What Is Cloud Computing?
What is Cloud Computing and How does it Work?
What is Cloud Computing?
What is cloud computing? Cloud Computing is often bandied about the internet these days and is attributed to different things that don’t seem to have much in common. In simple words it means the process of taking the various services and tasks done by our computers and bringing them to the internet. I have heard it called as a service, a platform, and an operating system. Sometimes it is even linked to such concepts as grid computing, where many different computers are linked together to form one big computer.
One basic definition to define cloud computing is the use of the internet for the several tasks you may perform on your computer. Here the internet is represented as the “cloud computer” and it is an offsite network. From the basic point of view of the cloud user, everything that the users are utilizing to compute is hosted elsewhere on a net based server except the actual workstation. This helps the end user to have access on all the programs, technology and tools without paying for each and every upgrade or having to purchase a list of various licenses.
What is Cloud Computing? – Cloud as a Service
One of the simplest things that a computer does is to allow us to store and retrieve information. This is the most basic service offered by a cloud.
For example: Flickr is a good example for this service feature. It started its services with an emphasis on sharing images and photos and now it has emerged as the best place to store those images and pictures. Also it is superior in storing the images on your computer in a number of ways.
- It allows easy access to your images no matter what type of device you are using or where you are.
- It allows you to share the images.
- The cloud provides data security. If you keep those photos on your local computer, and your hard drive crashes, you’d better hope you backed it up on a CD or flash drive. Uploading the images on Flickr, you provide yourself with data security by creating a backup on the web.
This is also where the grid computing comes into play. It is not only a place to share and store information, but also can be used to manipulate information. For example, Businesses can rent a CPU time on web based database instead of using a local database. But for all these, internet connection is a must.
What is Cloud Computing? – Cloud as a Platform
The future operating system is the web. While this is not exactly true, we will always require a local operating system — this popular saying means that the web is the next great platform for the users.
So what is cloud computing as a platform? It is nothing but the basic structure on which the applications stand or it is one that runs our apps. The web is becoming a platform through cloud computing. It transcends Office 2.0 to deliver various applications of all sizes and shapes from web mashups to Facebook applications to internet-based massively multiplayer online role-playing games. Here Google plays a major role in turning cloud into a platform.
How Does Cloud Computing Work?
It works similar to an Internet, where you log onto a net based application that gives you access to all the software, hosting services as well as the required backup.
To understand this concept, just imagine that cloud consists of layers at the back-end and the front-end layers. When you access a website, the front-end (user-end) layer is the one you see and interact with. The back-end consists of hardware and the software architecture that makes the interface you normally see on the front end. Since, the computers are set up to work together; the various applications can take advantage as if they were running on one particular machine. Computing on a cloud also allows for a lot of flexibility.
There are a number of advantages in working with Cloud Computing which include:
- Convenience: Computing in a Cloud is easy. You need not deal with real machines, and electricity failures and disk failures which is really a huge benefit.
- Cost: While computing in a cloud, there are basically two different cost advantages. One is that, sometimes it becomes cheaper than the physical alternative. On the other hand, the advantage comes from the fact that you need to pay only small installments every month instead of paying large chunks of money while buying the infrastructure.
- Cheaper by Design: Usually computing in a cloud turns out to be cheaper. This is because its providers share their infrastructure across a wide range of customers, which gives them economies of scale as well as higher utilization.
- Pay-as-you-go: Imagine yourself as a startup. Purchasing a server will cost you around $4000. But if you are buying compute cycles on Amazon EC2, that might cost you only $100 per month – which is much more affordable and manageable. And also, when you are not really using the server, you can shut it off, and just don’t pay for it. During a busy month, if you need two servers, you can get a second one for just one month, and you can delete it at the end of that month.
- Easy scalability: Consider yourself as a growing company and the demand for computing increases suddenly, and then it is quite difficult to immediately scale up your physical infrastructure. Scaling up your infrastructure would involve buying new servers, files, database and migrating programs. On the other hand, cloud providers provide all these services at the click of a button. They also take care of scaling completely in a very manner transparent and you don’t even need to think about it.
- Location Independence: This computing service in a cloud can be used from wherever you are, whereas most of the physical infrastructures will tie you down to one place.
What is Cloud Computing – Closing thoughts
Once you start using computing services in a cloud, your computers become workstations and the usage ports are connected to the cloud no matter wherever you take them. So no more issues of data storage, as all your data can be stored in the cloud and no more hardware problems. While computing your PCS and laptops in cloud, you get a much more secure and powerful server than the ones you have traditionally used in your office settings.
There is a transitional period associated with cloud like any other new technology. You can move your business into cloud services one part at a time. First start with backup and support, and then move on your email and other applications and the final step is to shift your data from in house to the cloud. One of the powerful reasons for moving in to a cloud is that you get access to all the latest versions of tools you need to conduct your business. So now it would be clear, what is cloud computing.