Cloud Fundamentals- A Quick Guide for Beginners
What is Cloud ?
The cloud refers to a network of distributed servers accessed over the internet .
It is considered to be a vast pool of resources available online and accessible from various geographic locations .
What is Cloud Computing?
Delivery of computing services over the internet . Examples of these services include servers, storage, databases , networking, software, analytics which are designed to support individuals and organizations across the IT Industry.
We have around 100+ services in Cloud . Not every service need to be known . Based on the role, one has to learn them . example: Google Meet is one common example that provides Video services .All the data is stored in the servers. Cloud servers are located in data centers all over the world .
By using cloud computing , users and companies does not need to manage physical servers themselves .
Across the world buying these Data Centers is huge investment. We have very limited Cloud providers .Most popular are listed as below .
GCP - Google Cloud Platform
AWS - Amazon Web Services
Azure - Microsoft Azure
Advantages of Cloud :
1) Cost Efficiency :
Customer follows a pay-as-you-go model where they don't need to buy and maintain physical servers.
Example : During big sale events like Big Billion Days, shopping sites face huge traffic. Instead of buying hardware, they go for renting the additional servers from cloud providers during these sale days. This saves major costs.
2) Scalability :
Scalability in Cloud computing refers to the ability to increase or decrease the resources based on the demand. We have Vertical Scalability and Horizontal scalability .
i) Vertical Scalability :
Increasing or Decreasing the power of an existing server to handle the load based on the demand.
A Real-World Insight : Suppose we have a machine with 2 GB of RAM , if we increase its capacity to 4 GB, then to 8 GB, and so on - this is known as vertical scaling . In this case 2 GB -> 4 GB -> 8 GB -> 16 GB -> 32 GB. This is called vertical scaling, where the component(machine) remains same , but we increase its power or capacity. Vertical scalability can go up (eg:2 GB to 32 GB) or down (e.g.: 32 GB to 16 GB to 8 GB), depending on the requirements.
ii) Horizontal Scalability :
Suppose we start with one machine. If we add a second machine, then a third, then a fourth and so on - we are implementing horizontal scaling. Instead of increasing the power of a single machine, we add multiple identical machines to share the load.
A Real-World Insight : Imagine we have one big retail shop. If we expand the size of that shop, it is vertical scaling. But instead, if we open multiple branches of the same shop, that's horizontal scaling.
In general vertical scaling in computing has physical or architectural limits-there's only so much one can upgrade a single machine.
On the other hand, horizontal scaling offers greater flexibility and room to grow by adding more machines, making it more scalable in the long run.
3) Geo Distribution (Network Latency) :
As earlier mentioned , the servers on cloud are distributed over multiple data centers across different geographic locations.
A Real-World Insight - Imagine building a job portal in India for users in the United States. Application is hosted on a server in Bangalore office . When users in the US access it, the site feels slow. But the same users find it much faster when they access it from India during a visit.
This is due to network latency - the delay.
4) Opex Not Capex Model :
Opex : Operational Expense(renting, pay-per-usage)
Capex : Capital Expenditure(like buying Infrastructure)
In Cloud Computing , the Opex (Operational Expenditure) model replaces the traditional Capex(Capital Expenditure) model .
The companies pay for cloud services as they use them (Opex) rather than heavily investing upfront on physical infrastructure (Capex) . This will benefit the companies reduce financial risk and avoid long-term hardware investments ,maintenance and thus making operations more flexible and cost-efficient.
A Real-World Insight - In the transportation context , Buying a car would be an investment that comes like a Capex Model which involves large investment on a long term asset that an individual owns.
On the other hand, Opex Model is renting a taxi, which follows the pay-as-you-use approach allows the individual save the cost and avoid long-term maintenance.
Types of Cloud Services :
Cloud services offers various types of Computing resources . Few of them as listed below :
a) IaaS - Infra Structure as A Service :
Infrastructure as a service is the most flexible cloud computing service.
It delivers on-demand infrastructure resources such as storage, virtualization, networking, compute etc.
The Service provider owns and provides the infrastructure (the server) and the customers will purchase and manage the software .
A Real-World Insight - If a company issues a laptop (the infrastructure) to an employee, it is the responsibility of the employee to manage and configure everything such as installations and deployments etc.
example : Virtual Machines from the Cloud
b) PaaS - Platform as a Service :
Platform as a Service delivers and manages hardware and software resources .The Cloud Provider maintains the Operating Systems , middle ware , security . It is completely well suited to provide complete development environment.
A Real-World Insight - Assume a person in Bangalore who requests for mutual funds calculations. He goes to the Cloud and uses Azure Functions like or Lambda functions in AWS to get the solution . Now he doesn't worry about the operating system , software, or infrastructure. All he requires is to execute the code and get the output.
example : Azure Functions , Google App Engine, Heroku
c) SaaS - Software as a Service :
Software as a Service is a popular Cloud Service model that enables users to access the software applications which are ready to use over the internet . In this case, users don't need to manage or control the infrastructure, platform or application logic but can only perform actions allowed on the applications .
A Real-World Insight - Usage of Google Meet - Google Meet accomodates 500 people in a meeting . As a user we don't care about the technology it is built with and on which platform it runs on . As a end user, we don't have any rights to change anything in Google Meet except for the usage of the functionalities it allows.
example : Facebook, Google.com, Twitter .
Types of the Cloud Deployment Models :
We have three types of Cloud Deployment Models categorized based on how they are hosted , managed and accessed .
1) Private Cloud :
Private Cloud is a type of cloud computing model that is owned and managed by single organization.
For Instance , large Banks and healthcare organizations use Private Cloud . Many Organizations have their own data centers at multiple locations which ensures highest safety compared to other cloud models.
They are highly available, secured and compliant.
Private Cloud requires huge investments as it involves setting up of infrastructure, multiple data centers, hardware and maintenance.
2) Public Cloud :
Public Cloud is a type of cloud computing model that is offered by third party providers over the internet .
examples for third party providers - Azure, AWS or GCP .
Ownership lies with the cloud provider who have data centers all around the world and users don't have to worry about them . Cost is lower compared to private cloud .
Although ownership lies with provider , modern public cloud offers strong security measures through Encryption, Compliance certifications and NDAs to protect the user data.
3) Hybrid Cloud :
Hybrid Cloud is a combination of private and public cloud computing models .
Critical data is stored in private cloud while less sensitive data is accessed through public cloud . Large banks use this approach where they have their own private cloud storing critical and confidential data while storing general data or non-critical data on public cloud like Azure.
This approach allows to balance security , cost and scalability.
