Cloud Fundamentals

Cloud Fundamentals

What is Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is a method of delivering computing services over the Internet. This enables faster computing, flexible resources, and easy scaling.

Cloud Models

  1. Public Cloud

  2. Private Cloud

  3. Hybrid Cloud

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1. Public Cloud

The public cloud is owned by cloud service providers. This cloud service provider provides resources and services to multiple users and organizations. These users or organizations access the network over the internet.

There are no deep technical skills required to operate the public cloud. As this is a public cloud there services are available to everyone(public).

No capital expenditure is required to scale up the resources when required.

Applications can be quickly provisioned and de-provisioned.

Users or Organizations pay only for what they use.

2. Private Cloud

The private cloud is owned by an organization. Organizations create a cloud environment in their datacenter.

The organization is responsible for everything from purchasing the hardware to the updates to networking and security. The users outside of the organization cannot access the data or services of the private cloud.

Hardware must be purchased for start-up and maintenance.

Organizations have complete control over resources and security.

Organizations are responsible for hardware maintenance and updates.

3. Hybrid Cloud

As you might guess, a Hybrid cloud is the combination of public and private cloud to allow applications to run in the most appropriate location.

The organization decides what resources to put in the public cloud and what resources to put in the private cloud.

Deep technical skills are required to maintain a private cloud and also ensure both clouds can operate together efficiently.

There is flexibility about what to be in public and what to be in a private cloud.

Provides the most flexibility to the organization.

Organizations determine where to run their applications.

Organizations control security, compliance, or legal requirements.

Benefits of Cloud

The following are the biggest reasons "Why customers are moving to the cloud?"

  1. High availability

  2. Fault tolerance

  3. Scalability

  4. Elasticity

  5. Global reach

  6. Customer latency capabilities

  7. Agility

  8. Predictive cost considerations

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1. High availability

It is the availability to keep the resources up and running for long periods of time with very little downtime (negligible).

2. Fault tolerance

The ability to remain up and running, if a component or service has a failure and is no longer working. For example, some hardware failure in the machine.

3. Scalability

There are two types of scaling. They are: Horizontal Scaling and Vertical Scaling

Horizontal Scaling (also called scaling out) is adding resources or servers or virtual machines as needed.

Vertical Scaling (also called scaling up) is adding computing power, that is adding to existing resources by adding more CPU, adding more memory.

4. Elasticity

The ability to automatically increase or decrease resources as needed.

5. Global reach

Accessing resources and adding resources around the world. like creating resources from anywhere to anywhere.

6. Customer latency capabilities

User can be as close to our customers as possible to reduce latency for accessing their resources.

Now with the cloud, with the global reach, we can put resources around the world. putting them as close to our customers as possible.

7. Agility

The ability to quickly react to workload demands. like a sudden spike in traffic, allocate more resources. like down in traffic, deallocating resources.

8. Predictive cost considerations

Almost every cloud service providers provide a calculator to calculate the estimated cost of the resources they what to use.

So no surprise in the bills.

Cloud Expenditure models

  1. Capital Expenditure (CapEx)

  2. Operational Expenditure (OpEx)

1. Capital Expenditure (CapEx)

The up-front sending of money on physical infrastructure. That is when we what to create our own datacenter, we have to get budgets approved, buy or rent a space, get the physical resources, and network them together to build our own datacenter.

The cost spent on Capital Expenditure reduces over time. As physical resources performance may reduce, may damage or become outdated.

In the cloud, we don't need to do that.

2. Operational Expenditure (OpEx)

We spend as we needed. The spending and billing of services or products as needed. The Expenses are deducted in the same year and we are paying monthly or yearly for those expenses.

Consumption based model

Cloud service providers operate on the consumption-based model, which means the end-users only pay for the resources that they use.

Think of it as our utility bill, we have a meter on it and we pay by what we actually used. Same thing for the cloud. We pay by what we actually use.

Advantages

  1. Better cost prediction

  2. Prices for individual resources and services are provided

  3. Billing is based on actual usage

Cloud Services

  1. Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)

  2. Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)

  3. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)

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1. Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)

Build pay-as-you-go IT infrastructure by renting servers, virtual machines, storage, networks, and operating systems from a cloud provider.

IaaS is the most flexible cloud service. We can configure and manage hardware for our application.

This flexibility helps in optimizing the application as per our needs as we have full access to hardware resources.

User Manage: Data & Access, Application, Runtime, Operating System, Virtual Machines

**Cloud Service Provider Manage: ** Compute, Networking, Storage

Example: Virtual Machines

2. Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)

Provides an environment for building, testing, and deploying software applications without focusing on managing underlying hardware/ infrastructure.

They are responsible for managing servers, infrastructure, operating systems, Networks, Network firewalls, Network security, and even service configuration.

This makes organizations more efficient and productive.

Here we can focus on our application development rather than spending more time in hardware configuration, software configurations, etc.,

User Manage: Data & Access, Application

Cloud Service Provider Manage: Runtime, Operating System, Virtual Machines, Compute, Networking, Storage

Example: App services or containers

3. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)

Users connect to and use cloud-based apps over the internet. for example Google Suite, Google Drive, OneDrive, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, etc.,

It is basically like renting software monthly or yearly.

The Cloud service providers manage everything else, the Servers, Networks, Operating Systems, Physical buildings, Infrastructure, Development Tools, and even hosted applications and apps.

Users pay for the software they use on a subscription model.

User Manage: Data & Access

Cloud Service Provider Manage: Application, Runtime, Operating System, Virtual Machines, Compute, Networking, Storage

Example: Microsoft Teams, Microsoft 365, Google Suite, Google Drive, OneDrive, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, etc.,

**NOTE: WE CAN USE ANY COMBINATION OF THESE INFRASTRUCTURES **

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