What is Cloud Computing and Why it is so Important?

In recent times, there is a tech buzzword – Cloud computing, which you read in many technical article and heard in news.But what Cloud computing really means? The “Cloud” in the cloud computing is the set of hardware,network,storage,services and interfaces that together deliver a computing service to the user.
This description is quite confusing and difficult to understand at first but I am going to explain cloud computing in simple layman language.
                                           You are already using cloud computing if you access your gmail account.This is most simple example  but also easier to understand.Few years ago people use Microsoft’s outlook express to manage their emails.They connect to internet ,retrieve their emails,store them locally and read them offline.Now Most of us do to it this way- We login with our email and password, inbox opens(interface), we can read,create,edit,sent emails right from the interface provided by gmail. Actually we are connected to a remote computer with help of internet and interact with a program running on remote computer through a simple interface.The user do not have to care about what hardware/software is actually running his application at remote site.Remote machines owned by another company would run everything from e-mail to word processing to complex data analysis programs. It’s called cloud computing, and it could change the entire computer industry. Let me take another example.Let’s say you’re an executive at a large corporation. Your particular responsibilities include making sure that all of your employees have the right hardware and software they need to do their jobs. So you have to purchase software or software licenses to give employees the tools they require. Whenever you have a new hire, you have to buy more software or make sure your current software license allows another user.This is going to be so much stressful and costs so much money.Now cloud computing provides a solution to it.Instead of installing a suite of software for each computer, you’d only have to load one application. That application would allow workers to log into a Web-based service which hosts all the programs the user would need for his or her job. 
In a cloud computing system, there’s a significant workload shift. Local computers no longer have to do all the heavy lifting when it comes to running applications. The network of computers that make up the cloud handles them instead. Hardware and software demands on the user’s side decrease. The only thing the user’s computer needs to be able to run is the cloud computing system’s interface software, which can be as simple as a Web browser, and the cloud’s network takes care of the rest.
Cloud computing has been changing how most people use the web and how they store their files.Now you can put your files on some online storage (like box,google drive) and access them from anywhere with any device provided you have an internet connection.This all uses the concept of cloud computing.
 
Most websites and server-based applications run on particular computers or servers. So what is difference between the cloud computing and traditional way of hosting. Actually the cloud utilizes the resources from the computers as a collective virtual computer, where the applications can run independently from particular computer or server configurations. They are basically floating around in a “cloud of resources”, making the hardware less important to how the applications work.For example, if you are hosting your website on a local server or from your PC, you must usually select a particular operating system (Windows/Linux/Mac), to determine what software you can run on that particular server. If your site is being hosted in the cloud, there is no need to do that. You can run Windows and Linux programs side by side.
 
How It Works?
The user interacts with the remote application in a simple web browser or desktop application with the help of a interface.This is the front end.For example when you access your email on Gmail, you are using software running on the front-end of a cloud. The same is true when you access your Facebook account. The back-end consists of the hardware and the software architecture that fuels the interface you see on the front end.
                                                     Because the computers are set up to work together, the applications can take advantage of all that computing power as if they were running on one particular machine(Virtualization). Cloud computing also allows for a lot of flexibility. Depending on the demand, you can increase how much of the cloud resources you use without the need for assigning specific hardware for the job, or just reduce the amount of resources assigned to you when they are not necessary.
 
Cloud Computing Applications

The applications of cloud computing are practically limitless.A cloud computing system could execute all the programs a normal computer could run. Potentially, everything from generic word processing software to customized computer programs designed for a specific company could work on a cloud computing system.

                                        Here is some reasons to rely on remote computers in order to run programs and store data(Which is,of course, cloud computing):
  • Clients would be able to access their applications and data from anywhere at any time.(from any computer or handheld device connected to internet ).
  • It could bring hardware costs down. Cloud computing systems would reduce the need for advanced hardware on the client side.
  • The companies don’t have to buy a set of software or software licenses for every employee. Instead, the company could pay a metered fee to a cloud computing company.

Cloud computing can completely change the way companies use technology to service customers, partners, and suppliers. Some businesses, such as Google and Amazon, already have most of their IT resources in the cloud. They have found that it can eliminate many of the complex constraints from the traditional computing environment, including space, time, power, and cost.

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