As a Linux administrator, your job may depend on knowing how cloud computing works. Cloud technology has moved computer resources and applications to shared network environment, which changes how companies do business and provide services to customers.
What is Cloud Computing
As surprising as it sounds, what we know today as cloud computing (Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure) had its origins in computer documentation as the cloud symbol which was commonly used to represent the large network of geographically dispersed, self-contained and interconnected servers. The key to the term “cloud computing” is the phrase ” distributed computing” where resources are shared among two or more servers to accomplish a single task, such as run
an application.
Cloud computing deliver computing resources, both hardware and software, as needed, including servers, storage space, databases, networks, operating systems, and even individual applications. When it comes to delivering cloud services, there are three main methods for doing so:
Public: In public cloud computing set up, a third party provides all of the computing resources outside of the organization. The computing resources is usually shared between multiple organizations that also have access to the platform.
Private: Each individual organization builds its own cloud computing resources to provide resources internally.
Hybrid: Internal computing resources are connected to an external public cloud to help supplement resources when needed.
What Are The Different Cloud Computing Services Model?
Software as a Service
In the “Software as a Service” (SaaS) model, the vendor provides a complete application environment, such as a mail server, database server, or web server.
Platform as a Service
The “Platform as a Service” (PaaS) allows customers to develop applications running within the PaaS environment.
The PaaS vendor takes responsibility for:
- The physical components
- The operating system administration.
- System administration support to ensure that the operating system is properly patched and updated.
Infrastructure as a Service
In an “Infrastructure as a Service” (IaaS) environment, the vendor provides low-level server resources to host applications for organizations. including: The cloud computing vendor takes responsibility for maintaining the physical infrastructure environment (all of the physical components you’d need for a physical server, including CPU time, memory space, storage space, and network resources)
- The server resources provided may be on a single server, or they may be distributed among several servers to provide for increased availability.
- In a distributed environment, the servers may be co-located in a single facility, or they may be separated into multiple facilities located in separate cities.
In an IaaS environment, the customer is responsible for:
- The operating system
- Any applications that it needs to run.
- Most IaaS environments support either the Linux or Windows operating systems.
- Any system/application administration work required for the operating system.
