{"id":6220,"date":"2012-05-15T01:40:09","date_gmt":"2012-05-15T05:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/?p=6220"},"modified":"2021-10-19T06:49:14","modified_gmt":"2021-10-19T10:49:14","slug":"seriously-what-is-the-cloud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/seriously-what-is-the-cloud\/","title":{"rendered":"Seriously, What is the Cloud?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The formal definition is, well \u201cformal\u201d and we\u2019re inclined to think it like a definition that has been made specifically to confuse rather than explain, but we will start with it and further explain everything one by one.<\/p>\n

Let’s see how American National Institute of Standards and Technology answers “what is the cloud” question. Here is the cloud computing definition:<\/p>\n

\u201cCloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ubiquitous<\/a>

Ubiquitous Computing means that access to the cloud is not restricted to a particular device.<\/p><\/div>\n

This definition gives us the five characteristics of cloud computing:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Ubiquitous, convenient access,<\/li>\n
  2. On-demand access,<\/li>\n
  3. Shared pool of computing resources,<\/li>\n
  4. Rapid provisioning,<\/li>\n
  5. Measurable<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Let\u2019s make the answer to our “what is the cloud” question clearer by defining the\u00a0characteristics as follows:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. We have a pool of computing resources: the processor, memory, network, storage etc.,<\/li>\n
    2. Users of these resources can conveniently access them,<\/li>\n
    3. Users of these resources can access them whenever they want, and deploy them on their own,<\/li>\n
    4. The IT personnel can quickly deploy these resources, whether automatically as in item no. 3 or with minimal effort,<\/li>\n
    5. Both the IT personnel and the users can meter their usage.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      The underlying concept of all these is the abstraction of the applications from the underlying hardware.<\/span><\/p>\n

      Let\u2019s stop and think for a moment: everyday we access tens or maybe hundreds of websites on the Internet. We just type an address and hit Enter, and we\u2019re done. We do not, just for once, think about whether the website is hosted on an IBM\/HP\/Dell server, or whether the website is hosted on a physical\/virtual server, or whether the website is hosted on a Windows\/Linux\/BSD platform, or whether the server uses an SAN\/DAS\/NAS as its storage. It\u2019s just this point that the website – or the application – that matters. It is abstracted from the underlying hardware: we don\u2019t care about anything as long as we can reach the the website.<\/p>\n

      Let\u2019s dig a little bit more with the website: the underlying hardware is a pool of computing resources: the network that you access the hosting company, the webhost\u2019s switches, network cables, servers (which are made up of CPUs, memories, ethernet adapters, mainboards), load-balancers are pooled, provisioned, deployed and managed by the IT staff. And that website we just visited? It is running on just a portion of these resources. It\u2019s not uncommon for the webhosts to host tens of thousands of websites in a datacenter. And what do we do as the users? We access them whenever we want from our desktops\/notebooks\/tablets\/mobile phones.<\/p>\n

      From the users\u2019 perspective, the application is there -no matter if the application is a website, an e-mail application, a photo editor or an online radio and he does not care how and where it runs as long as he accesses it whenever he wants from whichever device he chooses.<\/p>\n

      \"Adobe<\/a>

      Adobe Photoshop Online: As a user, I do not care on what hardware the application runs on.<\/p><\/div>\n

      Just take this idea and extend it further in your company: now you can provision a server for your department in a couple of minutes, ready with the software of your choice:<\/p>\n