What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is a virtualization-based technology that uses remote servers on the internet to store, configure, manage and access data online instead of in physical data centers. These data can be in the form of text, image, audio, video, etc.

In simple terms, cloud computing is a way to access data, applications, or storage over the internet instead of a hard drive.

Audience

This tutorial has been created for beginners who are new to Cloud Computing. It will help them understand the basic to advanced concepts related to cloud computing technology.

Prerequisites

Before moving forward with this tutorial, you should have a basic understanding of Computers, Databases, the Internet, and Networking. It will help you to understand Cloud Computing concepts easily. 

Cloud computing is a way of accessing IT resources over the Internet. Instead of buying and maintaining our own physical data centers and servers, we can create, configure and maintain applications and resources over the internet. Cloud Computing is based on a pay-as-you-go model.

Today, most organizations and industries use the cloud for various services such as disaster recovery, backup, storage, development and testing, data analytics, emails, real-time fraud detection, online games, hosting websites, delivery of on-demand software, etc.

Characteristics of Cloud Computing

1. On-Demand Self-Service: Cloud Computing services are available on-demand and do not require much human interaction or management effort. The user can create, configure, and manage the resources as per their requirement.  
2. Resource Pooling: Computing resources, such as applications, servers, networks, and storage, are shared across multiple users by securely separating the resources on a logical level. This is done using a multi-tenant model that allows multiple clients to share the same physical resources or application while maintaining data security and privacy.
3. Rapid Elasticity: IT resources can be easily scaled down or removed when not needed. So, it helps meet the immediate requirement per the user's needs.
4. Low Maintenance Cost: Cloud Computing helps an organization save hardware and software maintenance costs. The organization doesn’t need to set up physical data centers or servers. 
5. Pay-as-you-go Model: The resource utilization is tracked, monitored, and reported for each user. It helps them to monitor the billing of the used resources, and users only pay for what has been used.