On my Twitter feed today I saw that a post by Chad Keck, an engineer at Rackspace, (@ckeck on Twitter) titled “What is Cloud Computing” with a link to a post on the Rackspacecloud site that has a great, relatively short explanation of what cloud computing is along with a nice visual. Since I’m re-selling smaller portions of the Rackspace Cloud Site $100 offering for folks interested in its benefits at prices close to that of shared hosting packages (See Here for details), I thought I’d reprint it.
What is Cloud Computing?
We define cloud computing in simplest terms, as follows: A set of pooled computing resources, delivered over the web, powered by software. Cloud computing – not to be confused with grid computing, utility computing, or autonomic computing – is a form of computing that involves the interaction of several virtualized resources, meaning that many servers are connecting and sharing information that can expand and contract across servers depending on the amount of servers needed to manage the amount of traffic on various sites. Cloud computing is often provided “as a service” over the internet, typically in the form of infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), or software as a service (SaaS). The “cloud” in “cloud computing” stems from the interconnectivity of the computers and computer networks that form the internet because, when these relationships are diagramed, the resulting image looks like a cloud.
One of the major benefits of cloud computing is that cloud customers do not have to raise the capital to purchase, manage, maintain, and scale the physical infrastructure required to handle drastic traffic fluctuations. Instead of having to invest this time and money to keep their sites afloat, which would put them in the position of often having to own, manage, maintain and scale far many more servers than they needed on a regular day, cloud computing customers simply pay for the resources they use as they need them. This particular characteristic of cloud computing allows traffic to increase dramatically as site developers no longer have to manage and predict traffic, but can promote their sites endlessly, knowing that their sites will stay afloat no matter the traffic influx. Furthermore, costs are improved by the cloud computing model which maximizes server usage since cloud computing customers do not have to engineer for peak load limits.
Have questions? Feel free to ring us at 1-877-934-0409, ping us on Live Chat, or just scope us out on Twitter. We are here 24/7/365, and we love to talk cloud. Check out our Cloud Hosting and Cloud Computing products. (*This is to Rackspace itself, if you interested in their full $100 Cloud Site)
*If your interested in being on a smaller chunk of a Rackspace Cloud Site, feel free to ring me, Stephen Pickering, at 1-501-291-1375, email me at [email protected], or scope me out on Twitter too, I’d love to talk . See Here for details of my plans.
Courtesy of: Chad Keck and Rackspacecloud.com - http://www.rackspacecloud.com/what_is_cloud_computing
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