What is Cloud Computing | Explained

Cloud computing is storing and accessing the data and applications which are stored in different data centers across the world using virtualization.

Nowadays we listen that everything is shifting or migrating to the cloud. So what does this cloud computing actually mean and what are the advantages of using it. We shall also see who are the top providers of the cloud computing platforms.

Cloud Computing Explained

Cloud computing or Cloud services was actually introduced at the time of ARPANET but the actual use and implementation of it can be seen in recent decades. Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider is known as the Father of cloud computing who was a part of ARPANET was introduced the cloud computing technology. So how exactly this thing works?

Most of us might know the problems we get while distributing an application on the internet and maintaining it. Sometimes due to over traffic, the server might get crashed, or sometimes it might not run on a different platform. Handling and Maintaining an application on the internet is really a big issue that is hard to handle. Not only this the server cost, making it run 24/7, power and electricity all has to be maintained. Even if there is no traffic on the website the server needs to be running. Cloud computing can handle all of the things. Cloud service provides the services and resources based on our needs. All the maintaining of the servers is also done by the cloud service providers. We should only pay for the resources which we are using based on hourly minutes or even seconds basis.

Instead of buying and maintaining a whole server, or data center you can use cloud service providers who give you access to all the computing engines, processing power, database systems, and also manage the users. Most of the Applications and Websites are now moved to the cloud and in the IT cloud architects are the most demanded technicians. Even if you are not in the cloud we can migrate to the cloud in just a few operations that's how simple cloud computing is. A popular and simple use of this is Google Drive we can store all our information and access them across any device. We can also expand or decrease the usage of resources and processing power based on our needs just in seconds or one server is down start a different compute engine and Want to add more developers and members to the application can be don't just with the help of few commands and operations.

Why Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing comes with many advantages compared to the traditional hosting or personal maintains of data centers or servers of sites and applications. Traditional hosting or those which we buy in terms of years or months and they provide us resources and computational power for our application but all the maintains and handling should be done by the developer.

• We can pay for only the resources and processing power which we use rather than paying monthly or yearly. Some cloud service providers like AWS also charge the usage based on seconds.

• Rather than wasting our time in maintaining the server, we can just focus on our work and the development of the application. Hiring large IT teams and professional teams also can be reduced because everything is handled by the cloud service provider.

• The other main benefit of using cloud computing is the mobility and reachability of your work across the globe. Any device which has a connection to the internet can access the application. In other words, if you want to access your work or make some changes you can just do it by going to the service provider's site and make changes. we can retrieve store data from anywhere to the cloud. upgrading can also be done very easily.

• For example, if you maintain a data center or server in times of system crashes or attacks the chance of losing data is very high cloud service provides guarantees safety and reliability to your data. Even in times of some crashes or attacks recovering and backing up the data is made simple.

• If you have released a new version of your software and want to test it on real-world users without losing your old version can be done easily. If there is some new update in the software which is used to maintain the data center then updating all the engines may be really hectic work but cloud engines are clever enough and stay up to date and can upgrade themselves.

• Security and monitoring can be improved. In today's world "Information is the Most Powerful Tool". Hiding personal information and showing the necessary information to the users is very important. Even monitoring the usage of the resources can be done easily. There are ever separate services provided for each specific task.

Popular Cloud Service Providers

So If want to Shift your work to the cloud and want to migrate first let's see the best cloud service, providers. Amazon Web Services or AWS are the most used cloud service providers and a whole 33% of the market share belongs to AWS apart from Amazon there are also other providers which are good enough and popular let's see each of them in detail.

AWS Amazon Web Services.

AWS was introduced in 2002 by Amazon and is the most popular and used cloud service provider which more than 200+ services across various IT fields AI, Machine learning, Security, IAM, and many more with data centers across the globe. Each data center of AWS has minimum 2 regions and most of them also have 3 regions

The popular services provided by AWS are E2C, S2, AWS Lambda, AWS Route53, AWS Athena,  AWS Functions, AWS SNS, and many more

Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure is the 2nd Largest cloud service provider with 18% of the market share. It also provides many deployment and management services for cloud-based applications like SaaS(Software As A Service), PaaS (Platform As A Service), and IaaS(Infrastructure as a Service). Including this, you can also use the different third-party software provided by Microsoft which can make your application easier to handle.

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) 

When all the other multinational companies are moving to the cloud google also created its own cloud platform. Google is the 3rd most popular among these with 9% of the total market share but it has a steady growth in its share. The interesting part of GCP is that Google is providing free courses and internships for students who are new to the cloud which is a very good strategy. Google also provides services for Machine learning, Game development, and many other IT field-related technologies. The website which is built on Google also uses the same platform.

Alibaba, Oracle, IBM, and Others

Not only Big companies like Google, Microsoft companies like Oracle, IBM also provide cloud platforms with around 50% of the market share. Alibaba is the most popular among these which is a Chinese company lead by JackMa. Most of the Chinese apps are build on this. Oracle and IBM also provide good services but not as good as others.

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