Lesson 8: Cloud Computing
Learning Objectives
In this lesson, you will learn about:
- Cloud computing
- Cloud services
- Benefits and disadvantages of cloud technology
What is the cloud?
In simple terms, the cloud is a collection of devices, hosted at different locations and managed by a third-party company. Users just use the resources required on demand.
What is cloud computing?
Cloud computing is the availability of a computing resource (resources can be compute, network, storage, database, and so on) on demand to host applications. These resources are accessed over the internet and used to achieve desired results when needed.
This technology is highly available as it is hosted in big data centers across the world with redundant setups and high-speed links. This can help us easily deploy a large number of systems within hours or few days as compared to the old method where a company needed to purchase hardware, that took days, sometimes months, to get shipped to the end customer. Then an IT team needed to deploy those systems and configure them, leading to extra effort, time, and cost.
Cloud made all this very simple and easy to deploy. Cloud vendors provide a single management console for users to manage all resources, deploy with few easy clicks, and pay as they use those resources.
It offers great benefits such as reliability, high performance, scalability, and security.
Cloud use virtualization technology to easily deploy virtual machines by using underlying hardware and hypervisors, as a result it reduces cost and increase efficiency of computing resources.
Watch this quick video on how you use cloud computing in your everyday life:
Types of cloud computing
Public cloud: These are owned and managed by third-party cloud service providers and users share resources with other companies. Major players in public cloud technology include Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCF)
Private cloud: These are owned and managed by a single organization and used exclusively by that company's users.
Hybrid cloud: This model deals with customers where they can host certain applications or resources on public clouds and more sensitive orcritical data can be stored on a private cloud.
Types of cloud services
Infrastructure as a service (IaaS): IaaS is used where users can purchase hardware such as servers, virtual machines (VMs), storage, network, or operating systems on a pay-as-you-go basis.
Platform as a service (PaaS): PaaS is used when users require on-demand resources for developing, testing, or delivering software applications. It’s a simple method for developers to quickly create apps without having to set up underlying infrastructure.
Software as a service (SaaS): SaaS is used for providing access to software applications over the internet using a web browser. SaaS cloud providers are responsible for the underlying infrastructure and patch management of the software.
There are several other types of service available. Today, essentially anything can be delivered as a service using cloud technology.
Benefits of cloud technology
- Users have easy access to their data from any device connected to internet. , Data is shared across multiple users and multple sites.
- Computing resources capacity can be increased or decreased based on demand and requirement so using the cloud is highly flexible.
- Reduced cost to purchase hardware when demand is increased and there is no need for IT staff to manage that hardware locally.
- Data is highly secure as cloud providers manage security and backups of all their devices hosted in the cloud.
Disadvantages of cloud technology
- Users must have a high-speed internet connection to access files and data from the cloud. Bandwidth can play a major role in performance when uploading and downloading data over the internet to the cloud.
- All devices, their security and management are looked after by the cloud service provider. Resources are shared with other organizations in a public cloud.
- Subscription fees can add up if using resources for an extended period. Users should be mindful of this when deploying machines in a cloud or hosting application for a long period.