In Simplest terms, cloud computing means storing and accessing the data and programs on remote servers that are hosted on internet instead of computer’s hard drive or local server. Cloud computing is also referred as Internet based computing.
Cloud Computing Architecture:
Cloud computing architecture refers to the components and sub components required for cloud computing. These component typically refer to:
- Front end(fat client, thin client)
- Back end platforms(servers,storage)
- Cloud based delivery and a network(Internet, Intranet, Inter cloud).
Hosting a cloud:
There are three layers in cloud computing.Companies use these layers based on the service they provide.
- Infrastructure
- Platform
- Application
Three layers of Cloud Computing
At the bottom is the foundation, the Infrastructure where the people start and begin to build. This is the layer where the cloud hosting lives.
Now, let’s have a look at hosting :
Let’s say you have a company and a website and the website has a lot of communications that are exchanged between members. You start with a few members talking with each other and then gradually the numbers of members increases.
As the time passes, as the number of members increases, there would be more traffic on the network and your server will get slow down. This would cause a problem.
A few years ago, the websites are put in the server somewhere, in this way you have to run around or buy and set number of servers. It costs a lot of money and takes lot of time. You pay for these servers when you are using and as well as when you are not using.This is called hosting.
This problem is overcome by cloud hosting. With Cloud Computing, you have access to computing power when you needed. Now, your website is put in the cloud server as you put it on dedicated server.People start visiting your website and if you suddenly need more computing power, you would scale up according to the need.
Benefits of Cloud Hosting :
- Scalability: With Cloud hosting, it is easy to grow and shrink the number and size of servers based on the need.
This is done by either increasing or decreasing the resources in the cloud.This ability to alter plans due to fluctuation in business size and needs is a superb benefit of cloud computing especially when experiencing a sudden growth in demand. - Instant: Whatever you want is instantly available in the cloud.
- Save Money: An advantage of cloud computing is the reduction in hardware cost. Instead of purchasing in-house equipment, hardware needs are left to the vendor. For companies that are growing rapidly, new hardware can be a large, expensive, and inconvenience. Cloud computing alleviates these issues because resources can be acquired quickly and easily. Even better, the cost of repairing or replacing equipment is passed to the vendors.
Along with purchase cost, off-site hardware cuts internal power costs and saves space. Large data centers can take up precious office space and produce a large amount of heat. Moving to cloud applications or storage can help maximize space and significantly cut energy expenditures. - Reliability: Rather than being hosted on one single instances of a physical server, hosting is delivered on a virtual partition which draws its resource, such as disk space, from an extensive network of underlying physical servers. If one server goes offline it will have no effect on availability, as the virtual servers will continue to pull resource from the remaining network of servers.
- Physical Security: The underlying physical servers are still housed within data centres and so benefit from the security measures that those facilities implement to prevent people accessing or disrupting them on-site