What is cloud computing?
Cloud computing is the delivery of computing services—including servers, storage,
databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence—over the Internet ("the cloud")
to offer faster innovation, flexible resources, and economies of scale.
How does cloud computing work?
Rather than owning their own computing infrastructure or data centres, companies can rent
access to anything from applications to storage from a cloud service provider.
One benefit of using cloud-computing services is that firms can avoid the upfront cost and
complexity of owning and maintaining their own IT infrastructure, and instead simply pay for
what they use, when they use it.
In turn, providers of cloud-computing services can benefit from significant economies of
scale by delivering the same services to a wide range of customers.
What cloud-computing services are available?
Cloud-computing services cover a vast range of options now, from the basics of storage,
networking and processing power, through to natural language processing and artificial
intelligence as well as standard office applications.
Pretty much any service that doesn't require you to be physically close to the computer
hardware that you are using can now be delivered via the cloud – even quantum computing.
What are examples of cloud computing?
Cloud computing underpins a vast number of services. That includes consumer services like
Gmail or the cloud backup of the photos on your smartphone, though to the services that
allow large enterprises to host all their data and run all of their applications in the cloud.
For example, Netflix relies on cloud-computing services to run its video-streaming service
and its other business systems, too.
Cloud computing is becoming the default option for many apps: software vendors are
increasingly offering their applications as services over the internet rather than standalone
products as they try to switch to a subscription model.
However, there are potential downsides to cloud computing, in that it can also introduce new
costs and new risks for companies using it.
Why is it called cloud computing?
A fundamental concept behind cloud computing is that the location of the service, and many
of the details such as the hardware or operating system on which it is running, are largely
irrelevant to the user.
It's with this in mind that the metaphor of the cloud was borrowed from old telecoms network
schematics, in which the public telephone network (and later the internet) was often
represented as a cloud to denote that the location didn't matter – it was just a cloud of stuff.
This is an over-simplification of course; for many customers, location of their services and
data remains a key issue.
What is the history of cloud computing?
Cloud computing as a term has been around since the early 2000s, but the concept of
computing as a service has been around for much, much longer – as far back as the 1960s,
when computer bureaus would allow companies to rent time on a mainframe, rather than
have to buy one themselves.
These 'time-sharing' services were largely overtaken by the rise of the PC, which made
owning a computer much more affordable, and then in turn by the rise of corporate data
centres where companies would store vast amounts of data.
But the concept of renting access to computing power has resurfaced again and again – in the
application service providers, utility computing, and grid computing of the late 1990s and
early 2000s. This was followed by cloud computing, which really took hold with the
emergence of software as a service and hyperscale cloud-computing providers such as
Amazon Web Services.
How important is the cloud?
Building the infrastructure to support cloud computing now accounts for a significant chunk
of all IT spending, while spending on traditional, in-house IT slides as computing workloads
continue to move to the cloud, whether that is public cloud services offered by vendors or
private clouds built by enterprises themselves.
Indeed, it's increasingly clear that when it comes to enterprise computing platforms, like it or
not, the cloud has won.
Tech analyst Gartner predicts that as much as half of spending across application software,
infrastructure software, business process services and system infrastructure markets will have
shifted to the cloud by 2025, up from 41% in 2022. It estimates that almost two-thirds of
spending on application software will be via cloud computing, up from 57.7% in 2022.
What is Cloud IoT?
Cloud IoT is a technology architecture that connects IoT devices to servers housed in cloud data
centers.
This enables real-time data analytics, allowing better, information-driven decision making,
optimization, and risk mitigation.
Cloud IoT also simplifies management of connected devices at-scale.
Cloud IoT is different from traditional, or non-cloud-based IoT in a few key ways:
Data Storage: the cloud collects IoT data generated by thousands or millions of IoT
sensors, with the data being stored and processed in a central location. While in other
types of IoT architectures, data may be stored and processed on-premises
Scalability: cloud IoT is highly scalable, as cloud infrastructure (compute, storage,
and networking resources) can easily handle thousands of devices and process their
data across large systems
Flexibility: cloud IoT provides a high level of flexibility, as it allows devices to be
added or removed as-needed, without having to reconfigure the entire system
Maintenance: in cloud IoT, the maintenance of servers and networking equipment is
handled by the cloud service provider (CSP). While in other types of IoT
architectures, maintenance may be the responsibility of the end user
Cost: cloud IoT can be more cost-effective over the long-term, as users only pay for
the resources they actually consume, and users do not have to invest upfront in their
own expensive compute, storage, and networking infrastructure.
How Does Cloud IoT Work?
Cloud IoT connects IoT devices – which collect and transmit data – to cloud-based servers via
communication protocols such as MQTT and HTTP and over wired and wireless networks.
These IoT devices can be managed and controlled remotely and integrated with other cloud
services.
Benefits And Functions of IoT Cloud:
There are many benefits of combining these services –
1. IoT Cloud Computing provides many connectivity options, implying large
network access. People use a wide range of devices to gain access to cloud
computing resources: mobile devices, tablets, laptops. This is convenient for
users but creates the problem of the need for network access points.
2. Developers can use IoT cloud computing on-demand. In other words, it is a web
service accessed without special permission or any help. The only requirement is
Internet access.
3. Based on the request, users can scale the service according to their needs. Fast
and flexible means you can expand storage space, edit software settings, and
work with the number of users. Due to this characteristic, it is possible to provide
deep computing power and storage.
4. Cloud Computing implies the pooling of resources. It influences increased
collaboration and builds close connections between users.
5. As the number of IoT devices and automation in use grows, security concerns
emerge. Cloud solutions provide companies with reliable authentication and
encryption protocols.
6. Finally, IoT cloud computing is convenient because you get exactly as much
from the service as you pay. This means that costs vary depending on use: the
provider measures your usage statistics. A growing network of objects with IP
addresses is needed to connect to the Internet and exchange data between the
components of the network.
