What is Cloud?

Definition: All the software, services, programs that run on the Internet instead of your computer's hard disk, is called Cloud.

• Instead of using your personal computers for your activities, you use the internet for that. E.g., you store photos, videos, watch movies, play games, create some web applications, mobile applications, etc.…
• Emails: you use Gmail, Yahoo mails services, where do the email data stored? The data is stored in their data centers which are connected over the internet that is called Cloud.
• Photo and Video App, Facebook: When you upload your photos and videos, text messages, all these data go to the servers of the service providers and not on your desktop or laptop. This is called Cloud.

What is Cloud Computing?

Definition: Cloud computing is the delivery of computing services like servers, storage, database, applications, services, networking, analytics over the internet.

What are the benefits of Cloud Computing?

There are lots of benefits of Cloud computing but have listed a few of them.

• High Availability: This is the core advantage. You don’t own the server and more storage can be made available instantly. If the hardware fails, you can replace it instantly.
• Cost: By moving your work to the cloud, you reduce the cost of maintaining servers, electricity and power expenses, server cooling expenses, server maintenance staff, etc.…
• Scalability: It is very quick and easy to increase or decrease your IT resources like storage, bandwidth, computing power.
• Productivity: Activities like, Hardware and software setup, upgrade and maintenance is not done by your IT team and your team can concentrate on more important business work, this will surely increase the productivity of any organization.
• Reliability: Cloud computing services come with the advantages of data backup, disaster (flood, tornado, cyber-attack) recovery, fault tolerance. That makes your business management tension-free.
• Security: There are many cloud services that provide data protection, apps and infrastructure threats, and overall security of your applications.
• Performance: Data centers are always equipped and upgraded to the latest hardware and software technologies resulting in greater bandwidth and faster access to the services.
• Speed: Almost all the resources and services are available on-demand and with the help of just a few mouse clicks.

What are the uses of Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is everywhere.

• Create and deploy web applications, Mobile Apps, and APIs using different cloud solutions available.
• Use Cloud infrastructure to reduce the cost of your own infrastructure maintenance
• Collect data from various sources like SharePoint, teams, DB services, and various other locations from the cloud and then use cloud services like machine learning, artificial intelligence to analyze the data.
• Store your own data like images and videos to the cloud (in datacenters obviously) and access them from anywhere over the internet.

What are the Cloud Computing Examples?

There are a lot, seriously a lot, but a few of them….

• Online movies.
• Emails
• Photo, Video sharing, or storage
• Job Portal.
• Social media websites and apps
• Online Games
• Various websites and mobile apps.

What are the types of Clouds?

We will go through the types of cloud in detail in a later chapter but here’s a brief introduction.

• Public:
  • This is the most common type of cloud.
  • The servers, storage, software, and other required resources are owned, managed, and provided by the cloud service provider (third party) over the internet.
  • In the Public cloud, you share the same hardware that you are working on with other organizations (tenants).
  • You can access and manage services and resources using a desktop browser or mobile app.
  • Example: Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, AWS
• Private:
  • The private cloud has all the resources and services owned, managed, and provided by an individual or separate organization.
  • It is easier to update and make changes in existing resources compared to the public cloud because the entire infrastructure is owned by the organization itself.
  • Example: Mostly it is used by mid-to-large scale organizations, government agencies, financial agencies.
• Hybrid:
  • Hybrid cloud computing is an architecture where we combine the Public and Private/On-Premises infrastructure.
  • Data can move between the two environments.
• Multicloud:
  • More than 1 cloud service from more than 1 cloud service provider (Public/Private) from Multicloud.
  • All Hybrid clouds are Multiclouds but not all Multiclouds are hybrid clouds.
    • Two or more Public (Or Private) clouds make Multiloud but it is not a Hybrid cloud. A cloud is considered Hybrid only when there is at least 1 Public and 1 private cloud is involved.