" Cloud ", which literally means " cloud " in English is a word used in computer science to indicate a particular type of architecture. Since we are all dealing with this technology today, it is important to know the meaning of Cloud, how it can be used at the user level as well as at the corporate level and how it is evolving.
Cloud computing, as an origin, has very distant roots, from the 1950s when the first server rooms were huge and full of gigantic mainframes that were shared by multiple users via connections.
Most of the calculation came from the mainframe themselves.
The word "cloud" was chosen to indicate a huge mass of individual units which, when viewed from a distance, can look like a cloud, like a cloud of grasshoppers or bats.
In a cloud computing system, there is a significant change in the data workload.
Local computers no longer have to do all the work in running applications that run at the network level.
The only thing that the user's computer must be able to perform is interface software, which can be a program or, as is more often the case, a simple web browser.
There are various types of cloud :
- Private Cloud : for the exclusive use of a single entity or organization.
- Public Cloud : open to the public like the popular Dropbox service.
- Hybrid cloud : When there is a combination of public and private cloud.
Community Cloud: When a private cloud is shared between multiple entities or organizations, a semi-public cloud limited to a specific set of entities or organizations.
From a program point of view, we can distinguish other types of cloud.
- Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) : when the service offered by a cloud includes computing resources, network bandwidth or load balancing systems.
- Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) : when the cloud offers a development environment that users can use without being burdened by the need to manage the underlying hardware and the software that manages the platform.
- Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) : it is the most common and most used cloud, where the cloud grants users access to applications and programs that reside on the cloud, such as Gmail.
Why would anyone want to rely on another computer to run programs and store data "> main reasons for buying a Google Chromebook, with very limited memory and no possibility to install programs.
- To make all employees of a company use the same program without having to buy a license for each and without having to install, maintain or update it on each computer.
For example, Office 365 is a cloud program that pays as a subscription.
- To save space, in companies, for servers, databases and storage drives.
There are, of course, also negative aspects and problems of the cloud:
- The company that manages it may go bankrupt, close or have problems that make the data stored by companies or users no longer available.
- There may be a privacy problem, with all data remotely on an external server that is managed by outsiders.
Certainly the future of the cloud depends on the reliability of those who manage them and on the security of the data which must be guaranteed one thousand per thousand.
The odds of having already used some form of cloud computing are very high for anyone.
All you need is a web-based email account like Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail or Gmail, where you can upload files so you can reopen them on any computer connected to the internet.
In this case, instead of running an e-mail program on your computer, you log in to an e-mail account remotely.
There is no program installed on the computer and the entire functioning of the Email is on the cloud computer of the service.
Behind the cloud there are various computers, servers and data storage systems that create the "cloud" of IT services.
In theory, a cloud computing system could include practically any PC program even a video game (like streaming video games with Steam)
The Cloud is a great web innovation that allows us to do otherwise impossible things.
Cloud infrastructures allow large services such as Amazon and YouTube to distribute content to users quickly.
Services like Dropbox, Google Drive and other cloud storage services allow us to save data always available from anywhere and any computer.
Applications like Google Maps offer us maps and GPS navigator on every smartphone without having to have maps in the phone's memory.
Facebook allows us to save photos online and make them visible to all friends and there are many examples of practical and daily use of cloud computing that we could still do (look at the section of web applications on this site).
Extreme evolution of the cloud is the so-called Internet of things, where each device is interconnected within a gigantic cloud communicating with each other and reacting differently depending on the information available at the moment.
