Cloud Computing is a computing technology similar to Grid Computing, Distributed Computing, Parallel Computing, etc. This Cloud Computing was first coined on February 24, 2007 and an official website was launched for all tracking all Cloud Computing infos related to research, conference and much more. The website is Cloud Computing Expo. This is similar to the IEEE spectrum which we know very well. Cloud Computing Expo maintains all information you want to know about Cloud Computing and related terms and technologies involved in the Cloud environment.
What is Cloud Computing?
Now, lets come to the basic understanding of ‘What is Cloud Computing?’. Cloud Computing is a rapidly increasing architecture which most of the top websites uses for making their applications available to all users over the internet, which is the Cloud. Cloud is the term which we use to refer internet since it is a combination of various server and client systems.Thus the data which we store is present only in the Cloud(Internet) and we can access it from anywhere and anytime.
Cloud Computing in day-to-day life
Youtube, Yahoo Mail, Google Maps, Google Docs, etc. are using Cloud Computing for making their application which is available to everyone from anywhere in the Globe, the only criteria is that they all need to be connected to the internet ie, Cloud. Hence everyone is using Cloud Computing in their day-to-day life either knowing it or unknowing it.
Why Cloud Computing?
Cloud Computing provides support to various technologies like SaaS(Software As a Service), IaaS(Infrastructure as a Service), HaaS(Infrastructure as a Service), PaaS(Platform as a Service), etc. With the use of these services offered by Cloud, we can create a web application that doesnt need any software(SaaS), hardware(Haas), specific platform(PaaS) or infrastructure(IaaS). This is why everyone opt for Cloud Computing. A typical example is Google Docs which has inbuild word, powerpoint, etc. when we doesnot have MS office or Open office installed in our system we can use Google Docs for performing the same operation which we do as a Desktop Application, remember its a web application which runs on a Cloud.
P.S. This topic aims at providing an clear cut understanding about What is Cloud, Why we are using Cloud and how we are using them in day-to-day life.