Cloud Computing: Your data’s up there!

Hey everyone, today’s topic is “cloud” — no, not the fluffy ones, out there in the sky, but cloud computing! In simple terms we can say virtual storage with on-demand computing superpowers.

Before cloud computing existed, setting up IT servers or applications, such as a basic web server, was no simple task. It required numerous servers, databased, & software to get a business online, which means lots of investment. Along with this, it was necessary to invest in acquiring the technical knowledge & skills to manage hardware & software. Considering these factors, the costs could be bleh.. potentially causing one to reconsider or even abandon the plan to make a shift online.

Here comes the savior concept: Cloud Computing!

Let’s see what exactly it is & why it’s hyped so much.

What is cloud computing?

Cloud computing is the use of a network of remote servers hosted on the internet to store, manage & process data, rather than relying a local server. In simple terms, cloud computing involves storing our data on a remote server and accessing it from anywhere via the internet. Companies that provide such services are known as cloud providers.

Cloud computing service providers give us the ability to manage our applications and services through the internet. Such cloud providers include Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure etc.

Benefits of cloud computing

1. Speed: Cloud services are available instantaneously and ready for production almost immediately.
2. Cost: It eliminates the cost of buying right-sized hardware, which is always a challenge in a growing environment. With the cloud, we don’t buy any hardware; we use the hardware and pay for the time we use it. If that hardware doesn’t fit our requirements, we release it and use another suitable hardware service.
3. Scalability: With the cloud, you can let the monitoring and automation tools work for you and rapidly scale up or down the resources based on the need.
4. Accessibility: Resources, services, data can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection. There are also tools and techniques that allow you to work offline and will sync whenever the internet is available.
5. Security: Data stored on cloud is encrypted and is stored in highly durable storage. It can also be replicate to multiple regions if we want.

Types of cloud computing

A) Based on Cloud Deployments:

1. Public: Everything is stored and accessed through the internet, and any internet user with proper permissions can be given access to some of the applications and resources. We own nothing in public cloud; everything, including hardware or software, everything is managed by the provider. Examples include AWS, Azure, Google Cloud.
2. Private: The infrastructure is exclusively for single organization. Organizations can choose to run their own cloud locally or outsource it to a public cloud provider as managed services. When this is done, service infrastructure is maintained on a private network. Examples include VMware Cloud & some AWS products.
3. Hybrid: It combines the functionalities of both public & private cloud. We can keep some applications locally while others are hosted in the cloud. For example, NASA uses a private cloud to store sensitive data and a public cloud to store and share non-sensitive information. NASA’s open-source cloud project, NEBULA, uses a private cloud for research and development and a public cloud to share datasets with external partners and the public.

B) Based on Cloud Services:

1. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): We rent IT infrastructure (servers, networks, etc.) from a cloud provider on a pay-as-you-go basis (hourly). We have access to the resources we provision and, in some cases, root-level access. Users of IaaS can outsource and build a “virtual data center” in the cloud and have access to the resources. An example is AWS Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), which is a VM that provides root-level access to the OS and admin access to the hardware.
2. Platform as a Service (PaaS): Provides a platform on which software can be developed and deployed. The cloud provider allows customers to deploy their applications using programming languages, tools, etc. We only need to manage the code, not the infrastructure. An example is AWS Elastic Beanstalk.
3. Software as a Service (SaaS): Cloud providers host and manage software applications on a subscription basis. The client maintains control of the software environment but does not maintain any equipment. The cloud providers sell the end product, which is a software application, and we directly buy the software on a subscription basis. It’s not the infrastructure or the platform, but the end product or functioning application. We pay for the hours we use the software. An example is AWS.

Lifecycle of a cloud computing solution:

1. Define the Purpose: Understand the business requirements and determine what type of applications to run on the cloud. This is important to pick the right service offered by the provider, ensuring a sound understanding of the needs.
2. Define the Hardware: Choose a compute service that provides the right support and allows you to resize the compute capacity in the cloud to run application programs. There are different services and hardware for various needs, such as EC2 for general computing, Lambda for serverless computing, and ECS for containerized servers.
3. Define the Storage: Choose a storage service for backing up and archiving your data over the internet. Select the appropriate storage type, such as S3 for backup and Glacier for archival.
4. Define the Network: Establish a network that securely delivers data, videos, applications, etc., with low latency and high transfer speed. Identify and define the network services properly, such as VPC for the network, Route 53 for DNS, and Direct Connect for a private P2P line from your office to the AWS data center.
5. Define Security: Set up your security services to enable user authentication and limit access to specific users on your AWS resources. Use IAM for authentication and authorization and KMS for data encryption at rest.
6. Define Management Processes and Tools: Maintain complete control over your cloud environment by defining management tools that monitor AWS resources and customer applications running on the AWS platform. For example, use CloudWatch for monitoring, Auto Scaling for elasticity, and CloudFormation for deployment.
7. Testing the Process: Verify the process using AWS developer tools where you can build, test, and deploy your code quickly. Examples include CodeStar, CodeBuild, and CodePipeline.
8. Analytics: Finally, analyze and visualize data using analytics services where you can start querying data instantly and get results. Examples include EMR (Elastic MapReduce) and CloudSearch.

And this covers the basics of cloud computing.

Stay tuned for more insights, and feel free to share your thoughts or cloud-related experiences in the comments below!