People around the world keep on hearing the word “cloud computing”, but don’t really know what it really is. So we realize that it’s time to talk about exactly what this buzzword really means.
What is Cloud Computing?
According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the definition for “Cloud Computing” is:“Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.”
Which is utter piece of nonsense and really confusing.
So what is the definition which is easier & understandable by common people?
Cloud Computing = Web Applications
If you’re using a web or internet-based application from a major provider like Google or Microsoft, you’re using cloud computing. That’s All!!!
Every web application that you’ve ever used, like Gmail, Google Calendar, Hotmail, SalesForce, Dropbox, and Google Docs, are based on “cloud computing”, because when you connect to one of these services, you’re really connecting to a massive pool of servers somewhere out there on the internet. The client doesn’t need to be a web browser, but that’s the direction everything is heading.
Now the question arises, Why Cloud Computing?
We have already established that it’s a pointless term that simply describes web applications, which have been around for a very long time, but in order to get businesses to start switching to web applications instead of self-hosted servers, the marketing types invented a new buzzword.
The reason why they used the word “cloud” in the buzzword is simple: in network diagrams, the internet is usually represented with a cloud in the middle of the drawing.
In the past, every company would run all of their applications on all of their own servers, hosted at their own location or data center. This obviously requires a lot of maintenance and money to keep everything running, upgraded, and secure.
But what if your company provides a service to others? You can also take advantage of cloud computing by creating applications that don’t run on your own servers, but actually utilize server resources provided by one of the big providers like Google has App Engine, Microsoft has Windows Azure, and Amazon has their EC2 framework.
We have already established that it’s a pointless term that simply describes web applications, which have been around for a very long time, but in order to get businesses to start switching to web applications instead of self-hosted servers, the marketing types invented a new buzzword.
The reason why they used the word “cloud” in the buzzword is simple: in network diagrams, the internet is usually represented with a cloud in the middle of the drawing.
So basically the term itself is just a way for consultants and companies to sell more services in a shiny new package.
How Can Cloud Computing Help Me?
Since businesses everywhere are moving their applications to the web and coming out with new and interesting features accessible through your web browser, you will soon be able to access virtually anything from any browser on any PC.It will get even more interesting whenever Chrome OS is finally released, which is basically an entire operating system built around a web browser as the primary interface, with all of your applications as web applications instead of local—hopefully it will support web integration like IE9 does with the Windows 7 taskbar.
How Is Cloud Computing Different for Businesses?
If you’re in the IT world you’re probably scratching your head at this point and thinking that we are oversimplifying the idea behind cloud computing, so let’s explain the real difference from the more technical side of things.In the past, every company would run all of their applications on all of their own servers, hosted at their own location or data center. This obviously requires a lot of maintenance and money to keep everything running, upgraded, and secure.
From a business perspective, businesses can now move much of their computing to cloud services, which provide the same applications that you would install on your own servers, but now they are accessible over the internet for any of their customers. Have you read about companies switching to Google Docs? That’s a perfect example of companies switching from hosting their own local servers to using cloud computing instead.
But what if your company provides a service to others? You can also take advantage of cloud computing by creating applications that don’t run on your own servers, but actually utilize server resources provided by one of the big providers like Google has App Engine, Microsoft has Windows Azure, and Amazon has their EC2 framework.
Most of these services operate on a pay-for-resources basis, so your application only gets charged for the amount of CPU and network use that it actually uses. When your application is small and doesn’t have a lot of users, you don’t get charged much, but the benefit is that it can scale up to 10,000 users without any trouble.
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