Breaking - Cloud computing

What is Cloud computing?

Anything that involves delivering hosted services over the internet. Applications or data which are present in a remote location. It refers to manipulating, configuring, and assessing hardware & software resources remotely.

Why would you need it?

Allows flexibility of operations. To save costs on infrastructure. To scale-up & down resources quickly. 

The underlying concepts for Cloud computing:

Deployment models- (Type of access to the cloud)

Private cloud- Services & systems accessible within an organization hence more secure.
Public cloud- Accessible to the general public hence not very secure. (Google, Amazon & Microsoft)
Community cloud- Accessible to a group of organizations.   

Hybrid cloud- Mix of private & public, where critical services performed using private cloud & other over the public cloud.

Service models - IaaS, PaaS, SaaS. Xaas, IaaC.

XaaS - Anything as a service. For e.g. Network, Database, Business, Identity or Strategy as a service.

Infrastructure as a code- Language-specific SDKs containing APIs that allow you to easily incorporate the connectivity & functionality of a wider range of services into your code without the difficulty of writing the functions yourself.   

Technologies at play at the back-end:

Virtualization: It is the abstraction of resources. So making a single physical resource to function as multiple resources (Server, OS, App or Storage) OR making multiple resources to function as a single resource (Storage or servers). 

A technology that allows you to optimize computing resources like Networking, Memory, storage, CPU, etc. 

Server virtualization: One physical machine is divided into many virtual servers. The core concept is of a Hypervisor or a Virtual machine monitor which provides a layer that intercepts OS calls to hardware. Hence providing virtualized CPU & memory for guests running on top of it. 

Pros & Cons of Server Virtualization:

Service-Oriented Architecture 

It helps use applications as a service regardless of the vendor, product, or technology. Therefore it is possible to exchange data between applications of different vendors without additional programming.

Grid Computing

This refers to distributed computing, in which a group of computers from multiple locations are connected to achieve a common objective. It basically breaks complex tasks into smaller pieces.

Utility Computing

Pay per Use model offering computational resources as metered service.   

Key terms in Cloud computing: 

Storage- Keeps multiple replicas of storage
Server- Helps to compute the resource sharing and with allocation/de-allocation
Network- Allows connecting cloud services over the internet. Customers can customize the network route & protocol.
Deployment software- Helps deploy & integrate application over the cloud
Management software- Helps maintain & configure the infrastructure