Cloud Computing
We use the term Cloud and Cloud Computing in our daily lives nowadays. More and more companies claim that their products and services on the cloud they have cloud-based. Let’s try to understand what actually the Cloud Computing is.
The term Cloud means to access something remotely using the internet. Suppose we have a data center kept in the USA and we are in some other part of the world and can access our data using the internet.
The general definition of cloud computing is as below:
“It is the on-demand availability of the system resources and computing power without directly purchasing the system or resources. This usually means having data center remotely and any user can access through the internet.”
“Cloud computing relies on sharing of resources to achieve coherence and economies of scale.
We all know about Hotmail, Gmail, yahoo mail, etc. and these are not new to us. We have been using these for many years. We have our email on the third parties' server e.g. Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo have their own servers. Our emails are saved on their machines, but we can access them anytime and from everywhere. This basically forms a cloud-based service.
In ancient times companies were using their on-premises server as the internet was not so common. Companies were storing their data on their own machine which they were usually placed at their office. These were only accessible only to the company premises where the server is placed. We can’t say this a Cloud base service.
Let suppose you have a data center at your office located in Karachi, if you want to move your office somewhere else like Islamabad, Lahore, etc. you will be carrying your entire data center with you. Other than this there are lots of other issues with having Own Data Center/Servers (On-Premises), like equipment purchasing and maintenance cost, electricity, location to set up, hardware, software, security, accessibility, remote access, and many more. These issues made the people think to have their data somewhere else instead of On-Prim and here we got the Cloud base service.
In cloud services are on-demand, you have to pay for what you used. This means you have only to pay for the actual consumption, if your consumption is low you will pay less and vice versa. When you need more resources on the cloud you don’t’ need to purchase anything, cloud Service providers will just let you use as much as you want, it's similar to an Electricity bill. It’s up to you to have 1, 2, or 3 AC at your home. Electricity providers will never forbid you and the bill will be charged as per your usage/consumption.
Cloud Computing System Architecture Deployment Models
It has the following three main section:
1. User Software Application/API
2. OS, Middleware
3. Hardware
Cloud computing is a complex set of services, called Services Models. These are SaaS (Software as a Service), IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), and PaaS (Platform as a Service).
1. Software as a Service (SaaS): Software applications that can be used on-demand or pay-as-you-go through a provided license. Microsoft 365 is a good example of SaaS.
2. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): This method provides a complete system like Applications, OS (Operating System) as well as Storage (Hardware). IBM Cloud and Microsoft Azure are examples of IaaS.
3. Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS): It’s a complex model as compared to SaaS and IaaS. It provides a platform to create software to be delivered through the Internet. Examples are: salesforce.com, Heroku.
One of the major drawbacks of Cloud Computing is that you have to store all the information on a third-party system. There are still methods like encryption etc. to make the data unreadable even for the owner of the Cloud Service provider.
Nowadays many organization including the following are offering the Cloud Computing Service:
v Amazon Web Services (AWS)
v Google Cloud (GC)
v Microsoft Azure
v IBM Cloud
v Ali Baba Cloud
Conclusion
Cloud Computing is an internet bases service where you can store and use your data/applications/files at any time and from everywhere. You can make your products and services fully or partially (Hybrid, means sensitive information can be store in On-Prim server and other applications, etc. can be deployed on Cloud) Cloud base. It’s very economical as compared to purchase and maintain all the systems by yourself.