Cloud Computing, Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1- CLOUD COMPUTING BASICS

Overview:
Then name cloud computing comes from the image of the internet being a cloud, the icon being all the things that makes the internet work. The "cloud" actually is a construct that allows you to access things not directly stored on your computer. For you, this means that another company is storing your applications, where they pay for the servers and update software. However, if your internet access goes down, you are shit out of luck, but that isn't the major problem. The big problem is when something is wrong with the site, if that is down there is nothing that you can do.

There are three parts to the cloud computing system: clients,  distributed servers, and data centers.
- Clients- "the devices that the end users interact with to manage their activities in the cloud"
         Mobile
         Thin-  no hard drive only displays the image
         Thick- regular computers
- Data Center- servers where the application is stored
- Distributed Servers- Severs not housed in the same location

There are different types of infrastructure as well. Grid computing is when computers are linked to work on a single problem at the same time, that is one large project is  divided among multiple computers, while cloud computing is many small applications running at the same time. Full virtualization is where the software on the server is displayed on the client and allows for different operating systems. Paravirtualization allow for multiple operating systems to be run on the same hardware device at the same time.

Services for cloud computing Software as a Sevice (SaaS) where software is housed in the cloud, Platform as a service (PaaS) where all the tools need to create an application are kept so software doesn't have to be installed, and Hardware as a Service (HaaS) which is hardware you can put where ever.

Amazon, Google and Microsoft are some of the big names in the Clouds.