Cloud computing. IaaS, PaaS, SaaS. What is it, how to use it, and how to DIY?
Almost everytime someone talks about the Clouds we imagine the clouds in the sky, right? White fluffy skyish ones. Actually, this is the key to the idea of Cloud computing.
Same as the real clouds, imaginary ones are robust and highly productive entities that make our lives so much easier. Let’s explore how to use existing Clouds and how to create them which is also very interesting.
What is the Cloud computing?
Simply put, the Cloud is a third-party service that you use through the Internet: a database, storage, software, services, anything techy that you set up on your web server and maintain or you buy from other providers.
The amount of data is increasing tremendously; therefore, there is a need to store and process it fast and efficient. Here comes a demand for Cloud computing solutions.
A great example would be your smartphone. There is no way we can fit all the videos and photos anymore. That’s why we have Dropbox, Google Drive or iCloud these days. They provide storage services, we connect to them over the Internet, and store our photos. They charge us similar to an electricity company or a doctor.
The Cloud physically looks like this. This is a Google Cloud Data Center.
Ways to use it in a real life
There are so many ways you could use the Cloud computing nowadays. I’ll mention just major ones.
- Data storages. Very secure and fast way to store, use and recover your documents, photographs, website images, portfolios, source files. If your hard drive fails locally, you always have a copy of your data.
- Website hosting services. They sell their hosting services to customers who host their websites with them.
- Software. Instead of coding and developing some complicated features, a software developer can use existing services.
- Audio and Video streaming. Such platforms help users to create Netflix-like services, like Uscreen.TV. A customer sets up their video website out-of-the-box to sell audio or video streaming content.
- High load computing. Perfect fit for analytics and design tasks.
So, it does not matter what your job is, a designer, a software developer, a business owner or even a busy mum or dad, we all can benefit from Cloud computing. It makes our life more comfortable and our work faster.
For instance, if you are a 3D designer and your task is to create a complicated scene, a good idea would be to do all your rendering in the Cloud and not on a personal computer. Such solutions like Render Rocket would do it for you without a fuss.
Types of Clouds
Let’s go more technical. There just three types of services that IT companies provide:
- IaaS. Infrastructure as a Service is a set of the physical machines for rent: servers, storages, networks, virtual machines.
- PaaS. Platform as a Service is able to solve quite a few problems for developers. You can use the infrastructure for development, testing, and delivery. Moreover, you gain access to functionality that such services provide.
- SaaS. Software as a Service is a rather exciting one because it gives you a possibility to use third-party software applications through the Internet.
As an example, Pixboost Image CDN is a PaaS service that helps websites with processing their images efficiently. It provides a set of endpoints to do real-time image scaling and optimization.
How to make your own Cloud
Basically what you need is to own a data center first. With a few spare web-servers, it is possible to build the storage or service infrastructure. You can also borrow machines from other companies who lease them for these purposes (like DigitalOcean).
The next and final step would be setting it all up with appropriate software. Look up such tools as Nextcloud, ownCloud, Seafile or similar to start a journey.
Obvious downsides of this approach are money, time and skill that you have to acquire to set it all up. However, all the advantages are clear, and you are able to manage your infrastructure the way you want, acquire the highest level of security and save some money.
In conclusion
Hopefully, this overview of the whole Cloud idea would be helpful. If you have any questions or thoughts, please don’t hesitate to post here in comments or contact me on Pixboost Image CDN website. Cloud computing can help us in so many ways, and please consider using it for your work or personal needs.
