There Is No Cloud
In the last decade, “the cloud” has become a popular term for cloud computing. As the term popularized, companies like Apple have even used it in the name of their cloud computing products. This popularization has led to some confusion about what “the cloud” actually refers to, and by the end of this article I hope you understand the term and the concept it describes.
Definition of The Cloud
The cloud is a concept in computer science that refers to the storage of digital information on computers connected to the internet. For example, if you upload a file (like a picture) to a file sharing service (like Dropbox) you are storing it in the cloud. This gives you access to the file anytime you have access to the internet — as opposed to only having access to the file on your home computer.
Data Centers and Servers
When you store a file in the cloud you’re really just storing it on a computer called a server. There is nothing special about servers, they are basically just really fast computers with special programs for doing server-related tasks. When you access the Google homepage your computer sends a request to a server and asks for the resources necessary to display the website in your browser. Typically computer servers are stored in large, well-ventilated facilities with high security, onsite power-generators, and redundant backups. These facilities, also known as data centers, exist all over the world. When you upload a file to the cloud, this is where the file is being physically stored. To learn more about data centers visit the Google Data Centers website.
Suppose that you want to make a website. You can write the code necessary to display a website, but the only way to make the website available to others is to host the code on a server. You could use your own computer to do this, but for technical reasons it’s better to pay someone to host it for you. You would give them the files that make up your website, and they would host those files on a server so that anyone on the internet could access them. You would then use the Domain Name System to have your custom domain name point to the IP address of the server hosted by this company, so that people could easily access it via a web browser.
Privacy Concerns
There are lots of benefits of storing files in the cloud, some of them already discussed. One of the costs of doing so is privacy. By storing your files in the cloud you are trusting the cloud computing company to protect your files and share them only with you. When it comes to technology companies, having good intentions is not enough. Such companies must protect your files from hackers, government agencies, and countless other threats. My advice when it comes to cloud computing is to both use secure cloud storage and to only use such services for non-sensitive data.
