Basics of Cloud Computing

Ever wondered how websites like YouTube or Gmail work seamlessly without crashing? Behind the scenes is a powerful force called cloud computing, which has changed the way technology operates.

In this article, we’ll look at how traditional IT systems evolved, how websites connect users and servers, and how cloud computing is revolutionizing the digital world.

Traditional IT Overview

• In traditional IT environments, companies relied on physical infrastructure—servers, networking devices, and storage—located in their own data centers. IT teams were responsible for everything: purchasing hardware, maintaining servers, scaling capacity, and ensuring uptime. This setup often involved high upfront costs, limited flexibility, and complex maintenance, especially when demand spiked or systems needed upgrades.

How do websites work?

• Well, we have a server hosted somewhere, and we, as a web browser, want to get access to that server to visualize a website.

• What we are going to do as a client is use a network. A network between ourselves and the server, and the client will find the network and will use network to route the packets, the data into the server, then the server will reply to us, and we will get the response, and we can view a website.

How does the client find servers?

• Now for the clients to find the server and the server to find the clients, you need to have IP addresses. So, a clients have IP addresses and a server also have an IP address. And so, the idea is that when you use an IP address, you can send a request to wherever you want to the server you want, and the server can know how to find you back.

 What is in a Server?

• Well, a server is going to contain a CPU, and a CPU is a little piece that will be doing some computations, it will be very helpful to do some calculations and find results, and then, your server also needs RAM, or memory. This is going to be very, very fast memory, which will allow us to store information and retrieve it very quickly. So, when we have a CPU and a memory bar, what do we get? Well, we get a brain. Think of your brain.

• When you are thinking, you are actually making computations, very complicated ones, but they are computations, but then you need to retain some information, and again, we have memories and these memories are in our brain, so if we think of the CPU and the RAM together, they sort of look like a brain.

• Now we also need to have some more long-term storage of data. Obviously, it's still in our brain as humans, but in computers, we have included some special storage to store data, for example, files, and then if we want to store the data in a more structured way, we're going to use a database, and a database is going to be data formatted in a way that we can easily search it and query it.

• Finally in the server, we're also going to have some networking aspect. So, there's going to be the routers, switch, DNS servers. So, in the server, we an aspect of compute, memory, storage, maybe your server sometimes is a database, and we have a networking aspect.

All these things are going super important going forward because the cloud is going to be giving these things for us on demand. So, if we just want to define a little bit of IT terminology before we get started, the network is a bunch of cables, routers, and servers that are going to be connected with each other, and the router is a specific device that will forward the data packets between computer in the networks, and they will know where to send your packets on the internet, just like your post delivery service.

Let see the pictorial representation of IT terminologies

Below are the problems with traditional IT approach and will see how cloud computing going to solve all the problems.

What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of IT resources—like servers, storage, databases, networking, and software—over the internet. Instead of owning physical hardware, businesses rent what they need from cloud service providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

• Through a cloud services platform with pay-as-you-go pricing

• You can provision exactly the right type and size Of computing resources you need

• You can access as many resources as you need. almost instantly

• Simple way to access servers, storage, databases and a set Of application services

Now, let see the five Characteristics of Cloud Computing

• On-demand self service: Users can provision resources and use them without human interaction from the service provider

• Broad network access: Resources available over the network. and can be accessed by Oversea client platforms

• Multi-tenancy and resource pooling: Multiple customers can share the same infrastructure and applications with security and privacy. Multiple customers are serviced from same physical resources

• Rapid elasticity and scalability: Automatically and quickly acquire and dispose resources when needed Quickly and easily scale based demand

• Measured service: Usage is measured. users pay correctly for what they have used

Six Advantages of Cloud Computing

• Trade capital expense (CAPEX) for operational expense (OPEX)

• pay On-Demand: don't own hardware

• Reduced Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) & Operational Expense (OPEX)

• Benefit from massive economies Of scale

• Stop guessing capacity

• Scale based on actual measured usage

• Increase speed and agility

• Stop spending money running and maintaining data centers

• Go global in minutes

Now, let have a look into cloud deployment mode. Cloud deployment refers to how cloud services are made available to users. There are three main models as shown below.

This model helps businesses choose the right mix of security, control, and scalability based on their needs.

Types of Cloud Computing

a. Infrastructure as a Service (laaS)

• Provide building blocks for cloud

• Provides networking, computers, data storage space

• Highest level of flexibility

• Easy parallel the traditional on-premises IT

b. Platform as a Service (PaaS)

• Removes the need for your organization to manage the underlying infrastructure

• Focus on the deployment and management of your applications

c. Software as a Service (SaaS)

• Completed product that is run and managed by the service provider

Understanding Cloud Service Models

The below image compares how responsibility is shared between the user and the cloud provider across four models:

Color code as follows:

• Blue : You manage

• Orange: Cloud provider manages

 Cloud Computing Models

Cloud computing is delivered through three major service models. Here's how they differ, along with real-world examples:

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Provides virtualized computing resources over the internet.

Examples:

• Amazon EC2 (AWS)

• Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

• Azure, Rackspace, Digital Ocean, Linode

Use case: Hosting servers, VMs, storage, and networking components.

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Offers a platform to build, deploy, and manage applications without managing underlying infrastructure.

Examples:

• Elastic Beanstalk (AWS)

• Heroku

• Google App Engine (GCP)

• Microsoft Azure App Service

Use case: Developers focus on application logic without worrying about servers or OS.

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Delivers software applications over the internet on a subscription or pay-as-you-go basis.

Examples:

• Google Apps (Gmail, Docs)

• Dropbox

• Zoom

• AWS Rekognition (for AI/ML capabilities)

Use case: End-users access fully managed apps through browsers or apps.

Finally, we have covered all the basic of cloud computing. Understanding the different models—public, private, and hybrid—and services like IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS, sets a strong foundation for anyone entering the digital or tech space.

Cloud computing has fundamentally reshaped how technology is delivered and consumed. From traditional IT setups to scalable, flexible cloud environments, it offers organizations the agility to innovate faster, reduce costs, and focus on what truly matters building great solutions. Without any doubt cloud computing is the backbone of the modern digital world.

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