Understanding 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 Characteristics of Cloud Computing
- 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 rapidly scale out and in 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
Cloud computing offers several service models, each providing a different level of control, flexibility, and management:
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
IaaS provides the most basic level of cloud computing. You rent IT infrastructure—servers and virtual machines (VMs), storage, and networks—from a cloud provider on a pay-as-you-go basis. It’s the most flexible cloud service model because it offers the highest level of control over your infrastructure.
- Use Cases: Migrating workloads to the cloud, development and testing, high-performance computing, big data analytics.
- Providers: Azure Virtual Machines, Amazon EC2, Google Compute Engine.
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
PaaS provides a cloud environment in which developers can build, deploy, and manage applications. It removes the need for organizations to manage the underlying infrastructure (usually hardware and operating systems) and allows them to focus on the deployment and management of their applications.
- Use Cases: Application development and deployment, API development and management, IoT development.
- Providers: Azure App Service, Heroku, Google App Engine.
Software as a Service (SaaS)
SaaS provides a completed product that is run and managed by the service provider. In a SaaS application, all you need is a device that can connect to the Internet. You might pay a monthly or annual subscription fee for the software.
- Use Cases: Email and collaboration tools, customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP).
- Providers: Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Google Workspace.
Cloud Deployment Models
Cloud deployment models describe the type of cloud environment where your cloud infrastructure resides:
Public Cloud
Public clouds are owned and operated by third-party cloud service providers. They deliver their computing resources, like servers and storage, over the Internet. The hardware, software, and other supporting infrastructure are owned by the cloud provider and are the responsibility of the provider.
Private Cloud
A private cloud consists of computing resources used either exclusively by a single business or organization or by several organizations with common concerns. It can be located physically at the on-premises datacentre of the organization, or it can be hosted by a third-party service provider.
Hybrid Cloud
Hybrid cloud combines public and private clouds, allowing data and applications to be shared between them. A hybrid cloud gives businesses greater flexibility and more deployment options.
Benefits of Cloud Computing
- Cost Savings: Reduce capital expenditure on hardware and infrastructure.
- Scalability: Easily scale resources up or down as demand fluctuates.
- Flexibility: Access services and data from anywhere with an internet connection.
- Performance: Benefit from a global network of secure datacenters.
- Reliability: Cloud providers offer robust backup, disaster recovery, and redundancy.
- Security: Cloud providers invest heavily in security measures.
Getting Started with .NET in the Cloud
The .NET ecosystem is highly cloud-native and integrates seamlessly with major cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). You can leverage .NET to build a wide range of cloud-native applications, including web applications, microservices, serverless functions, and more.
Explore the following resources to learn how to deploy and manage your .NET applications in the cloud: