Cloud computing

Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage (cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. The term is generally used to describe data centers available to many users over the Internet. Large clouds, predominant today, often have functions distributed over multiple locations from central servers. If the connection to the user is relatively close, it may be designated an edge server.

Clouds may be limited to a single organization (enterprise clouds), or be available to multiple organizations (public cloud). Hybrid cloud is a composition of a public cloud and a private environment, such as a private cloud or on-premises resources, that remain distinct entities but are bound together, offering the benefits of multiple deployment models.

Cloud computing relies on sharing of resources to achieve coherence and economies of scale.

Advocates of public and hybrid clouds note that cloud computing allows companies to avoid or minimize upfront [paid before any work has been done or before goods are supplied] IT infrastructure costs. Proponents also claim that cloud computing allows enterprises to get their applications up and running faster, with improved manageability and less maintenance, and that it enables IT teams to more rapidly adjust resources to meet fluctuating and unpredictable demand, providing the burst computing capability: high computing power at certain periods of peak demand.

Cloud providers typically use a “pay-as-you-go” model, which can lead to unexpected operating expenses if administrators are not familiarized with cloud-pricing models.

The availability of high-capacity networks, low-cost computers and storage devices as well as the widespread adoption of hardware virtualization, service-oriented architecture and autonomic and utility computing has led to growth in cloud computing. By 2019, Linux was the most widely used operating system, including in Microsoft’s offerings and is thus described as dominant.

Cloud computing was popularized with Amazon.com releasing its Elastic Compute Cloud product in 2006.

References to the phrase “cloud computing” appeared as early as 1996, with the first known mention in a Compaq internal document.

The cloud symbol was used to represent networks of computing equipment in the original ARPANET by as early as 1977, and the CSNET by 1981—both predecessors to the Internet itself. The word cloud was used as a metaphor for the Internet and a standardized cloud-like shape was used to denote a network on telephony schematics. With this simplification, the implication is that the specifics of how the endpoints of a network are connected are not relevant to understanding the diagram.

The term cloud was used to refer to platforms for distributed computing as early as 1993, when Apple spin-off [a separate and partly independent company ] General Magic and AT&T used it in describing their (paired) Telescript and PersonaLink technologies.

In February 2010, Microsoft released Microsoft Azure, which was announced in October 2008. In 2019, it was revealed that Linux is most used on Microsoft Azure.

“Infrastructure as a service” (IaaS) refers to online services that provide high-level APIs used to abstract various low-level details of underlying network infrastructure like physical computing resources, location, data partitioning, scaling, security, backup, etc.

The NIST’s definition of cloud computing defines Platform as a Service as: The capability provided to the consumer is to deploy onto the cloud infrastructure consumer-created or acquired applications created using programming languages, libraries, services, and tools supported by the provider. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure including network, servers, operating systems, or storage, but has control over the deployed applications and possibly configuration settings for the application-hosting environment.

The NIST’s definition of cloud computing defines Software as a Service as: The capability provided to the consumer is to use the provider’s applications running on a cloud infrastructure. The applications are accessible from various client devices through either a thin client interface, such as a web browser (e.g., web-based email), or a program interface. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure including network, servers, operating systems, storage, or even individual application capabilities, with the possible exception of limited user-specific application configuration settings.

In 2021, software as a service (SaaS) still will be the largest market segment for end-user cloud IT spending – it’s expected to grow approximately 16 percent to $117.8 billion – application infrastructure services (PaaS) is expected to grow at a higher 26.6 percent rate to about $55.5 billion, according to Gartner.

A cloud sandbox is a live, isolated computer environment in which a program, code or file can run without affecting the application in which it runs.

Fog computing is a distributed computing paradigm that provides data, compute, storage and application services closer to the client or near-user edge devices, such as network routers. Furthermore, fog computing handles data at the network level, on smart devices and on the end-user client-side (e.g. mobile devices), instead of sending data to a remote location for processing.

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