What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is the delivery of computing services—including servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence—over the Internet (“the cloud”) to offer faster innovation, flexible resources, and economies of scale. You typically pay only for cloud services you use, helping lower your operating costs, run your infrastructure more efficiently, and scale as your business needs change.

Key Concepts

At its core, cloud computing is about providing on-demand access to computing resources, typically over a network. Here are some fundamental concepts:

  • On-Demand Self-Service: Users can provision computing capabilities, such as server time and network storage, as needed automatically without requiring human interaction with each service provider.
  • Broad Network Access: Capabilities are available over the network and accessed through standard mechanisms that promote use by heterogeneous thin or thick client platforms (e.g., mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and workstations).
  • Resource Pooling: The provider’s computing resources are pooled to serve multiple consumers using a multi-tenant model, with different physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according to consumer demand.
  • Rapid Elasticity: Capabilities can be elastically provisioned and released, in some cases automatically, to scale rapidly outward and inward commensurate with demand. To the consumer, the capabilities available for provisioning often appear to be unlimited and can be appropriated in any quantity at any time.
  • Measured Service: Cloud systems automatically control and optimize resource use by leveraging a metering capability at some level of abstraction appropriate to the type of service (e.g., storage, processing, bandwidth, and active user accounts). Resource usage can be monitored, controlled, and reported, providing transparency for both the provider and consumer of the utilized service.

Cloud Service Models

There are three primary cloud service models, each offering a different level of management and control:

  • Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): Provides the basic building blocks for cloud IT. It gives you the highest level of flexibility and management control over your IT resources. It’s similar to existing on-premises IT resources, but with the benefits of cloud.
  • Platform as a Service (PaaS): Removes the need for you to manage underlying infrastructure (usually hardware and operating systems) and allows you to focus on the deployment and management of your applications. You don’t need to worry about resource procurement, capacity planning, or software patching.
  • Software as a Service (SaaS): Provides you with a completed product that is run and managed by the cloud service provider. All you need to do is purchase a subscription and then access the software.

Cloud Deployment Models

How you deploy your cloud resources also matters:

  • Public Cloud: Owned and operated by third-party cloud service providers, delivering computing resources over the internet.
  • Private Cloud: Computing resources are used exclusively by a single business or organization. It can be physically located at the on-premises data center or hosted by a third-party service provider.
  • Hybrid Cloud: Combines public and private clouds, bound together by technology that allows data and applications to be shared between them.

Example of IaaS

# Provisioning a virtual machine in a public cloud (conceptual) import cloud_provider_sdk vm_config = { "instance_type": "t2.micro", "region": "us-east-1", "os_image": "ami-0abcdef1234567890" } vm = cloud_provider_sdk.create_vm(config=vm_config) print(f"Created VM with ID: {vm.id}")

This example conceptually shows how you might use an SDK to provision a virtual machine. You manage the OS, middleware, and applications on top of this infrastructure.

Benefits of Cloud Computing

Adopting cloud computing can lead to significant advantages:

Key Benefits

  • Cost Savings
  • Scalability & Elasticity
  • Reliability & Availability
  • Performance
  • Security
  • Flexibility & Agility
  • Global Reach