What is cloud computing?

Cloud Computing is a technology use to give computing services such as storage, database, networking, server over the internet. Cloud computing meaning is not that something happening in cloud in the sky where we can store our data or from where we use services, it is referred  as “cloud,” because it delivers on-demand computing resources everything from applications to data centers over the internet on a pay-for-use basis. it has no fix size, that you are allowed to use only a particular amount of space it is depend on you that how much space you required if you want more space you have to pay more and if your requirement is less you can get that by giving less money

Cloud Computing allows you to get access to your data or services you required at where ever when ever you need like  from Gmail you can get access to your mail where ever when ever  you need from any device. By reading Gmail you will probably think that "OH! Gmail, I use them daily so this is cloud computing!!" yes you are correct this is what cloud computing is all about to storing, sharing and using or providing services to anyone anywhere

Types of cloud services: IaaS, PaaS, SaaS

Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS)

The most basic category of cloud computing services. With IaaS, you rent IT infrastructure—servers and virtual machines (VMs), storage, networks, operating systems—from a cloud provider on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Platform as a service (PaaS)

Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) refers to cloud computing services that supply an on-demand environment for developing, testing, delivering and managing software applications. PaaS is designed to make it easier for developers to quickly create web or mobile apps, without worrying about setting up or managing the underlying infrastructure of servers, storage, network and databases needed for development.

Software as a service (SaaS)

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) is a method for delivering software applications over the Internet, on demand and typically on a subscription basis. With SaaS, cloud providers host and manage the software application and underlying infrastructure and handle any maintenance, like software upgrades and security patching. Users connect to the application over the Internet, usually with a web browser on their phone, tablet or PC.

Benefits of cloud computing

1. Cost

Cloud computing eliminates the capital expense of buying hardware and software and setting up and running on-site datacenters—the racks of servers, the round-the-clock electricity for power and cooling, the IT experts for managing the infrastructure. It adds up fast.

2. Speed

Most cloud computing services are provided self service and on demand, so even vast amounts of computing resources can be provisioned in minutes, typically with just a few mouse clicks, giving businesses a lot of flexibility and taking the pressure off capacity planning.

3. Global scale

The benefits of cloud computing services include the ability to scale elastically. In cloud speak, that means delivering the right amount of IT resources—for example, more or less computing power, storage, bandwidth—right when its needed and from the right geographic location.

4. Productivity

On-site datacenters typically require a lot of “racking and stacking”—hardware set up, software patching and other time-consuming IT management chores. Cloud computing removes the need for many of these tasks, so IT teams can spend time on achieving more important business goals.

5. Performance

The biggest cloud computing services run on a worldwide network of secure datacenters, which are regularly upgraded to the latest generation of fast and efficient computing hardware. This offers several benefits over a single corporate datacenter, including reduced network latency for applications and greater economies of scale.

6. Reliability

Cloud computing makes data backup, disaster recovery and business continuity easier and less expensive, because data can be mirrored at multiple redundant sites on the cloud provider’s network.

Cloud computing security

Security related to cloud computing is of 2 types security issues faced by cloud providers and security issues faced by their customers. The cloud provider must ensure that their infrastructure is secure and that their clients’ data and applications are protected, while the user must take measures to secure their application by using strong passwords and authentication measures.

(learn how to use OAUTH for authentication purpose in your website)

At the cloud provider side there are security issue such as data lose by any means so they should be store copies of users data as backup to secure data if whatever happens to the providers infrastructure and another issue is "insider attack ", it is a big threat in cloud computing.  Therefore, Cloud Service providers must ensure that thorough background checks are conducted for employees who have physical access to the servers in the data center. Additionally, data centers must be frequently monitored for suspicious activity.

Top cloud computing companies

Amazon

What started as an experiment to use idle capacity has grown into the largest, most comprehensive cloud offering in the world. Its offerings range from compute, network, storage, and backup to software like DevOps and database. AWS is clearly and inarguably the 500-pound gorilla in the cloud computing sector – and offers new cloud tools constantly.

Microsoft

Rather than fearing the new paradigm like it did with the Internet in the 1990s, Microsoft has embraced the cloud with a full on-demand service, Azure, and put two of its biggest cash cows – Office and SQL Server – in Azure for anyone to use. Helping Azure grow: the fact that Microsoft has a deep enterprise legacy.

Google Cloud Platform

Despite its dominance – and it’s great ambition for the cloud – Google is running third in the race for cloud market share. For a while it billed itself as the place to build cloud apps using App Engine, but that didn't work. So it announced a new strategy to "meet you where you are," as Eric Schmidt put it, and hired VMware founder Diane Greene to head the cloud business. Google is very strong in AI and Machine Learning, two very hot areas for the years ahead.

IBM

In addition to its massive services offering to help migrate to a cloud environment, IBM smartly grabbed PaaS provider Softlayer in 2014 and jump-started its on-demand offering, giving people platform and infrastructure as a service. That's just the beginning of Big Blue's massive offerings, which includes managed services, SDN, cloud migration services and on-premises private cloud servers and software.

HP Enterprise

Its Helion cloud service flamed out but HPE is deeply involved in the OpenStack community, offers an application development platform for cloud development and has an AWS-compatible platform for building private clouds called Eucalyptus, among other features.

VMware

The vCloud Air public cloud service offers three services: data center extension, disaster recovery, and data center replacement. VMware’s leadership in datacenter virtualization provides it with a high profile among enterprise customers.

Pivotal

Pivotal, a spin-off of EMC and VMware, offers Cloud Foundry, a PaaS service that offers a new way to build and deploy software rapidly and update it based on customer feedback. it also offers training to customers to build apps and offered analytics tools as well.

Oracle

The on-premises software giant has heavily leveraged its offerings into SaaS, PaaS and IaaS. including middleware, database, Java, security and identity-management services that enable integrating legacy systems with cloud systems. Deep pockets and willing to invest in the cloud.

Salesforce.com

The granddaddy of SaaS, the company has grown well beyond its initial offering of on-demand CRM to offer PaaS through its Force.com offering, an app builder called Site.com and a helpdesk system called Desk.com