Cloud computing is a concept that is not new, today cloud computing is very different from when it got started.  Earlier cloud computing was limited to IT industry only. Whereas now using a Gmail or wearing a smartwatch or using smart electronics in home, all are enabled with cloud computing. So everyone is using cloud computing without even knowing it. Still today the question is “What cloud computing actually is?” as many people still not aware of the basic concept.

Cloud Computing –  The Term

Cloud Computing as a term was first introduced in 1996 by George Favaloro, Compaq in an internal documentation of 50 pages where they are referring to internet cloud a lot. Later on, Sean O’ Sullivan, NetCentric in May 1997 tried to trademark the term but abandoned it in April 1999.

Problem

Before answering the concept of cloud computing, biggest question is “why cloud computing?”

Well the old fashioned IT infrastructure had some serious issues and many of these infrastructures failed to touch 100% of their capacity.  Because earlier companies had deploy their all servers in house only. Whether it is for email, productivity suite, platform, and all other IT related stuffs. That used to take-up all the space in the offices, with that maintaining them was also an issue. As companies had to afford high costs for all the hardware and software, electricity, and man power to monitor them. Still it wasn’t enough if someday the server used to goes down then it was disaster, sometimes companies used to lose the whole business in that one day.

So far computing was always a product. Understand in this way that whatever computing an individual or a company required had to buy it, monitor it, and use it as product. Just like any other product such as kitchen items, buy vegetables, fruits, and appliances then use them with the with the cooking expertise. Similarly buy computing consist of CPU, RAM, storage space, OS, and application or software. Then, use them with the server or computing expertise.

That used to give great goose bumps to all till the cloud computing arrives.

Solution and Concept: Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is actually a computing model that offers any type of computing as a service. Whether it is infrastructure or platform or software or all of it. And pay only how much you are using of the computing power.

To understand this better let’s take an example in early 1900’s was industrial revolution when factories were big things and each factory required a lot of electric power. That was an era when having a VP of Electricity was a normal thing as electricity in that time was a product. Companies had to buy generators, petrol, wires, and machines in order to produce and generate electricity, for their production. So companies always required a team with a leader of electricity who had to full fill the requirements of electricity to run constantly.

Then in the mid 1900’s the electricity becomes a service. Every government deployed electric grids after every few 100s of KMs and wired up the electricity to reach to the companies and homes. And with the help of electric meters companies had to pay only that much they were consuming.

In that same fashion now computing model is changed from being a product to a service. Now pay only of that computing power  such as RAM, CPU, storage, operating system, applications and other required tools that are being consumed. Cloud computing concept is designed in such a way that it ensures 100% up time, better ROI, and constant updates to enhance user experience.

Cloud computing consist of three main pillars.

• SaaS (Software as a service):
  This is where actual applications and softwares are offered.
• PaaS (Platform as a service):
  This is where operating system and platforms are offered.
• IaaS (Infrastructure or IT as a service):
  This is where actual hardware is being used such as CPU, RAM, storage, etc.

Using all these pillars cloud computing has its own concepts of:

• Public cloud:
  when everything is open and offered publicly such as Gmail, Google apps, Microsoft Outlook mail, OneDrive, Dropbox etc.
• Private cloud:
  when everything is offered with super security and privacy.
• Hybrid cloud:
  when it is mixed of public and private cloud both where companies require public services on some modules and private services on the others.

On the personal note, hybrid cloud is quite affordable to most of the startups and SMEs. Because of its customisation and power to make things public and private.

Today is the biggest era of cloud computing as all the big IT giants are offering variety of cloud computing services. Mainly Google with Google Cloud, Microsoft with Azure, and Amazon with AWS.

Many SMEs and big-level-enterprises have already moved or starting to move their tech stack and business to cloud servers because of cost effectiveness and less of risk to fail the system. Have you?