud-computing/
https://www.ibm.com/cloud/learn/cloud-computing/
https://www.lenovo.com/in/en/faqs/laptop-faqs/what-is-cloud-computing/
