Cloud Computing
- In Turkish
- Bulut Bilişim
In short
Cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of computing resources, such as servers, storage, and databases, over the internet with pay-as-you-go pricing.
What is cloud computing?
Cloud computing means renting computing resources from a provider over the internet instead of buying and running your own hardware. Those resources include virtual machines, storage, databases, networking, and higher-level services such as managed message queues or AI models. You create them in minutes through a web console, a command-line tool, or an API, and you typically pay only for what you use.
Behind the scenes, providers run large data centers and use virtualization to split physical servers into many isolated virtual machines and containers shared by many customers. Services are usually grouped into three models: IaaS (infrastructure as a service) gives you raw virtual machines and networks, PaaS (platform as a service) runs your code without you managing servers, and SaaS (software as a service) delivers complete applications such as web-based email. Resources can grow or shrink automatically as demand changes, a property called elasticity.
A helpful analogy is electricity. Most businesses don't build their own power plant; they plug into the grid and pay for the power they use. In the same way, a startup can launch a global app without owning a single server, and a large company can add thousands of machines for a sales event and release them afterward.
Cloud computing is often confused with traditional hosting or with serverless. Traditional hosting usually means renting a fixed server by the month, while the cloud emphasizes self-service, automation, and elastic scaling. Serverless is one style of cloud computing where the provider manages the servers entirely and bills per request or per unit of compute time. Clouds can also be public (shared by many customers), private (dedicated to one organization), or hybrid (a mix of both, often with on-premises systems).
Key takeaways
- Cloud computing rents servers, storage, and services over the internet on demand.
- The three main service models are IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS.
- Elasticity lets resources grow and shrink automatically with demand.
- Pricing is usually pay-as-you-go instead of large upfront hardware purchases.
- Deployments can be public, private, or hybrid.
Readers ask
What are IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS?
They are the three main cloud service models. IaaS provides raw infrastructure like virtual machines, PaaS provides a managed platform where you just deploy code, and SaaS provides finished software that you use through a browser or app.
Is the cloud cheaper than running your own servers?
Often at first, because you avoid buying hardware and pay only for what you use. For large, steady workloads, cloud costs can exceed owning servers, so teams monitor usage and resize or turn off idle resources.
What is the difference between public, private, and hybrid cloud?
A public cloud is shared infrastructure run by a provider for many customers, a private cloud is dedicated to one organization, and a hybrid cloud connects the two, often together with on-premises data centers.
See also
- Virtual MachineDevOps & Cloud, p. 53A virtual machine is a software-based computer that runs its own operating system on shared physical hardware, isolated from other machines on the same host.
- ServerlessDevOps & Cloud, p. 47Serverless is a cloud model in which the provider runs your code on demand, manages all the servers, scales automatically, and bills only for actual use.
- Infrastructure as CodeDevOps & Cloud, p. 29Infrastructure as code is the practice of defining servers, networks, and other infrastructure in version-controlled files that tools apply automatically.
- ContainerDevOps & Cloud, p. 12A container is a lightweight, isolated package that bundles an application with its dependencies and runs it on the host's shared operating system kernel.
- ScalabilitySoftware Architecture, p. 36Scalability is a system's ability to handle growing amounts of work, such as more users or data, by adding resources without a drop in performance.
- DevOpsDevOps & Cloud, p. 14DevOps is a set of practices and a culture that brings software development and IT operations together to deliver software faster and more reliably.
- AWSDevOps & Cloud, p. 3AWS (Amazon Web Services) is Amazon's cloud platform: more than 200 pay-as-you-go services for servers, storage, databases and much more.
- AzureDevOps & Cloud, p. 4Microsoft Azure is Microsoft's cloud computing platform, offering hundreds of on-demand services such as virtual machines, databases and AI models worldwide.
- Google CloudDevOps & Cloud, p. 24Google Cloud is Google's public cloud platform, offering compute, storage, data and AI services on the global infrastructure behind Google's own products.
- IaaSDevOps & Cloud, p. 27IaaS (infrastructure as a service) is a cloud model where you rent virtual machines, storage and networks on demand and manage the OS and above yourself.
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