Preface – This post is part of the Cloud Computing series.

Introduction

Cloud computing technologies allow us to access resources like security, storage, management and compute power on demand. There are many benefits of using cloud computing rather than traditional servers because it saves a lot of costs and stores our data in virtual space. Cloud providers store and process data in a separate location from end-users. Businesses of any size can have powerful software and IT infrastructure to become more prominent, reliant, and compete with large MNCs. But certain technologies work behind the cloud, which makes it more reliable, flexible, and popular among IT companies.

These technologies are

1. Virtualization
2. Grid computing
3. Utility Computing
4. Service-Oriented Architecture(SOA)

Virtualization

Virtualization creates a virtual environment for storage, security, and running multiple applications and operating systems. Virtualization is done by giving the logical name to a physical resource and providing a pointer to that physical resource when demanded. This concept increases the demand for virtual machines. And this is an essential aspect of cloud computing, and people are moving to build or design more virtual devices like this. We can easily access virtual machines via the Internet and use the resources. Virtualization increases the hosts’ ability to control the execution of guest programs transparently, which helps open up new possibilities to deliver a secure and controlled execution environment.

Some types of virtualization are listed below

1. Hardware Virtualization.
2. Operating system Virtualization.
3. Server Virtualization.
4. Storage Virtualization.

Grid Computing

Grid Computing is a type of distributed computing in which a group of computers from multiple locations are connected to achieve a common purpose. This server is placed in a grid to form a cluster and then combined with a desktop’s help. This cluster is easy to run on any operating system and is mainly used in ATMs. It handles complex problems that might not be possible with a single computer. It allows applications to be easily scaled since we can add machines to grid computing. Grid computing mainly has three devices: control node, provider, and user. Tasks are performed parallelly across various physical locations; we don’t need to pay for that.

Utility Computing

Utility computing is a subdivision of cloud computing. It enables us to scale up and down the resources according to the need. It provides services like computing and technical assistance, available to customers when needed. Other utility computing features are reduced cost, flexibility to deploy when needed, unlimited storage and memory availability, and reduced capital cost of hardware and other IT sectors like cybersecurity, testing, etc. This technology uplift the concept of scalability in cloud computing.

Service-Oriented Architecture

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a technology in which a user gets cloud services per its business requirements. SOA consists of all business requirements that an organization needs. The benefits are designed in such a way that it makes it easier for the developers to assemble their apps using those services. The two main components of SOA are a service provider (which provides various services to clients) service consumer (which consumes the services)

Features of SOA

1. Reusability: The services provided by SOA are reusable, reducing development time and other related costs.
2. Isolation: Services have control over the logic they abstract, and the service consumer has no idea about internal implementation. The service consumer is isolated from the infrastructure.
3. Loose coupling: Services are developed as self-contained components and maintain relationships that minimize dependencies on other services.