We hear the terms “Cloud” or “Cloud computing” often, right? I’m sure you’ve heard this over and over. But how many of us know what it is? I wrote this article to provide a brief overview of cloud computing in the IT world.
Before I go any further, let me define the purpose of my short 5 min article. That is nothing, expecting you should be in a position to answer all the below questions by the time you’ve finished reading this article.
What is Cloud computing?
Why cloud and what does it actually do?
Who are providing cloud services?
From these clouds, who benefits?
What are the types of cloud?
In the technological world we live in today, the cloud is accessible to everyone who uses a mobile device. Apps like Whatsapp, Facebook, Gmail, Google Drive, Netflix, Prime, etc all rely on cloud computing.
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What is Cloud Computing?
The definition of cloud computing in layman’s terms is a virtual platform that enables you to store, manage and retrieve your data via the internet without any limitations and pay according to usage.
. Storing data/applications on remote servers
. Processing data/applications from servers
. Accessing data/applications via the internet.
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Why Cloud and what does it actually do?
It is providing on-demand services over the internet, on-demand means paying based on service usage such as servers, databases, software, virtual storage, and networking, among others.
Problem: The below image clearly describes the real-time problem without cloud technologies.
Solution: Move your data to the Cloud.
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Who are providing Cloud services?
John MacCharty made his “Computing Can be Sold as a Utility, like Water and Electricity” address at MIT in 1961. He thought it was an excellent idea. However, nobody at the time was interested in using this technique.
The rise of cloud computing began in 1999 when Salesforce.com began to distribute a corporate application via the internet.
Amazon launched Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2002, offering online compute and storage.
Google Play then began offering Cloud Computing Enterprise Application to end users in 2009.
After Microsoft launched Microsoft Azure in 2009, other businesses such as Alibaba, IBM, Oracle, and HP also unveiled their own cloud services.
Some of the cloud service providers are listed below; the top 3 players control more than 65% of the global public cloud market.
1. AWS(Amazon Web Services)
2. Microsoft Azure
3. Google Cloud Platform
4. IBM Cloud, Ali baba Cloud, Digital Ocean, etc
Cloud usage applications:
Netflix and Spotify — Uses AWS to allow users to stream shows and songs from anywhere in the world. All Netflix content is placed and hosted from the AWS cloud.
Gmail and GDrive — Uses their own cloud service Google Cloud Platform.
Ebay, Boeing, BMW — Uses Microsoft Azure as a Cloud platform for storage and computation needs.
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From these Clouds, who benefits?
Imagine you have started a company with 10 employees. You need 10 computers to work go on. The challenge here is that you are responsible for taking care of all 10 computers like buying, maintaining, managing, and updating software, which will cost you very much.
After some time, 10 more employees are added to your company, again that is your responsibility to provide computers and maintain them. If some employees left the company, the resources would go unused.
Solution:
To overcome these issues, cloud providers like AWS, Azure, GCP have started providing compute, storage services on demand basis to customers. Here, we just pay for the resources we really use, so we don’t have to worry about upgrading, scaling, or degrading resources while they are not in use.
Benefits to any business or person seeking any of the following solutions:
1. I.T Resources are accessible at any time and from any place.
2. On-demand self-service. There is no intermediary.
3. Lower IT costs. (No hardware to buy, no upkeep, etc.)
4. Scalability — Pay as you go. (Resources can be scaled up or down at any time.)
5. Collaboration — Online resource sharing allows people who are located in different places to work together.
6. Security — Data is saved in multiple locations and is easily recoverable from failures.
7. Saves us time because we don’t have to update the software or keep the hardware up to date.
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What are the types of Cloud?
There are primarily three types of clouds:
1.Public
It is accessible to all. For ex: GMail — Anyone can create account and access mails which are stored on public cloud.
2.Private
Accessible private services within an organization. The private cloud is only accessible to its employees.
3.Hybrid
It contains features of both public and private clouds.
Hope the foregoing article helped to clarify the basics of cloud computing. I’d appreciate hearing your thoughts on my writing. I politely ask for everyone’s encouragement to write similar articles in the future.
