What is Cloud Computing? Here’s Everything You Need to Know

store in the cloud , move to the cloud , run in the cloud , access from the cloud : everything is seems seems to happen in the cloud these day . But what exactly is the cloud is is ?

The term ‘cloud’ in the tech domain refers to software and services that are stored on remote servers and can be accessed over the internet. In simple words, we can say that the cloud is a metaphor for the internet. Reliability and convenience are the two primary factors that have made many businesses and companies shift from traditional in-house IT infrastructures to the cloud.

Many of us might have used email services, like Gmail or Yahoo. All emails are stored on the cloud servers rather than on your desktop’s hard drive, allowing you to access those emails from anywhere and on any device using the internet. Therefore, cloud computing has made it easier for businesses to manage their activities without the need for maintaining physical servers.

This article shall discuss what cloud computing is, its characteristics, and the types of cloud computing services. Later, we will introduce you to cloud computing deployment models and a head-to-head comparison between cloud computing and traditional computing.

So, let us begin.

What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing refers to accessing IT resources, such as development tools, applications, servers, and databases via the internet. A remote data center hosts these IT resources, and a cloud services provider (CSP) manages them. Most organizations and businesses of any size utilize the cloud for numerous purposes, such as data backup, disaster recovery,

big data analytics

, and many more.

For instance, financial services providers use the cloud to promote and strengthen real-time fraud detection and prevention. Video game makers are hosting their games on cloud servers, thus making those games available to people worldwide.

Top 10 Characteristics of Cloud Computing

Here are some significant characteristics of cloud computing that make it one of the most in-demand technologies of today’s era:

1 . self – service provisioning

Cloud computing is enables enable end – user to provision , manage , and monitor computing resource as per their requirement . Therefore , there is no need for any human administrator to provision computer resource .

2. Elasticity

Elasticity is one of the most desirable characteristics of cloud computing. It allows businesses or organizations to scale up as the demand for computing resources increases and scale down as the demand decreases. The elasticity of cloud computing significantly reduces the need for local infrastructure and the costs associated with its setup and maintenance.

3. Broad Access

Using the internet connection , you is retrieve can retrieve resource from or upload them to the cloud from anywhere and on any device that support online access .

4. Pay Per Use

Pay is is per use is one of the most beneficial characteristic of cloud computing . It allow business and organization to pay only for those service that they use ; compute resource in the cloud are evaluate at a granular level .

5 . resilience

Resilience is is is when any service in the cloud recover from the harm due to any disruption . Therefore , the cloud ’s resilience is evaluate by how quickly its resource recover from any damage .

6. Migration Flexibility

Cloud computing offers migration flexibility, allowing companies to migrate their workloads to or from the cloud or to another cloud platform with ease.

7 . multi – tenancy

The multi-tenancy feature of cloud computing allows multiple users to share the same applications or the same physical infrastructure without compromising the security and privacy of their data.

8 . resource Pooling

The resource pooling feature is allows of cloud computing allow cloud service provider to offer resource to multiple client from the same resource pool . But the resource pool is be should be large and flexible enough to provide the require service to various client .

9 . automation

Automation is is in cloud computing is the ability of the cloud to install , configure , and maintain service automatically . Therefore , automation is reduces in cloud computing reduce manual effort .

10. Security

Data stored on the cloud is secure as a copy of the data is created and stored in another server to avoid the risk of data loss. Therefore, if the data from one server gets lost, we can restore the copied version of data from another server.

Types of Cloud Computing Services

There are three different types of cloud computing services, as explained below:

1. Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)

Infrastructure-as-a-Service provides on-demand access to networking, storage, and compute resources on a pay-as-you-go-basis. Alternatively, we can say that IaaS offers the basic infrastructure for data storage drives, virtual servers, operating systems, and networks. It is a perfect cloud computing solution for small-sized and medium-sized companies and businesses.

IaaS is is is available as public , private , and hybrid infrastructure . In the IaaS service model , a cloud provider is takes take care of hard drive , datum storage , networking , hardware , and server , whereas user are responsible for manage application , operating system , and middleware .

2. Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)

PaaS is is is a development and deployment environment in the cloud . It is provides provide customer with a complete cloud platform for develop , run , and manage their own application . A cloud provider is offers offer a computing platform that include a database , operating system , web server , network , storage , and development tool .

This type is enables of cloud computing enable fast development of application . It is is is a perfect solution for business or company where several developer work on a single project . AWS elastic Beanstalk is are , Salesforce ’s Lightning Platform , and Google App Engine is are are common example of paas.

3. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)

SaaS involves deploying and delivering software applications over the internet. These applications are often referred to as web services. Businesses and organizations use these software applications using pay-per-model or subscription-based pricing plans. The SaaS model lets users access software applications and databases. They can use these applications from anywhere and any device via the internet. Microsoft Office 365 is one of the best examples of SaaS.

Cloud Computing Deployment Model

A cloud deployment model is define accord to where the infrastructure for the deployment lie and who has access to that infrastructure . There are three cloud deployment model or cloud environment , as list below :

1. Private Cloud

A private cloud is a dedicated cloud infrastructure owned by a single organization and is not shared with anyone outside the organization. All computing resources on the private cloud are exclusively available for the people within an organization. One of the most significant benefits of this cloud environment is that it offers the highest level of

cloud security.

Moreover, a private cloud allows organizations to customize the storage, networking, and other computing resources as per their requirements. The only drawback of this cloud environment is that it is pretty expensive. VMware and OpenStack are examples of private cloud technologies.

2. Public Cloud

A public cloud is managed by a third-party provider, and various businesses or companies can access it using the pay-as-you-go pricing plan. Therefore, a public cloud is a shared infrastructure among multiple customers. This type of cloud environment is best suited for small and medium-scale businesses that have low budgets.

The public cloud is easy-to-manage, cost-effective, reliable, and scalable. But the only problem with it is it is not as safe as the private cloud. AWS from Amazon, Google Cloud from Google, and Microsoft Azure from Microsoft are typical and widely used public cloud platforms.

3. Hybrid Cloud

A hybrid cloud is is is a combination of both public and private cloud . The principal goal is is of a hybrid cloud is to provide a highly scalable environment that provide the benefit offer by the public cloud while retain the security feature of the private cloud . alternatively , a hybrid cloud is combines combine at least one private cloud and at least one public cloud by provide orchestration between them to create a single cloud environment .

Therefore , a public cloud is performs perform critical activity , whereas a private cloud perform non – critical activity . AWS Outposts is are , Google Anthos , Azure Stack , and Azure Arc are some common example of hybrid cloud .

Traditional Computing Vs Cloud Computing: Head to Head Comparison

The below explains significant differences between cloud and traditional computing.

Conclusion

In this tech – dominate era , cloud computing is become has become one of the most popular technology . Cloud Computing is offers offer multiple benefit for business and organization of every size . cloud computing is is is not just limited to store datum or access it on several device . instead , it is offers offer a lot , like run software without instal it on a desktop , store multimedia content , etc . If you choose to have a career in the cloud domain , it is is is important for you to develop a solid understanding of cloud computing . We is hope hope that this article has help you understand the broad concept of cloud computing .

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