One day Mickey was taking a walk at the riverside when Minnie came running to him
Minnie – Hey Mickey, Wait for me!
Mickey – Hi Minnie, what happened?
Minnie – I need to talk to you
Mickey – Sure, tell me
Minnie – Do you know what is Cloud Computing?
Mickey – Sure I do, Minnie
Minnie – Great can you make me understand, like from scratch
Mickey – I know, the best way you understand is with a Story. Let me tell you one
Minnie – Great, let’s go to some quiet place
Mickey & Minnie went to a quiet place near the river
Mickey – Ok Minnie, Do you remember there was a time when every household, town, farm, or village had its own water well. People had to go to the well to get water
Minnie – Yes, good old times
Mickey – Today, shared public utilities give us access to clean water by simply turning on the tap
Minnie – Yes
Mickey – You can turn on the tap and turn it off as per your needs, and you do not have to worry about the backend processes, maintenance, infrastructure, etc
Minnie – Yes, I do not have to do any cleaning or maintain any infrastructure like the well, or pipes, I do not have to worry about how to store water or how to deliver, about the pipelines, etc. All this will be taken care of by the water company
Mickey – Right, you can just turn on the tap and get water as per your needs and then turn it off and you pay only for what you use
Minnie – You are Right
Mickey – Now try to imagine, if the same concept can be implemented in the computing services we need
Minnie – Like what
Mickey – Like, software, hardware, storage, internet, networking, etc., You do not buy, or maintain any of the infrastructure or services, Like the water company in our story, there will be a company handling all these and you can just use the services as you need and pay for what you use
Minnie – That will be awesome
Mickey – That’s Right and that is exactly what we know as Cloud Computing
Minnie – Great, but why it is called Cloud, it is available on the Cloud?
Mickey – Ha ha, the services are available on the Internet and here internet is referred to as Cloud
Minnie – Wow, tell me more
Mickey – Simply put, cloud computing is the delivery of computing services including software, hardware, servers, storage, databases, networking, analytics, and intelligence over the Internet (“the cloud”) to offer faster innovation, flexible resources
The user typically pays only for cloud services they use, so they do not have to worry about buying and maintaining infrastructure or resources
Minnie – This is great, Can you tell me some examples of Cloud Services
Mickey – Some examples
- Google Docs
- Gmail
- Skype
- Microsoft 365
- Calendar
- Zoom
Netflix
One of the largest video streaming services uses AWS to allow users to stream shows from anywhere in the world
Expedia
Uses AWS cloud services to accommodate a highly scalable infrastructure.
Minnie – Wow I never knew, a lot of services I am using are actually cloud services
Mickey – I know. Also, a clarification here, when we say Cloud Services, we generally refer to the platform like AWS, and when we say Cloud Computing, it refers to the computing services offered by the platform
Minnie – So Cloud Computing is one of the services offered by Cloud Service Platforms
Mickey – Yes, the major service of Cloud Service Platforms
Minnie – What are some popular Cloud Computing Service providers
Mickey – As of today, The three largest public CSPs are
- AWS – Amazon Web Services
- GCP – Google Cloud Platform
- Microsoft Azure
Minnie – But how and when it all started
Mickey – The history and evolution of cloud computing date back to the 1950s and 1960s.
In the 1950s, companies started to use large mainframe computers, but it was too expensive to buy a computer for each user. So, during the late 1950s and early 1960s, a process called time-sharing was developed to make more efficient use of expensive processor time on the central mainframe
Minnie – Great, Mickey, do we have any classification or types in Cloud Services
Mickey – Yes, good question Minnie, There are major 3 types of Cloud Services
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Software as a Service (SaaS)
I hope you remember the Story of Cloud Services (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS)
Minnie – I have heard about these, today I got a complete understanding
Mickey – Great to know
Minnie – Wow! I feel so good now
Mickey – Okay, let’s go home
Minnie – No let’s sit here. I want to enjoy the sunset
Mickey – Sure, Minnie
Minnie – You are my best friend
Mickey – I am always here for you 🙂
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References
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/overview/what-is-cloud-computing/
https://aws.amazon.com/what-is-cloud-computing/
https://www.ibm.com/in-en/cloud/learn/cloud-computing
https://www.ibm.com/in-en/cloud/learn/cloud-computing
https://www.techtarget.com/searchcloudcomputing/definition/cloud-computing
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/great-analogy-cloud-computing-antonio-toni-yag%C3%BCe/
https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-is-cloud-computing-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-cloud/
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cloud-computing.asp
https://www.javatpoint.com/cloud-computing-architecture
