Cloud Computing - Simplified!

Cloud computing - Simplified – Part 1

The popularity of cloud computing let many vendors and cloud enthusiasts to come up with different definitions. Not to mention this created lot of confusion for the new readers of cloud computing.

In this post, let us look into other commonly used terms related to Cloud computing.

Cloud computing:

In general this can be defined as providing IT services and applications over the Internet with out the organization owning any related IT infrastructure and technology. The application or service is commonly made available through web browser. Organizations pay subscription fees based on the services they use.

Software as a Service (SaaS):

Pay per use delivery of applications over the cloud with out the hassle of capital costs, support and attached annual maintenance fees.
Example: Salesforce.com

Platform as a Service (PaaS):

Development platform on cloud that allows developers to develop, collaborate and release applications and manage them throughout the life cycle without purchasing and managing the development platforms.
Example: Microsoft Azure, Google App engine

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS):

Infrastructure components such as servers, network and storage are offered as a service on the cloud. Organizations pay for their use of these components.
Example: Rackspace, Amazon EC2, S3

Multi-tenant architecture:

Ability of cloud service to manage multiple clients’ data and processing on one application instance with proper isolation in place. Even though this preferred method of cloud service for scalability , it has its own performance implications.




Multi-instance architecture:

Type of cloud service where one application instance is used for one client. It may not be desirable for scaling-out (horizontal scaling) but comes with improved performance compared to multi-tenant architecture.

In the next post, we will discuss about different cloud providers and how they stand and compete with others.