Cloud computing has revolutionized the way businesses work. Businesses are able to share their work, collaborate across the globe, save big time on infrastructure costs, easily scale their applications, and securely store huge volumes of data — thanks to cloud storage and computing.
But what is it?
If you had a file saved on your local machine and wanted to access it from your phone or tablet, that wouldn't be possible. But if you store the same document on OneDrive or Google Docs, you can use WiFi or mobile data to access it from anywhere.
Accessing services like Google Docs is possible because it is hosted on a server that’s located _elsewhere — _i.e., on a cloud server. Google Docs is an example of cloud storage.
Likewise, you can run the MongoDB database on the cloud using MongoDB Atlas, which means you don’t have to install MongoDB on your machine, but can still use all of its features that your project needs.
Therefore, businesses can run any application, software, infrastructure, platform, or database as service on the cloud and access them from anywhere via the internet.
Simply explained, cloud computing is a set of distributed resources across servers that can be accessed as a _service _over the internet.
Having high-end applications, infrastructure, platforms, software, and many other resources on cloud means that you can get the benefits of these at a low cost, even if your physical machine has limited capabilities.
Many companies are moving towards cloud migration as cloud computing offers several benefits:
Cloud architecture consists of various components like applications, software, databases, infrastructure, etc., and signifies the relationships between these components. All the cloud components together build the “cloud,” where the backend resources are pooled and accessed over a _network _by the front end (client).
Cloud is based on the concept of virtualization. With virtualization, users can access a virtual machine as if it were a physical machine with on-premise hardware. Each virtual machine is invisible to others but shares the computing power, storage, and memory of the host machine.
The data operations are taken care of by a central server that follows a standard protocol to connect between the devices linked through cloud computing. Resources like network, database, and software can be shared efficiently across the cloud environment. If one server goes down, the other cloud servers take the load and keep the data and services available.
Cloud providers pre-package a combination of resources into a delivery model. There are four main cloud-based delivery models, namely, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Database-as-a-Service (DBaas), Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).
Cloud database is a database accessed as a service on the cloud. You don't have to buy any additional hardware to host the database. Cloud databases can be accessed via a web interface or a vendor’s API. Reduced cost, flexibility, scalability, disaster recovery, and security are some important benefits of a cloud database.
MongoDB Atlas is a fully managed database as a service that offers features like multi-cloud clusters, automated data tiering, continuous backups, and many more.
MongoDB Atlas works seamlessly with major public cloud platforms like Google Cloud, AWS, and Azure.
Cloud computing is the availability of computer resources, like computing power and data storage on demand to create cloud-native applications. Cloud computing enables businesses to pay for the services as they need, thus lowering operating costs and scaling their business as required. Also, huge amounts of computing resources can be provisioned within minutes, enhancing speed and business productivity.
The different types of cloud computing services are:
Serverless framework is a cloud computing model where the application runs on a stateless container triggered by events. In case of an event, the cloud provider dynamically provisions the containers.
The pricing of a serverless computing model is based on the number of executions and the workload is handled by the serverless platform, further reducing costs.
Serverless framework also provides improved scalability, flexibility, and latency. Atlas App Services is a good example of serverless architecture.
With the increased usage of digital services, cloud computing has gained more popularity. Research shows that the cloud computing market will grow at a rate of 19.1% between 2021 and 2028. A Forbes report suggests that use cases of cloud will further expand and will play a major role in making key business decisions and strategies. The key upcoming trends in cloud computing are:
Through this article, we explained cloud computing basics and how cloud computing has changed the way resources are used across the globe. With more digitization, cloud technology will find more use cases for improved business decisions and strategies. MongoDB Atlas and Atlas App Services are two popular cloud-based technologies provided by MongoDB and are widely adopted by businesses to build scalable, flexible, and secure applications.
Cloud consists of a set of resources that are available over the internet, enabling users to perform high computational tasks and access resources like software, network, storage, etc., without having to install them on their physical machine. Cloud consists of two main components the front end or the client, and the back end, which is the actual cloud, i.e., resources that are available as services over the internet.
Cloud-based systems or cloud computing refers to the services that are hosted and accessed over the internet. Reduced cost, increased flexibility, high performance, and security are some benefits of cloud-based systems systems.
The different types of cloud architecture are: