What is cloud computing? What does "cloud" mean?

First, before talking about what cloud computing is, think about why we need "cloud" and "cloud computing"

Nowadays, more and more applications are migrating to the "cloud", such as all kinds of "cloud disk" storage that we come into contact with in our lives. In fact, "cloud" is not trendy, it has lasted for more than 1 years, and it is still expanding to all fields. Predictable thing: In the next 1 years, almost all applications will be deployed to the cloud, and most of them will provide us with various services directly through your mobile devices.

why do you need a "cloud"?

Traditional applications are becoming more and more complicated: they need to support more users, need stronger computing power, need more stability and security, etc. In order to support these growing demands, enterprises have to buy all kinds of hardware devices (servers, storage, bandwidth, etc.) and software (databases, middleware, etc.), and also need to form a complete operation and maintenance team to support the normal operation of these devices or software, including installation and maintenance. You will find that the cost of supporting these applications becomes very huge, and their cost will increase with the increase of the number or scale of your applications. That's why even in large enterprises with excellent IT departments, those users are still complaining that the systems they use can't meet their needs. For those small and medium-sized enterprises and even individual entrepreneurs, the operation and maintenance cost of creating software products is even more unbearable.

so, cloud computing comes into being-bigger, faster and stronger

the solution to the above problems is "cloud computing"! After deploying the application to the cloud, you don't have to pay attention to the headache hardware and software problems, they will be solved by the professional team of the cloud service provider. Using hardware that * * * enjoys means using cloud services like a tool (just as simple as plugging in a socket and you can use electricity).

You only need to pay the corresponding fees according to your needs, and the software update and the on-demand expansion of resources can be completed automatically.

second, let's talk about "cloud computing" figuratively.

1 faucet viewpoint:

When necessary, turn on the faucet and water will come. I just need to worry about paying the water fee!

When you need to use a software, you don't have to go to the computer city, open the app store, and it will be downloaded. You just need to pay the money.

When you want to read the newspaper, you don't have to run to the newsstand, just open the headlines and the news is readily available;

When you want to read a book, you don't have to go to the book mall, just open the reading software, find such a book and read it on your mobile phone;

When you want to listen to music, you don't have to go to the video store to look for CDs, but you can listen to music by opening the music software.

Cloud computing, like opening different water companies in different regions, has no geographical restrictions. Excellent cloud software service providers provide software services to every corner of the world-just like clouds in the sky, no matter where you are, you can see them as long as you look up!

2 On the viewpoint of dirty jokes:

A very popular metaphor on the Internet: a man looking for a girlfriend or a wife is a self-built private cloud, a single person making an appointment or spending money in an entertainment place is a public cloud service, which can be used on demand and flexibly expanded, while a married man looking for a mistress and a honey belongs to a hybrid cloud.

this kind of explanation is more suitable for men, and it usually takes a little explanation to get the message!

3*** Enjoy Bike-Didi Chuxing Theory:

Traveling requires a car, and cloud computing or cloud services are like taking a taxi or express train * * * to enjoy a bike. You can use it whenever you need it, and you can pay according to the amount (distance).

buying a car and driving by yourself is a hybrid cloud, and the car is your own. Going out to pay for parking or refueling is equivalent to using a public cloud in part, while Amazon or Microsoft Cloud is almost restricted by policies like a black car in China.

4 Eating three meals a day:

If you are hungry, cooking at home belongs to a self-built private cloud, and you need to build a kitchen to buy pots, pans, rice, oil and salt, etc., and you also need to wash the dishes yourself after eating, which is time-consuming and laborious;

The restaurants outside the restaurant are equivalent to public cloud services, and the concept of load balancing and virtualization is how to arrange the cooking order and speed up the delivery of food in the restaurant.

Inviting chefs to cook at home is a typical hybrid cloud, and public cloud is limited to use when assets are safe.

III. Five characteristics of "cloud computing"

Large-scale and distributed

"cloud" generally has a considerable scale, and some well-known cloud providers, such as Google Cloud Computing, Amazon, IBM, Microsoft, Ali, etc., also have millions of servers. The "cloud" built by these distributed servers can provide users with unprecedented computing power.

Virtualization

Virtualization technology is used in cloud computing. Users don't need to pay attention to specific hardware entities. They just need to choose a cloud service provider, register an account, log in to their cloud console, buy and configure the services you need (such as cloud server, cloud storage, CDN, etc.), and then make some simple configurations for your application, so you can let your application serve the outside world, which is more than the traditional enterprise data center. Moreover, you can control your resources anytime and anywhere through your PC or mobile device, which is like a cloud service provider providing an IDC(Internet Data Center) for every user.

High availability and scalability

Well-known cloud computing providers generally adopt measures such as fault tolerance of multiple copies of data and isomorphism and interchangeability of computing nodes to ensure high reliability of services. Applications based on cloud services can continue to provide services to the outside world (7*24 hours), and the scale of "cloud" can be dynamically scaled to meet the needs of the growth of applications and users.

On-demand service is more economical

Users can purchase services according to their own needs, and even accurately charge according to usage. This can greatly save IT costs, and the overall utilization rate of resources will also be significantly improved.

security

network security has become a problem that all enterprises or individual entrepreneurs must face. IT is difficult for IT teams or individuals of enterprises to deal with malicious attacks from the network, and using cloud services can effectively reduce security risks with the help of more professional security teams.