A Non-Techies guide on the ‘Cloud’

What is the ‘Cloud’?

Have you ever been confused as to what the Cloud actually is? I certainly have. So I’ve decided to write a non-techie guide to what the Cloud actually is and what it does.

Firstly, I will clear up the fact that the Cloud has nothing to do with clouds in sky.

The Cloud, in technology terms, is actually a shared pool of computing resources, which consists of computer networks, servers, storage, applications, and services.

So, the Cloud isn’t some invisible thing above our heads but is actually made up of real physical computing resources. These components are things that you could actually touch!

As mentioned above, the Cloud consists of several areas but in this article I will focus on the storage side of the Cloud. This is probably the easiest way for a beginner to understand the Cloud

The best way for us non-techies to imagine the Cloud is to think about a giant building filled with server racks (used to hold all our data – think FB pictures etc.), switches and routers, firewalls, and huge amounts of cables – like the picture below!

The next section will look at why we store things in the Cloud.

Why store things in the cloud?

The first thing that you need to understand is that one of the major uses of the Cloud is to store data and this is only becoming more and more popular. To understand why, we need to look at how things were done before the Cloud.

Prior to the Cloud, companies used to have their own storage facilities (known as on-premise) within their headquarters or one of their offices. They used to have to pay large upfront costs to buy the servers and storage, networking equipment, and security as well as having to pay a team of engineers to maintain it.

On top of this, if they were growing fast and they needed more storage space they would then need to buy more expensive servers, which would usually have much more space than they actually needed. Not only this, but as technology is constantly evolving, the company would also need to pay expensive upgrade costs to stay up to date.

Then the Cloud came along and promised to take all of these expensive problems away.

3rd party companies known as Cloud service providers (CSPs – another lovely acronym) decided to build huge data centres facilities (like the picture below) and offer companies the opportunity to outsource their data storage needs on a pay-as-you-use model (you only pay for the space you need).

This type of model has a lot of benefits, but here are the main ones:

1)  The company is no longer confined to an on-premise data centre – this means they save money on buying and upgrading equipment as well as paying engineers to maintain these machines. The Cloud service providers take care of all the equipment and the maintenance.

2)  Scalability is easy – if you want to increase your storage space, all you have to do is click a button and it’s done. These data centres have an almost infinite amount of storage space - running out of space isn’t something we need to worry about either. This is a huge plus for companies who are growing fast!

3)  Easily accessible – companies or consumers can access their files from anywhere as long as they have an Internet connection. This will usually be done via web browser or a command line.

To understand the Cloud further the next sections will go through the 3 popular models of the Cloud or as they call them in industry, Cloud service models.

Model 1: Infrastructure-as-a-service or IaaS (the tech world loves using acronyms)

The Infrastructure-as-a-service model is when a company rents computer infrastructure, which includes server, storage, networking hardware, and the data centre space from a 3rd party. The 3rd party then maintains all of these components. Essentially, the client has outsourced their infrastructure needs, which traditionally would have been kept on-premise.

As mentioned before, the main benefits to this type of model are quick and easy scalability, costs savings due to not having to buy and upgrade equipment or pay maintenance engineers, and also the pay-as-you-use payment agreement.

The four big players in this market are -

1)  Amazon - their Cloud division is called Amazon Web Services or AWS.

2)  Microsoft – their Cloud division is called Microsoft Azure.

3)  Alibaba - their Cloud division is called Alibaba Cloud.

4)  Google - their Cloud division is called Google Cloud Platform.

This is a hot area of tech at the moment and global research firm Gartner predict that the IaaS market will grow 27.5% in 2019 to reach $38.9 billion, up from $30.5 billion in 2018.

Model 2: Platform-as-a-service or PaaS

Platform-as-a-service is a little bit more complicated for a non-techy to understand. Basically, what you need to know is the PaaS is concerned with software development and building new applications or programs.

So when a company wants to develop new programs or software, they will have a team of software developers (or coders) who will create the code. However, to build software applications the company must ensure that they have the correct environment to allow the software developers to create and run their code.

The correct environment can be simplified into two mains areas. The first is that they must have the correct infrastructure to store the new software applications they are building. Secondly, they must have access to the right development tools and resources to build the applications.

Before the Cloud, companies would have to make big upfront financial and time investments to create the right environment for developing software applications. Naturally, this was an expensive and time-consuming process.

So 3rd party providers decided to create these pre-ready software development environments in their big data centres and rent them to companies looking to develop applications. These 3rd party providers essentially provide and maintain all of the infrastructure (storage, security, and networking equipment) as well as providing the development environment (which consists of development tools and operating systems). Finally, this is all offered to the client through the Internet via a web browser or command line.

The value here is that companies only have to concentrate on developing the code and not worry about building the environment and infrastructure. Also, their software developers can work from their laptops and collaborate over one platform. This makes things a lot easier for developers as they can test and tweak things easily.

Just to be clear, the people who will be using PaaS services are mainly software developers.

Model 3: Software-as-a-service or SaaS

Interesting fact – you are already interacting with at least 3 or 4 software-as-a-service applications and you probably don’t know it.

For example, if you watch Netflix you are using a SaaS application. Okay, so what are they?

In simple terms, software-as-a-service applications are software applications (like Netflix or Spotify) that are available to end-users (me and you) via the Internet.

Back in the old days if you wanted to use software you would need to install the specific software on to your computer. For example, if you wanted to use a program to write documents or edit videos you would have had to download this on to your computer. Go to the shop to purchase a license key, and when this expired, go a purchase another. This model had its drawbacks for both consumers and businesses.

Software-as-a-service means that technology vendors (companies who create and sell technology) can build their applications, store it on their own servers, and then use the power of the Internet to let you use their service via your web browser, such as Google Chrome or Safari.

If we stick with the Netflix example from earlier, all you need to do is buy a Netflix account, go to your web browser, type in Netflix.com, and then choose your film and watch via the Internet. Of course, the key thing here is you need a good Internet connection – no one likes lagging movies!

There is a lot of value here for both the consumer and the company. For the consumer we get a service on demand that we can access via the Internet. Hence why we can watch Netflix videos from our mobile phones while sitting in the airport.

For businesses, they get recurring revenue (usually through a monthly membership fee) and they can also upgrade the software as they see fit, which means continuous improvements for the customer experience.

Outro

So we have covered the basics of what the Cloud is – if you made it this far you should be proud! Like I said, the Cloud is a huge topic so if you are interested in learning more get yourself on to YouTube or Google, as there is a lot of good and free content out there!

P.S. look at the picture below of the AWS and Microsoft Azure data centre locations across the globe (from 2016)

By Zane Powell