What the heck is Cloud computing?

Cloud computing is one those things you may hear often and everybody thinks that they know what it is but nobody knows. So, Today I am going to explain you the concept behind cloud computing and most importantly the reason we are using cloud computing.

The story

Imagine you're at a giant library with a million books. This library is the cloud. Inside the cloud, there are special rooms with powerful computers called servers. These servers act like librarians, storing all sorts of information, like books, movies, and even video games.

Now, you don't have to carry all that information around yourself. Instead, you use a device like a laptop or phone, which is like your client device. When you want to access something, like a movie, your client device sends a request to the cloud, just like you asking the librarian for a book.

The server in the cloud then searches its shelves (storage) and finds the movie. It doesn't send you the whole movie at once, though. Instead, it sends it in small pieces, like the librarian showing you pages from a book. Your client device puts those pieces together and lets you watch the movie, just like you reading the pages in a book.

This way, you can access all this information without needing a giant computer yourself. The cloud (library) stores everything, and the servers (librarians) help you find what you need and deliver it to your device (client) in a way you can use!

Terminology

• Server - a computer on that provides resources and services mostly over the internet.

• Client - a computer software that we are using to get resources from the servers

• Cloud - a platform with a big network of computers or servers that provides resources and services rather than maintaining your own servers.

• Cloud provisioning - this is the process of creating or allocating the space(infrastructure) you need for you in the cloud.

Understanding

In the earlier days companies, organisations had to maintain their own servers and that came with a lot problems. As a result, this burden of maintaining their own servers was handed over to these cloud platforms.

Why Cloud is so special?

• Because of its very little or no cost of services

• Because of its on-demand self-service: Which is users can do the provisioning without the interactions of a human in the cloud platform.

• Broad network access: resources are available over the internet and accessed through standard mechanisms

• Resource Pooling: Computing resources are pooled to serve multiple users using a multi-tenant model, with different physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according to demand

and those are some of the specialties cloud computing got.

What are the types of Cloud computing?

Depending on the way that the clouds are deployed there are mainly three types of clouds.

1. Public cloud: Services are delivered over the public internet and shared across organizations.

   eg. :- AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform etc.

2. Private cloud: Services are maintained on a private network, offering greater control and security.

   eg. :- VMware, OpenStack etc.

3. Hybrid cloud: Combines public and private clouds, allowing data and applications to be shared between them

   eg. :- Microsoft Azure (Azure Stack), AWS (Outposts) etc.

What are the Cloud computing models?

According to the level of control, flexibility that you want you are presented with three types of cloud computing models.

• Infrastructure as a service:

  • Provides virtualized computing resources over the internet.

  • eg. : Amazon Web Services (AWS) EC2, Google Compute Engine, Microsoft Azure VMs.

  • Usage: Rent IT infrastructure, including servers, storage, and networking, on a pay-as-you-go basis.

• platform as a service:

  • Offers hardware and software tools over the internet.

  • Examples: Google App Engine, Microsoft Azure App Services, AWS Elastic Beanstalk.

  • Usage: Develop, test, and deploy applications without managing underlying infrastructure.

• Software as a service:

  • Delivers software applications over the internet on a subscription basis.

  • Examples: Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Salesforce.

  • Usage: Access and use software applications hosted by the service provider.

What are the benefits of Cloud computing?

• Cost Efficiency: Reduces the capital expense of buying hardware and software and setting up and running on-site data centers.

• Scalability: Easily scale up or down according to business needs.

• Performance: Major cloud services run on worldwide networks of secure data centers, which are upgraded to the latest generation of fast and efficient computing hardware.

• Speed and Agility: Vast amounts of computing resources can be provisioned in minutes, giving businesses flexibility and removing the pressure of capacity planning.

• Security: Many cloud providers offer a set of policies, technologies, and controls that strengthen security overall.

Hope you got a good grasp on what is cloud computing and in this series I will focus more on Amazon Web Services.

Summary

Cloud computing allows users to access and store data on remote servers instead of local devices, offering benefits like cost efficiency, scalability, and enhanced security. It involves three main types of deployment models (public, private, and hybrid) and three service models (Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service, and Software as a Service). This article explains the basics of cloud computing, its advantages, and the different models available, setting the stage for a deeper dive into Amazon Web Services in future installments.