what is cloud computing?

Question

Deepak Tewatia · Answer

Cloud computing refers to the delivery of computing services including servers storage databases networking software and more over the internet (the cloud). This model offers faster innovation flexible resources and economies of scale. There are three main types of cloud services: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS). IaaS provides virtualized computing resources over the internet allowing users to deploy and manage their own virtual machines storage and networking. PaaS offers a platform allowing customers to develop run and manage applications without dealing with the complexity of building and maintaining the infrastructure. SaaS provides software applications over the internet on a subscription basis. One real-world example is Amazon Web Services (AWS) offering IaaS with services like Amazon EC2 for virtual servers and Amazon S3 for storage. Google Cloud Platform provides a PaaS environment with Google App Engine for application hosting and deployment. Salesforce offers SaaS through their customer relationship management (CRM) software accessed via the internet. By leveraging cloud computing organizations can scale resources based on demand which is exemplified in auto-scaling configurations. For instance AWS Auto Scaling adjusts capacity to maintain steady predictable performance at the lowest possible cost. Similarly Google Cloud's App Engine scales applications dynamically to meet traffic demands while optimizing costs. Additionally the shift from traditional on-premises data centers to cloud infrastructures has revolutionized how businesses manage store and access data providing unparalleled flexibility and agility. This has particularly been exemplified in the emergence of hybrid and multi-cloud architectures where organizations utilize a combination of cloud and on-premises resources. Would you like to delve into one of these areas further?