What is Cloud?
When someone asks you about cloud, then suddenly the following picture of a cloud comes into your mind:
![cloud]()
But the cloud that we're going to discuss is somewhat different from this picture.
Definition
"A cloud is something where you can store all your data and process it by using the internet."
Types of Cloud
There are three types of cloud,
- Public
- Private
- Hybrid
Let's see how this works. Let me talk about the first one.
Public Cloud
Inthe public cloud your data and services are placed on cloud machines but you don't need to know where these machines are located and how you'll access these machines.
Private Cloud
In a private cloud a dedicated cloud is reserved for some company or organization for its business operations, which could be applications, data, services etc.
Hybrid Cloud
In between these two types we have something called a hybrid cloud. Now what's that?
Well, it's a combination of these two i.e., public and private cloud. If you want to store your credentials on the cloud then private is the best option you can go for it. But if you think that you've no sensitive data then you can go for the public cloud and if you use both of these for your operations and task or whatever you called then there's a term called as hybrid cloud.
Uses of a cloud are if you are going to start a business and you think that you need some extra servers and workstations for your business but you don't have enough space for the placement of these heavy servers, then it's a good choice for you to go for the cloud. By using the cloud you can access the files and services locally using an internet connection. Cloud also provides the processing and virtual machines. So you don't need to buy these heavy load servers and workstations for your work, also you don't need the headache of security, updates, and maintenance of these virtual machines. The company that provides the cloud services handles all the security and maintenance of these virtual machines.
Pros and Cons of Cloud
- By using the cloud services you can reduce the networking, security and maintenance costs because as we already said it is the headache of the company that provides you the cloud services. So you don't need to worry about that.
- Cloud allows you to access the files anywhere. You can access the files from sitting in any corner of the world. All you need is just an internet connection and a personal computer or a device.
- Some really amazing feature of the cloud is that you can even use the processing, storage and memory by using the virtual machine feature of the cloud service.
Of course this is an era of cloud computing but there are still holes that cannot be easily filled.
- The biggest disadvantage of the cloud is that it's not fully secured. If you ask a banking sector to shift their business to cloud then it's a tough challenge for these banks because the banks don't want to share their banking records, secret information and transactions with some other country. And that's the biggest issue of the cloud.
- Another common issue is that cloud is not free. If you want to use virtual machines and cloud services then cloud vendors charge you according to the geographical region and number of hours that you want to use that service.
- If you have no internet facility then you can't use that service. Of course the one-drive feature that is used in Windows 8, 8.1 and 10 have an option to access your files locally without the internet connection but try to upload the file in the one-drive without an internet connection it will just put your file into a one-drive folder but never update that file on the cloud as you've no internet connection. So we can say that it's another issue of cloud.
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