Cloud Computing – Wiki, Definiion, dvantages, Disadvantages, Applications etc

Cloud Computing: By this time you might have come across many questions from your friends queries regarding cloud. They might have asked you what is cloud storage? Or what is a cloud platform? Or what is cloud based computing? Or what is a cloud based application? Or what is a cloud service? Or what is cloud computing in simple terms? Or what is a cloud technology? Or How does cloud computing works? Or what is cloud computing definition? Or what is a cloud server? or Advantages and Disadvantages of cloud computing ?

If you could not answer them the last time when they asked you these questions, don’t worry you are in the right place for all the answers for your queries, we will make sure that when the next time your friends ask you any question you are in a position to clarify all their queries regarding cloud computing.

What is a cloud?

The cloud is not a new thing to anyone of us. We are all using this in our computers at home or at office. Thecloud played a major role in our works in some way or the other. The cloud computing can be explained in simple words as it is an alternative for our computer’s hard drive. We can store all our data and access the data and applications over the internet.

What Is A Cloud Service?

A Cloud service is any service that is provided over the internet. The most common cloud computing services saas paas iaas are available. The cloud computing examples are given below.

SaaS – Software as a Service

For the Software as a service or SaaS there is no need for the applications to install and run on individual computers. SaaS mainly offers email and collaboration, customer relationship management, and healthcare-related applications. Examples of Software as a service or SaaS is Google Apps

PaaS – Platform as a Service

Platform as a service or PaaS is used for applications and other development, and while providing cloud components to software. PaaS makes the development, testing, and deployment of applications very quick, simple and cost-effective. With this cloud technology, PaaS can manage OSes, enterprise operations, or a third party provider, virtualization, servers, storage, networking and PaaS software. Applications which are using PaaS has the cloud characteristics such as scalability, high availability, multi – tenancy, SaaS enablement and many more.

IaaS – Infrastructure as a Service

Infrastructure as a Service or IaaS is also known as Cloud infrastructure Services. IaaS are self-service models for accessing, monitoring, and managing remote data center infrastructures. Such as storage, networking. Now you can purchase IaaS based on your rate of consumption just the same as you pay for your electricity bill. IaaS users are responsible for managing data, applications, runtime, OSes and middleware. The biggest advantage of IaaS is that the infrastructure on top of which they can install any required platform. And in case any updates are available for these platforms later the users are responsible for the updates. Examples of Infrastructure as a Service or IaaS is Google compute engine (GCE), Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Network as a service – NAAS

This is the least common model of cloud services where the user is provided with network connectivity services such as Virtual private network and Bandwidth on demand.

What Is A Cloud Platform?

A Cloud Platform helps the developers write applications that can run on the cloud or the services provided through the cloud or both. This cloud platform is also known by different names on demand platform, platform as a service (PaaS).

Platform as a service or paas is a cloud platform that is offered by a cloud hosting provider as a cloud hosted services which provides the lineup of software applications without any cost and complexity. An example of paas is Google AppEngine

Advantages of Cloud Computing

Have anyone asked you what are the benefits of Cloud Computing? The next time you can answer them. The main cloud computing benifits are listed below. See some of the cloud computing advantages.

1. Can work from anywhere – In the competitive world of business, you cannot be in the same place all the time you will be travelling from one place to another. While you are travelling it is not always possible to carry your hard drive where ever you go. At this moment the cloud helps you in a great way, the cloud enables you to access your data from different devices with the help of internet. The reason for using cloud services by most of the people are because they can access their important information from anywhere in the world.
2. Remain secured – All the cloud computing companies are subjected to regular security audits which are performed at the highest standards and the data that you are saving in the cloud services of these cloud computer companies are all backed up across different servers. For this security purpose the cloud computer companies may be charging you with some affordable price tag.
3. Low cost – All the cloud computing companies around the world provide the cloud computing services at a very low affordable price which will be charged on per month or per year basis.
4. One of the big advantages of cloud computing services is that you can complete more work in less time with less number of people.
5. Recovery – In you are using cloud computing services you need not worry about your data backup during any disaster. Thecloud always keeps your data safe and secured and can be accessed from anywhere using an internet connection.
6. Automatic Software Updates – The best thing in cloud computing services is that they are out of your sight. There is no need for you to take care of the regular software updates. Because of the automatic software updates provided by the cloud hosting providers your precious time will not be wasted by maintaining your system by yourself.

Cloud Computing Device

The cloud computing will give your business a boost in the increased degree in self-rule. You might come across many consequences if you do not set everything properly and maintain them. For example, a single permission error while setting up Microsoft SharePoint, could lead the companies to lose all of its data. This is an avoidable risk when you are working in a team of cloud computing specialists you main task is to ensure the business are correctly prepared before uploading it into the cloud. Some of the cloud computing devices are smartphones, desktops, laptops, tablets etc.

Cloud Computing Benefits

The cloud application or cloud app is an application program that functions in the cloud. The cloud app can be installed on desktops, laptops, smartphones and tablets. Using the cloud app you can access all your data using an internet connection. This cloud app performs with some characteristics from the desktop app Or laptop app Or mobile app and some characteristics from the web app. The web app will be stored in a remote server and it will be delivered through the internet using a browser interface.

Cloud Computing Tutorial

Watch this cloud computing tutorial for beginners which explains all the cloud computing basics.

In the first part of this post we discussed about what is cloud computing ?. Now we are going to discuss the primary advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing.

Advantages of Cloud Computing

Why cloud computing is important? By now you might have come across this question a number of times in your life. Here we will tell you the benefits of cloud computing.

• The biggest advantages of cloud computing is its cost efficiency. This cost efficiency is achieved by avoiding the user’s investment in any stand-alone software or servers, licensing fees, software updates, management etc. The cloud eliminates the cost expense required for the development and the maintenance of the server infrastructure.
• Cloud services helps you to access your data from anywhere around the globe 24/7 through cloud devices like desktops, laptops, smartphones, and tablets with an internet connection.
• All the cloud computing companies are subjected to regular security audits which are performed at the highest standards and the data that you are saving in the cloud services of these cloud computer companies are all backed up across different servers. For this security purpose the cloud computer companies may be charging you with some affordable price tag.
• Using cloud computing you can complete more work in less time with less people.
• The cloud always keeps your data safe and secured and can be accessed from anywhere in the world using an internet connection. Because of this secured data backup you need not worry about your data loss during any disaster.
• Because of the cloud computing there is no need for you to take care of the regular software updates. Because of the automatic software updates provided by the cloud hosting providers your precious time will not be wasted by maintaining your system by yourself.

Disadvantages Of Cloud Computing

There are a fever disadvantages of cloud computing available, which are as explained below

• As the cloud computing is fully based on the internet connection. If your internet connection is not available you will not be able to access to your data. This is the biggest disadvantage of cloud computing.
• Daily as the cloud service provider takes on a number of clients, they might come across some technical outages this may further lead to your business processes being temporarily suspended. When your internet connection is down all your applications will drop offline.
• The biggest concern in cloud computing is the security. The company will be giving away its private data and information which might be sensitive and confidential. Then it is left to the service provider to manage, retain and protect them. By this the companies existence is on the line. If in case there is any loss or leakage of password of their account there data will be lost. In the cloud computing there is threat from the hackers.

To avoid the security and privacy risk follow the following steps:

1. Limit the data usage based on the user.
2. Allow the access to the resources and services to the ones who are supposed to use them.
3. Extend security in your device.
4. Add intelligence in your network protection.

• Cost pricing of the cloud computing always changes from time to time. For a small business firm the cloud computing may appear very cheaper as their data stored in the cloud will be less as compared to a big one. The cost depends on the data that you are storing in the cloud. If you are storing a large amount of data you will be charging big and vice-versa.
• Some programs need an attached hard drive. In this case using cloud computing will be quite inconvenient.
• Compatibility is another issue in cloud computing. The cloud computing applications may not support your existing device or software. So you must make sure that your device is compatible with web based service.

Conclusion For Cloud Computing Topic

Like everything cloud computing also has its own advantages and disadvantages. So before totally going into the cloud take a trial by replacing few of your business applications in the cloud and see if this cloud option works for you or not. If this cloud option works well for you then go ahead. The cloud computing can prove a great asset to your company, it cloud also harm you if you do not understand the use the cloud properly.