What is Cloud Computing?

“The Cloud”: Everyone is talking about “The Cloud Computing”, but what does this stupid buzzword mean is understand by very few! Everyone is having their own experiences and thoughts on Cloud Computing and they understand in their own way.

According to The NIST (National Institute of Standard and Technology), definition of “The Cloud Computing” is –

Definition:Cloud 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.

NIST says – Cloud model is composed of five essential characteristics, three service models, and four deployment models are!

Five essential characteristics

On-demand self-service
Broad network access
Resource pooling
Rapid elasticity
Measured Service

Three service models

Cloud Software as a Service (SaaS)
Cloud Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Four deployment models

Public cloud
Private cloud
Hybrid cloud
Community cloud

Key enabling technologies include:

Fast wide-area networks
Powerful
Inexpensive server computers
High-performance virtualization for commodity hardware.

Before explaining Cloud Computing, lets me ask you one question. Have you ever used Cloud Computing Service ?
I am expecting ‘Yes’ from you.

Let us see, how you use Cloud Computing service in your day to day life!

Now answer me few more questions:

Have you ever used any email service like gmail, hotmail, yahoo, rediff etc.?
Have you ever upload or download your data on Web like Google Drive, Dropbox, SkyDrive, SugarSync, iCloud etc.?
Do you have an account on any social media website like Facebook, Twitter, Google plus, Linkedin, Pinterest, MySpace, Mylife etc.?
Have you ever played online game?
Have you ever done online shopping or treading?

If you say ‘Yes’ for anything I asked above then be relaxed, you have used Cloud Services 🙂

Now let me explain you, what Cloud Computing is really and how we use it in our day to day life.

According to my understanding and experience –

Definition:Any Service over the internet, which provides: on-demand self-service, pay-as you go, scalable and elasticity is a cloud service. And it is very essential way of using computer resources like hardware, software and network.

On-demand self-service: On-demand self-service means, whenever I want (any service) should be available without vendor (service provider) interaction.
Pay-as you go: means I must be charged for what I have used. If I have used a service for only 2 hours then I must be charged only for 2 hours.
Scalable: means there should be option to increase/decrease the subscribed service.
Elasticity: means any time I must have option to automate increase/decrease the resource on subscribed service. It is done with the help of Scalable feature.

Still need more stuff? Here’s a video that explains it…