Define Cloud Computing and the Meaning of Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is a term that is increasing becoming popular at the turn of each day. The major players and commenters of the computing and information technology industries are terming it as the holy grail of IT services provision. Many IT companies are thus turning to cloud computing as their next phase of growth.
However, the term cloud computing is characteristically very difficult to understand. Read on to come to grips with what cloud computing and understand why there is a huge excitement around it.
The Meaning Of Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is a form of computing services provision where businesses and organizations access computing services and resources from a centralized resource/point, which is referred to as the cloud. The businesses and organizations can access the software, storage space, and computing resources that are held in a centralized resource point using their end-point devices across the internet, cloud network and sometimes both.
Cloud computing thus consists of the cloud is a source of shared resource withing a network where the connection is the internet or network and finally the end-point device that accesses the cloud, forming what has come to be known as cloud computing.
To give you a proper perspective of cloud computing, let’s use the example of Facebook. Facebook is a form of cloud computing that gives people access to information and allowing communication between their users. Their servers and other resources that hold and process data is the cloud. The internet is the network from which Facebook users access the resources. The end-point devices give users access to Facebook resources (information and communication capabilities), forming a cloud computing system.
Cloud Computing Services
There are three main products offered by cloud computing. These are:
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) – computing processing capabilities such as servers and storage over the Internet.
Software as a Service (SaaS) – software and application offered to masses over the Internet.
Platform as a Service (Paas) – web development and application development tools over the Internet.