Cloud computing at a glance.
For many cloud computing is this service where you upload all your photos, videos and documents to the service provider say Google Drive. But there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye! So what really is Cloud Computing?
In simple terms, cloud computing is on demand pool of computing resources, delivered to you over the internet.This pool of on demand computing resources is basically someone else’s faster, stronger and all round better computer. By someone else I don’t mean your average Joe, I mean well established companies whose business is to provide such services to individuals and organizations. We’ll refer to them as cloud provider.
These companies include Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Drive(15 Gb free)
iCloud (5 Gb free)
DropBox (2Gb free)
Box
Microsoft OneDrive(5Gb free)
Amazon Cloud Drive
pCloud
Mega(20 Gb free)
These computing resources include virtual machines, networks, applications, databases, data storage units, security, to mention but a few.
Characteristics common to all clouds
- They are elastic: the cloud scales up or down quickly as needed. This means if you need more resources you get them instantly and if you need less, they are reduced instantly to only that which you need.
- Metered: in other words pay for what you use kind of like the water bills from NWSC who bill you according to the amount of water used per month.
- Self-service: you don’t have to call a cloud provider to have them spin up for you a server or virtual machine. You can do this yourself with clicks of a few buttons.
Some benefits of cloud computing
- Fast access to resources that you need. You just connect to a cloud provider, click a few buttons and you have all the servers you want or increased storage capacity for your organization.
- Only pay for what you use. This is just self-explanatory!
- No overhead expenditure to get started. With traditional model, you might need to first purchase servers, train staff, purchase licenses etc all this is eliminated with cloud as the provider takes care of all that.
- Much of the security is covered by the provider depending on the service you use. For example with fully managed service GCP takes care of everything and all you worry about is your application code.
- With cloud computing your application or resource is guaranteed to be up and running anytime basing on the Service Level Agreement with the provider. Some give up to 99.99% up time.
- These resources can be accessed any time anywhere remotely through internet.
Some risks of cloud computing
- First and foremost placing your trust in the cloud provider as they will be handling all your data and which may be sensitive.
- Potential for data loss in an event of natural calamity or if the cloud provider is compromised.
- Potential slow access to your data. This is specially true for areas with poor or slow internet access. But with today’s connectivity this should be less of an issue.
- Regulations and legal issues that may dictate the processing of certain data that may be unfavorable to you.
Types of Cloud:
There mainly three ways how we access and use the cloud ie:
- Private cloud: this is a cloud computing environment the completely leverages on premises servers and resources. This is owned, used and maintained by a single organization. For example Makerere University implements this type of Cloud in delivering e-learning and management of students.
- Public cloud: a public cloud provides services to the general public. Our discussion references much on the public cloud since it’s the most widely used type. Examples include GCP and AWS.
- Hybrid cloud: this type combines both the the private public types of cloud computing. Apart from those that are cloud native, most organizations implement this type of cloud since it’s more feasible especially in the short run.
Models/ forms of cloud computing
The modes of using cloud computing resources fall under these broad categories:
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaF): with this mode, you are provided with a virtual machine with which you install the OS, the applications, set the specifications like storage type, memory and you can basically customize this to your liking. This is virtualized hard ware like CPUs, memory from physical devices managed by the cloud provider.
- Platform as a service (IaaS): with this form, you are given a platform that’s already running and you just need to deploy your applications. For example you are provided an SQL server already running and you need access just to deploy your database on, or a webserver that you only need to place your code and have your website served. The developer doesn’t need to worry about provisioning servers unlike in Iaaf model
- Software as a service (SaaS): with SaaS you are accessing applications hosted directly in the cloud. All you do is open the app, log on and use period. This may be the most popular form used by7 people knowingly or unknowingly. For example Gmail, Google Docs, Sales Force and others.
- Functions as a Service (FaaS): this mode of cloud computing deals with writing functions in code that are run basing on certain triggers like uploading a file to a storage bucket. Another example is when you signing up for something over the web and you click the signup button, immediately you receive an email asking you to confirm or activate your account.
Pricing of cloud computing services
There are typically no upfront costs on cloud computing as you only pay what you use! The different providers price their services differently and they have cost calculators that estimate cost basing on the parameters you set. They just estimate since usage can change at any one point. For example a basic virtual machine at peak usage may cost $23.5 approximately shs.85,000. This is way cheaper than buying, setting up and maintaining these services on your own.
This is a brief introduction and understanding of cloud computing. It gets more technical and interesting from this point. Till next time stay safe, peace!!
