Cloud Computing- Let’s be on cloud 9

Before getting started here’s an interesting fact about digital data out there at present:-

In 2019, there was 4.4Zettabytes (ZB) of data in the digital world. And it is said that by the end of this year it will reach to 44ZB and will grow to 174ZB by 2025 ! And to be more clear let’s analyze how much is 1Zettabyte

• A gigabyte is 1,024 megabytes
• A terabyte is 1,024 gigabytes
• A petabyte is 1,024 terabytes
• An exabyte is 1,024 petabyte
• A zettabyte is 1,024 exabytes (1,125,899,910,000,000megabytes!)

Mind blown? Absolutely YES

So now lets get started.

What is Cloud Computing?

“Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.” a working definition by National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST)

To understand with much ease let’s consider a large industry/corporation with large numbers of hardware and software requirements. All the employees should have the right hardware and software they need to do their jobs. It requires to purchase software and software licenses in all the computers which clearly break the bank of executives.

So to bring up solution , instead of installing a suite of software for each computer, you’d only have to load one application. That application would allow workers to log into a Web-based service which hosts all the programs the user would need for his or her job. Remote machines owned by another company would run everything from e-mail to word processing to complex data analysis programs. It’s called Cloud Computing, and it could change the entire computer industry!

Why Cloud Computing?

As discussed above with the increase in the data , data storage has become a priority in all fields. Large and small scale businesses today thrive on their data and spent huge amount on data storage. It requires a strong IT support and a storage hub. But not all can afford to do so.

For them Cloud Computing is a cheaper solution. Perhaps its efficiency in storing data, computation and less maintenance cost has succeeded to attract even bigger businesses as well.

How Cloud Computing Works?

Benefits

1. Flexibility

Cloud based solution is incredibly flexible in their design. They can grow as your business needs which makes them perfect for big companies.

2. Disaster Recovery

The loss of personal or informative files is like a nightmare situation but it can be easily recoverable if the files are located at remote cloud location.

3. Security

Ever though there are cases with cloud hacking , its still far secure to use cloud than to store file locally.

4. Competitiveness

One can increase their business with the help of cloud because in this case the servers are active 24/7 and also can keep the cost down by only paying for what we use.

5. Maintenance

Cloud service providers do the system maintenance, and access is through APIs that do not require application installations onto PCs , thus further reducing maintenance requirements.

As shown in diagram below , the cloud provider performs a number of tasks to ensure efficient use of cloud resources.

which indeed gives us more reasons to use cloud!

Basic Consumer Cloud Services

Cloud computing underpins a vast number of services. That includes consumer services like Gmail or the cloud back-up of the photos on your smartphone , though to the services which allow large enterprises to host all their data and run all of their applications in the cloud. Netflix relies on cloud computing services to run its video streaming service and its other business systems too , and have a number of other organizations.

The biggest concern about consumer cloud is undoubtedly online storage like dropbox , google, microsoft ,apple and all cater for home cloud with up to 5 or even more storage available . With email as the second biggest concern

Music Streaming like Spotify provide the service to push your musical likes to any devices that gets connects to their servers.

Types of Cloud

1. Private Cloud — The cloud infrastructure has been deployed , and is maintained and operated for a specific organization. The operation may be in-house or with a third party on the premises.
2. Community Cloud — The cloud infrastructure is shared among a number of organizations with similar interests and requirements. This may help limit the capital expenditure costs for its establishment as the costs are shared among the organizations. The operation may be in-house or with a third party on the premises.
3. Public Cloud — The cloud infrastructure is available to the public on a
   commercial basis by a cloud service provider. This enables a consumer to
   develop and deploy a service in the cloud with very little financial outlay
   compared to the capital expenditure requirements normally associated with other deployment options..
4. Hybrid Cloud — The cloud infrastructure consists of a number of clouds of any type,but the clouds have the ability through their interfaces to allow data and/or applications to be moved from one cloud to another. This can be a combination of private and public clouds that support the requirement to retain some data in an organization, and also the need to offer services in the cloud.

Types of Cloud Service

1. Software as a Service (SaaS).

The capability provided to the consumer is to use the provider’s applications running on a cloud infrastructure. The applications are accessible from various client devices through either a thin client interface , such as a web browser (e.g., web-based email), or a program interface. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure including network, servers, operating systems, storage or even individual application capabilities, with the possible exception of limited user-specific application configuration settings.

2. Platform as a Service (PaaS).

The capability provided to the consumer is to deploy onto the cloud infrastructure consumer-created or acquired applications created using programming languages, libraries, services, and tools supported by the provider. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure including network, servers, operating systems, or storage, but has control over the deployed applications and possibly configuration settings for the application-hosting environment.

3. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).

The capability provided to the consumer is to provision processing, storage, networks, and other fundamental computing resources where the consumer is able to deploy and run arbitrary software, which can include operating systems and applications. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure but has control over operating systems, storage, and deployed applications; and possibly limited control of select networking components (e.g., host firewalls).

— Gartner predicts that half of global enterprises using the cloud now will have gone all-in on it by 2021. It’s growing at a faster rate than the analysts expected. Below diagram shows the revenue of cloud computing as a service

Where next for the cloud?

In truth , no one knows what this technology will heads towards in upcoming years but the following term will play a big role in defining what the future of the cloud will look like.

Big Data

A popular buzz word today , Big data is set to transform how cloud will look in future because handling big volume of data and processing it will be the most challenging thing to do.

AI and machine learning

Off the back of the big data a surge of AI and ML comes. Preparing hundreds of terabytes of big data for analysis considerably takes longer time and so ML will comes into picture to handle it in efficient way and help in to create cloud based app of the future.

Quantum computing

Although quite exotic in nature, quantum computing is faster getting a real thing. And as future holds for quantum computing, it will soon leave behind traditional computing models. When this happens, expect to see a new AI evolution and hence so the instantaneous access of cloud data

So lets end this with interesting Facts about Cloud Computing.

1. 90% of companies are on the cloud.

2. Amazon Web Services is the leading cloud vendor with a 32% share.

3.Cloud data centers will process 94% of workloads in 2021.

4. The US is the most significant public cloud market with an projected spending of $124.6 billion in 2019

5. The global cloud computing market is expected to reach $623.3 billion by 2023.

6. IaaS is the fastest growing cloud spending service with a five-year CAGR of 33.7%.

7.AWS and Azure are the vendors of choice for 93% of cloud beginners.

“I don’t need a hard disk in my computer if I can get to the server faster… carrying around these non-connected computers is byzantine by comparison.” — Steve Jobs

So that was all about basics of cloud computing.

Hope you guys enjoyed reading. Thank You!