What is Cloud?

“Cloud” refers to servers that are accessed over the internet and the databases or software that run on these servers. By leveraging the use of cloud computing, enterprises would not have to manage the physical servers themselves or administer software applications on their machines. It permits user to obtain the same files and applications across any device, as the storage and computing take place on servers in a data center, rather than on the user devices.

The cloud also allows enhanced connectivity of devices that are connected to the network, these devices can provide the information they gather from the environment and seamlessly store data in the cloud. Solutions implemented by the Internet of Things (IoT) services providers help enterprises with increased scalability and performance without disturbing the quality of the data being stored or transferred in the cloud. The IoT devices connected are not restricted to certain devices that organizations possess but can range from personal devices every individual uses to industrial machinery.

What Is The Importance Of Cloud?

By implementing cloud computing, enterprises can eliminate investments in buying the hardware and software required for setting up on-site data centers. The cloud computing services are managed on a network of datacentres, that are being constantly updated to the current generation of technology for efficient services. This provides several benefits for the users, that ranges from reduced network latency to optimum security, it comes with a comprehensive set of policies, controls, and technologies, that can strengthen an enterprise virtually. With these benefits, it is just even more apparent that the future of cloud computing holds great potential for enterprises.

Service Models :

Cloud Computing is a model that enables a universal, accessible, and on-demand network to a distributed pool of configurable computing resources, such as applications, servers, storage and services. The cloud models can be promptly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. Cloud computing is offered in three different service models which each satisfy a unique set of business requirements. These three models are known as Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).

There are 3 types of service models based on the requirements

IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) :

• Provides virtualized computing resources over the Internet
• No worries about the underlying physical machine
• Abstract the user from the physical machine

PaaS (Platform as a Service) :

• No control over the underlying architecture including OS, Storage, Services etc.
• The cloud provider gives the ability to the customer to deploy applications using programming languages, tools etc.

SaaS (Software as a Service) :

• Cloud provider leases application or software which are owned by them to its clients
• Example Salesforce.com provides the CRM on a cloud infrastructure to its client and charges them for it, but the software is owned by the Salesforce Company only

Deployment Models :

Enterprises nowadays depend upon a complex ecosystem of IT applications and services —each one with a unique set of requirements for privacy, availability, and price. Over the last decade, product engineering and software development companies have embraced several cloud deployment models as a way to enhance process efficiency and accelerate time to market availability with flexible, scalable computing resources that are delivered wherever users need them.
To begin with, there are several models for deployment in cloud computing to choose from. The cloud infrastructure, requirement and placement of each workload depend on the business needs, such as addressing any data governance regulations, and ensuring uptime for mission-critical applications.

Public Clouds (Available for everyone) :

• A service provider makes resources, like applications and storage, available to the overall public over the web.
• Easy and inexpensive set-up because hardware, application, and bandwidth costs are covered by the provider.
• No wasted resources because you buy what you use.

Private Clouds :

• Offers hosted services to a limited number of individuals behind the firewall, so it minimizes the safety concerns.
• Private cloud gives companies’ direct control over their data.

Hybrid Cloud :

• A cloud computing environment that uses a mixture of on-premises, private cloud, and third-party public cloud services
• It helps leverage the best of both worlds.

What Is a Cloud Provider?

A cloud service provider may be a third-party company offering a cloud-based platform, infrastructure, application, or storage services. Much like a homeowner would pay for a utility such as electricity or gas, companies typically have to pay only for the number of cloud services they use as their business demands.

Types of Cloud Providers :

1. Amazon web services
2. Microsoft Azure
3. Google cloud platform
4. Digital Ocean
5. IBM Cloud
6. terremark

Things You Need To Know Before Uploading A File In Cloud

• Make sure the cloud vendor is up-to-date on data center, industry certifications.
• Pick a provider that knows your industry well.
• Understand the bandwidth limitations.
• Protect your sensitive data with strong encryption before transferring it to the cloud.
• Carefully read the provider’s SLA (service-level agreement) before signing up.
• When evaluating the price for cloud services, understand completely what’s covered in your monthly service and what’s extra.
• Don’t overbuy storage – Determine the acceptable amount of storage for your organization’s current and future needs.
• Make sure you can recover/restore your data – When you’re trying to seek out a backup provider, do not forget to get insights on data recovery or how your data can be restored if lost.
• Finally, have a backup plan – In case you are traveling to a different region, make sure the backup can be moved to a new cloud with minimal disruption.

Here Is How You Can Upload Files to Google Cloud Storage

There are three ways to upload files to cloud storage.

• Web UI
• Command Line
• Programmatically

Upload Files Using Web UI

First, create a bucket (Collection of files and folders) go to Google developer console and select the project you have worked on. Then go to Storage Section click “Storage Browser”. Open one window there you can click on “Create Bucket Button” and give a unique name. Click on “Create” and after a few seconds, the new bucket will be created.

Let’s look at how to upload the file using Web UI – go back to “Storage Browser” and select the bucket we just created.

You can click “Upload Files” to select files and folders from file picker or you can drag and drop (quickly upload the files) files and folders in Web UI.

Upload Files Using Command Line

If you don’t have Google SDK you can install Google SDK in your computer ( https://cloud.google.com/sdk ).

Let’s open a command line and list the files and folders

Eg: $ls

List all files and folders you want to upload.

$gsutil cp “name of the file”  “cloud storage bucket name” enter and refresh Google developer console, we can see new the files are uploaded.

$gsutil –m cp –r “folder name” “cloud storage bucket name” enter and refresh the Google developer console we can see new folders with all its files are uploaded.

Upload Files Programmatically

Now let’s see how we can access Google storage in code.

1. The first option is the “gcloud libraries”, These are open source libraries available for Java, Python, PHP, Go, Node.js and Ruby.
2. Simply search for “gcloud – <language>” – you’ll find it on github, you can also find it in the Google API’s
3. This library is auto-generated for a ton of different languages and different Google Products. Finally, you can use the raw JSON REST API to upload files programmatically.

What Was The Technology Before Cloud?  

Suppose you wanted to host a website you needed to buy a stack of servers which is rather expensive. The stack of servers would get continuous traffic which was not constant, therefore these fluctuations would require continuous monitoring & server maintenance. There are also open source and commercial databases for you to choose from. These are full-featured relational database management systems. Most times they’re provided for free or at a small additional and affordable cost.

Merits:

1. Easy to implement – Cloud hosting allows businesses to retain the same applications and business processes without affecting the backend technicalities.
2. Accessibility – Access your data anywhere, anytime. An Internet cloud infrastructure maximizes enterprise productivity and efficiency by ensuring your application is accessible.
3. No hardware required for cloud – Since everything is going to be hosted within the cloud, a physical storage center is no longer needed.
4. Cost per head – Overhead technology costs are kept at a minimum with cloud hosting services, enabling businesses to use the extra time and resources for improving the company infrastructure.
5. Efficient recovery – Cloud computing delivers faster and more accurate retrievals of applications and data. With less downtime, it’s the foremost efficient recovery plan.

Demerits:                                   

1. When moving services to the cloud, you’re delivering your data and knowledge. For companies that have in-house IT staff, they will be unable to handle issues on their own.
2. Might not get all the features – Not all cloud services are equivalent. Some cloud providers tend to supply limited versions and enable the foremost popular features only, so you’ll not receive every feature or customization you would like.
3. You may have fewer servers to handle which means less for your IT staff to handle, but that doesn’t mean you can let go of all your servers and staff. While it may seem costly to have data centers and cloud infrastructure, redundancy is key for backup and recovery.
4. A cloud server is not redundant nor is it backed up. Although it is an extra cost, in most cases it will be well worth it.
5. Bandwidth issues – For ideal performance, clients have to plan accordingly and not pack large amounts of servers and storagedevices into a small set of data centers.

Author Bio

Sumanjali Laddigam works at ThinkPalm Technologies as a software engineer. She is passionate about angular & .net programming.