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Define / What is "Cloud Computing" ? What is the characteristic of cloud computing?
The term "Cloud computing" is a perplexing and hazy term that refers to the collection of hardware, networks, storage, network, and interfaces that work together to deliver computing resources as a service over the internet without any knowledge of physical location. So, Cloud computing is a technology that delivers computing services—such as servers, storage, databases, networking, software, and analytics—over the Internet ("the cloud").
Instead of owning, managing and relying on a company’s own servers or applications on-site, these resources and services are provided on-demand by a cloud provider's servers. Cloud computing offers various services over the Internet, including software, infrastructure, and storage.
The cloud service delivery models are typically categorized into three categories
1. IaaS (Infrastructure as Service): One common type of cloud service is Infrastructure-as-a-
Service (IaaS), which provides virtual servers and data storage over the internet as per user demand. Eg : IaaS providers include but not limited to Amazon, Rackspace, and FlexiScale.
2. PaaS (Platform as Service): Offers a development platform that includes infrastructure
and tools to build, deploy, and manage applications. For example, if the cloud service provider, provides a development platform that includes an operating system, programming language runtime, database, and web server, it is known as Platform-as-a- Service (PaaS). This model allows for frequent updates, diverse service sources, and collaborative programming, even for geographically dispersed teams. Examples of PaaS providers are Google App Engine, Microsoft Azure, and Salesforce.
3. SaaS (Software-as-a-Service): SaaS provides software applications via the Internet on a
subscription model, removing the need for local installation and upkeep. Examples include Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) and Salesforce.
Beside above-mentioned service delivery models' new approaches were made. some of them in XaaS or Everything or anything as service. Eg DBaaS, CaaS, FaaS etc
Characteristics of Cloud Computing
Service Oriented: The defining characteristic of cloud computing is the service-oriented
feature. All the IT related services are hosted in cloud infrastructure. Companies should not have to buy expensive servers; network equipment’s and invests on expensive manpower. On Demand: A consumer can provision computing capabilities, such as server processing and network storage, as needed automatically without requiring human interacting with each service’s provider. Reliability, Elasticity and scalability: The cloud is reliable in the sense that the infrastructure setup for cloud is robust and backed up for high availability The cloud is elastic, meaning that resource allocation can get bigger or smaller depending on demand. Elasticity enables scalability, which means that the cloud can scale upward for peak demand and downward for lighter demand.
