☁️

Cloud Fundamental Concepts

Cloud computing models, benefits and design principles

⏱️ Estimated reading time: 15 minutes

What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud Computing is the on-demand delivery of IT resources over the Internet with pay-as-you-go pricing. Instead of buying, owning, and maintaining physical data centers and servers, you can access technology services as you need them.

Key characteristics:
- On-demand self-service: Provision resources without human intervention
- Broad network access: Available over the Internet
- Resource pooling: Resources shared among multiple customers
- Rapid elasticity: Scales automatically based on demand
- Measured service: Pay only for what you use

🎯 Key Points

  • βœ“ IT services delivery over the Internet
  • βœ“ Pay-as-you-go model
  • βœ“ Automatic scalability and elasticity
  • βœ“ No physical infrastructure required

Deployment and Service Models

Deployment Models:
- Public Cloud: Shared resources, owned by cloud providers
- Private Cloud: Infrastructure dedicated to one organization
- Hybrid Cloud: Combination of public and private

Service Models:
- IaaS (Infrastructure): EC2, VPC - Control over infrastructure
- PaaS (Platform): Elastic Beanstalk - Application management
- SaaS (Software): Gmail, Office 365 - Ready-to-use applications

🎯 Key Points

  • βœ“ Three deployment models: public, private, hybrid
  • βœ“ IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS by management level
  • βœ“ AWS primarily offers IaaS and PaaS
  • βœ“ Choose based on control requirements

Cloud Benefits

Main advantages:

1. Trade capital expense for variable expense
- Don't invest in infrastructure before using it
- Pay only for consumed resources

2. Massive economies of scale
- Lower prices from aggregated usage of thousands of customers

3. Stop guessing capacity
- Scale up or down based on need
- Avoid underutilized resources or lack of capacity

4. Increase speed and agility
- Provision resources in minutes
- Experiment and innovate quickly

5. Stop spending on data centers
- Focus on projects that differentiate the business

6. Go global in minutes
- Deploy applications in multiple regions globally

🎯 Key Points

  • βœ“ Flexible and predictable cost model
  • βœ“ Scalability without upfront investment
  • βœ“ Instant global reach
  • βœ“ Greater agility and innovation