What is Cloud Computing? Explain in simple words?

Cloud Computing is the delivery of on demand computing services from applications to storage and processing power over the internet  rather than physically having the computing resources at the customer location.
Example: AWS, Azure, Google Cloud

The whole idea behind cloud computing is that instead of businesses needing to handle their own servers and data storage devices locally (which would mean purchase of hardware and software, upgrading and maintaining them and handling their security), they rent the needed services from companies like Amazon or Apple who provide these resources as a service over the internet on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Benefits of Cloud Computing

The potential for cost saving is the major reason of cloud services adoption by many organizations.  Cloud computing gives the freedom to use services as per the requirement and pay only for what you use.

Following are the benefits of cloud computing:

• Quick and easy setup: instead of needing experts to configure your local servers and installing the needed applications, you can simply set up the cloud services and resources by going through a few web pages that guide you step by step on how to setup your needed computing resources.
• Elasticity: You won’t need to worry about upgrading your hardware when your business grows – this can be simply done at any stage you see a need for it.
• Pay for your use: Instead of investing on hardware and software, their upgrade, and maintaining all that, you simply pay for the services as much as you need and use them.
• High Accessibility: Most cloud computing services allow you to access your data and applications from anywhere on the internet and by using any connected device such as your tablets or smartphones.

Types of Clouds

There are four different cloud models that you can subscribe according to business needs:

1. Private Cloud: Here, computing resources are deployed for one particular organization.  This method is more used for intra-business interactions.  Where the computing resources can be governed, owned and operated by the same organization.
2. Community Cloud: Here, computing resources are provided for a community and organizations. 
3. Public Cloud: This type of cloud is used usually for B2C (Business to Consumer) type interactions.  Here the computing resource is owned, governed and operated by government, an academic or business organization. 
4. Hybrid Cloud: This type of cloud can be used for both type of interactions –  B2B (Business to Business) or B2C ( Business to Consumer). This deployment method is called hybrid cloud as the computing resources are bound together by different clouds.

What Services are provided by Cloud Computing?

Services that are provided by cloud computing are divided into 3 sectors:

• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): This means buying access to raw computing hardware such as servers or storage over the internet. You pay for these resources per amount of usage instead of purchasing the hardware.
• Software as a Service (SaaS): This means using applications that are hosted on the internet. You pay for the software per usage instead of purchasing the software and host it yourself.
• Platform as a Service (PaaS): This means you develop applications using Web-based tools so they run on systems software and hardware provided by others.