All About Cloud Computing
Picture Courtesy: Infiflex
Cloud Computing is a outsourced Information Technology resource where, rather than building out a unique IT infrastructure, an organization instead accesses a shared infrastructure that is housed in a separate geographical location.
In other words, cloud computing the Internet to enable the sharing and delivery of data, media, content, and applications.
Examples of cloud services
Because the term cloud computing is a broad term, it's likely if you have spent any time on the Internet or use devices connected to the Internet that you have used it in some form. Below are some common examples of cloud computing-
AWS (Amazon Web Services) and Amazon EC2 - Amazon.com provides a variety of different cloud computing services-
Dashlane - Online password service to synchronize and manage passwords between all devices.
Google App Engine - A service that provides the ability to create scalable web services that use Google's resources.
Google Docs - A fantastic free solution from Google that allows you to open Microsoft Office documents as well as share them with other users with Internet access.
Microsoft OneDrive - Preveously known as SkyDrive, OneDrive is an online storage service for Windows 8 and Windows 10 users to store Windows related files, Office documents, and other files.
Nextcloud - Open-source software that allows you to run a personal cloud server, forked from the OwnCloud project.
Online backup - There are dozens of online backup services to store your important information offsite in the cloud. Mozy and Dropbox are two example of cloud storage and online storage backup solutions that store information in the cloud.
Oracle public cloud - Oracle cloud service for small and large businesses.
OwnCloud - Open-source software that enables you to run a personal cloud file storage service.
Windows Azure - A cloud computing solution by Microsoft that allows companies to develop and run services from Azure’s cloud.
Office 365 - Microsoft Office 365 is a platform that provides a full-featured email system with web access, integrated calendaring, a campus contacts directory, support for mobile device.
Another way to classify cloud services-
IAAS (INFRASTRUCTURE-AS-A-SERVICE)
In IaaS, the cloud service provides computing infrastructure, like virtual machines, storage, containers, and serverless computing.
PAAS (PLATFORM-AS-A-SERVICE)
In PaaS, the cloud service provides a computing platform, typically tied to a particular set of programming languages, tools, and applications. Generic operating system access (command line) is typically not permitted and the same virtual machines may be shared by multiple users. Example: Google App Engine and many web hosting services.
SAAS (SOFTWARE-AS-A-SERVICE)
The SAAS cloud service provider handles all infrastructure, upgrades, and provides the application software. The software may run in a customer-specific virtual machine, or multiple software instances in the same virtual machine.
Conclusion
Cloud computing refers to computing services from servers in a network. Typically cloud services are available on demand, can be accessed over a network, share resources between multiple application, scale elastically based on dynamic computing needs, and provide measured service.
