Cloud computing is something we often hear about in the technological sphere. When computing services are stored and accessed over the internet, not physical hard drives, it is called cloud computing. Putting it in another way, cloud computing is any kind of hosted service which is delivered through the internet.
Services include servers, databases, analytics, software, networks, and similar other computing functions whose operations can be done through the cloud. And guess what, the files and programmes cloud-stored can be accessed from anywhere.
There are three major types of cloud computing service namely software-as-a-service (SaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS).
- SaaS is the most common type and used on a daily basis by many. It is the SaaS model that makes software accessible through an application or web browser. Notable examples include Salesforce, and Google Docs among others.
- Coming to PaaS, it is a cloud environment supporting web application development and deployment. This helps users build, test, deploy, manage and update all in one place. Development tools, business intelligence and such other solutions too are included. Prime examples for the same are Google App Engine, and AWS Elastic Beanstalk among others.
- The last one is IaaS, which provides users with basic computer infrastructure capabilities. This includes data storage, servers and hardware, everything in the cloud. Some of the examples would be Google Compute Engine and Amazon EC2.
Now, let us have a brief understanding of how cloud computing works. Primarily, the cloud is a decentralized place and information is shared through satellite networks. And hence, every cloud application has a host, and that is responsible for sustaining the massive data centers which should provide powers such as storage, security, and computing. This helps in maintaining all the information users send to the cloud. Clients need to pay for getting rights to use their clouds and to build an ecosystem that allows communication between devices and programmes.
The cloud computing benefits are many. It is a remote world today and given that environment, cloud computing allows for business operations to continue and thrive regardless of business location. The other prime benefits are security and remote accessibility as well as collaboration tools to name a few.