How Does Cloud Computing Work?

What is cloud computing?

Cloud computing  refers to sharing of resources, software and information through the internet. Information is stored on physical or virtual servers which are maintained by a cloud computing provider (Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, for example).

With Cloud computing, you can use computing services- such as servers, storages, databases, networking, software,   analytics and intelligence – over the web. Thus, the traditional hardware computing resources no longer form a key component of your fixed assets.

These flexible resources over the internet offer you a great option to lease- rather than purchase computing resources. Depending on your needs, you get economies of scale as you pay only for the cloud services that you use. This helps to lower your operational costs as well as scale your business as the organization’s needs change.

How does Cloud Computing Work?

To understand the working of a cloud system, consider it as a composition of 2 sections:

1.      the computer user and

2.      the cloud section

The two sections connect to each other through the internet.

Once the two systems are over the internet, there is requirement of a central server to manage the flow of data between them . Thus, a central server manages the cloud computing system. The server serves and transfers information to the computers that connect it.

When users connect to a server, they can access files, programs and other server information. Server virtualization is employed to mask server resources (number and identity of individual physical servers, processors, operating sytems) from server users. With the use of a virtualization application, a physical server is converted into multiple virtual machines. Each virtual server runs multiple operating systems on the same time.

The purpose of central server is to manage traffic and client demands and ensure everything runs smoothly.

To enable cloud technology between these two entities,a set of rules called protocols govern the transfer of data. A special software called middleware ensures communication between cloud devices and the computer systems at user end. This is how cloud technology gets enabled in real-time.

Stay Tuned on the upcoming posts on cloud computing.

(To be continued...)