Yes, That’s a joke…:) Are you still taking some time to crack it..? Don’t worry, you will be able to crack the joke and laugh on it by end of this blog and also you will get to know what exactly the cloud computing is.

If you want your online business to grow fast and become global soon with LOW Investment then Cloud model is your best buddy which can help you achieve your goals. Let’s understand what Cloud is and why should one use it.

In order to run an online business you need the IT Infrastructure which contains Servers, Storage, Network components, Databases etc. To buy them and make it go live will cost you a lot of effort, money and time. So Cloud computing is ready to help you out by providing ready made solutions which will save your effort and time.

You might ask why can’t I buy my own servers, storage boxes and network components and setup my own Data center. Yes, Of course it can be done. Before doing that get to know some history of Data centers. Then we’ll move on to Cloud.

1st Generation Data center (Early 1980)

This Data center comprised of Physical servers, storage boxes, Network cables and electricity cables where the setup used to consume lot of time and also with big capital expenditure. Provisioning a server used to take 1-2 months and hardware components were underutilized. This DC(Data Center) is similar to buying a car where you should be worried about parking charge, maintenance charge etc. The downside is, may be 8 days a month you will travel in the car with your family, For rest of the days you travel alone which makes the car underutilized. To fix this issue second generation DC evolved.

2^nd Generation Data Center (Early 2005)

This Data center also comprised of Physical servers, storage boxes, Network cables etc. But with a new technology called Virtualization by which we were able to make the best usage of hardware resources. Provisioning a virtual server has reduced to 1-6 days. This is similar to Carpooling where you will share a car journey with other people which makes the car hardware resource utilized properly. In the same way Virtualization increased the efficiency of the Data center by launching multiple VMs (Virtual machines) on a single hardware hypervisor.

3^rd Generation Data Center (Early 2009)

Cloud or SDDC(Software Defined Data center). This Datacenter comprised of virtualized servers + virtualized storage + virtualized networks. The companies like AWS, Microsoft Azure and GCP have already setup this datacenters all across the world to provide on demand services which is called CLOUD. This is similar to renting a car from Ola or Uber where you can travel on demand and pay for the rental period. That’s it, simple right.

Cloud computing is the on demand delivery of computing services which includes servers, storage, networking, databases and various software over the Internet.

The Companies that provides cloud services have stored applications and files on remote servers and enabled users to access the data via Internet. Here the term “Cloud” is a metaphor for “Internet”.

By now you might have understood the complexity of setting up a DC and you might be looking for a better option to host your applications as quick as possible, the answer is Cloud. Below are some key features of Cloud making it so popular and beneficial to the companies.

• Self-service model: – One of the biggest feature of Cloud where you can create compute, storage, networking and database resources by yourself within few minutes by going to an http link which can be accessed from anywhere in the world.
• Pay as you go/use model: – No need to worry about the Data center Capital expenditure and Implementation. Just use the resources for rent and pay for what you use.
• Elasticity: – The resources can be scaled up and scaled down anytime at any length depending on the requirement which is not possible in traditional DC (Data Centers).
• Monitoring and metering: – Monitor the resource consumption and pay the rent accordingly.