What is cloud computing?

What is cloud computing?

Cloud computing is a mechanism for renting resources, like storage space, CPU cycles, on another company's computers. You only pay for what you use. The company providing these services is referred to as a cloud provider. For example, providers are Microsoft, Amazon, and Google.

 The cloud provider is responsible for the physical hardware required to execute your work, and for keeping it up-to-date.

Compute power - such as Linux servers or web applications
Storage - such as files and databases
Networking - such as secure connections between the cloud provider and your company
Analytics - such as visualizing telemetry and performance data

What are the containers?

 Containers provide a consistent, isolated execution environment for applications. They're similar to Virtual Machines except they don't require a guest operating system. Instead, the application and all its dependencies are packaged into a "container" and then a standard runtime environment is used to execute the app. This allows the container to start up in just a few seconds because there's no OS to boot and initialize. You only need the app to launch.

Cloud computing vs Containers vs Serverless Computing

Below is a diagram comparing the three compute approaches we've covered.