What exactly is the Cloud??

Photo by Alex Machado on Unsplash

You have probably heard about the cloud, right? Even if you haven’t, let me tell you this — you use the cloud every day if you use the internet.

Imagine a condition where you have certain important files stored on your computer hard-drive. If you want to access these files when you are on your own computer, you can do so easily. But, what if you were in some other location at the other end of the world, and you wanted to access those files? Will it be possible? Of course not, because the files are stored on your hard-drive, and cannot be accessible from any other device.

The solution to this is the cloud. The cloud is basically remote servers which store your data, applications, software, etc. It is because of this that you can store files on your Google Drive, and be able to access them from any part of the world, on any device, as long as you have the authorization to access them. Another good example is social media — you can log in to your Instagram or Facebook account from any device, from any part of the world, and still see all your photos and other media on your account. From these simple examples, it is possible to understand the expanse and importance of cloud computing.

The definition of cloud computing found on Wikipedia is —

“Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage (cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. The term is generally used to describe data centers available to many users over the Internet. “

Types of clouds:

1. Public cloud: This is the type of cloud that the general public uses. They are owned by third-parties, and also the management of the cloud is their responsibility. We can access these cloud resources using a simple web browser. Public clouds storages are offered by companies like Google (Google Drive), Microsoft (Microsoft Azure), Amazon (Amazon Web Services), etc.
2. Private cloud: This is the type of cloud that is used by a single organization or business. The organization may host the cloud on its private data centers, and the resources are available on their private network.
3. Hybrid cloud: This is a mixed type, as the name suggests. It is a combination of public and private clouds, allowing the end-users more flexibility while choosing which resources to keep on a public cloud and which resources to keep on a private cloud.

A Figure to show types of clouds

Types of cloud computing:

1. SaaS (Software as a service): This is used by the general public, without having to worry about the implementation details. This often refers to end-user applications, which are entirely managed and run by the cloud providers.
2. PaaS (Platform as a service): This is used by application developers. It eliminates the need for the developer to worry about the underlying details like software maintenance, virtualization, servers, etc. It helps focus more on application deployment and data.
3. IaaS (Infrastructure as a service): This is used by network and infrastructure architects. This gives them freedom and control over all the functions of the cloud.

Figure showing the types of cloud computing

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