Define cloud computing

- As you make your journey into cloud technologies, it's important to be able to identify the elementary foundational topics. Join us for that discussion right now. - [Announcer] You are watching IT Pro TV. (logo whooshing) - Hello ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for tuning into the CompTIA Cloud certification. That's right, we are kicking it off here, and one of the things that we're going to do is help you to identify some of the foundational concepts that's important as you make your way into the cloud. Now Ronnie, I appreciate you joining us here. When we talk about cloud computing, I guess one of the things that we have to be able to do is really understand what cloud computing is and how to define it, right? - Right, even as a Network professional, let's say you already earned your Network or your A , getting into the cloud itself can sound a little bit further removed. So what we want to do in this episode is to actually ensure that you can at least define what we mean by cloud computing. More than likely that's going to end up being something you're going to be working in in the future. So that's where we're going to be heading. - Ronnie, you know, I know that the concept of the cloud has been around for a long time. Now, whether we called it in the earlier days, we actually called it cloud is up for debate. However, we have to understand that there is a formalized definition of cloud, and the reason I say that, Ronnie, is I've gone out to a great many websites, I've gone to Azure out there, you know, Microsoft's offering gone out to Google Compute, you know, Google's offering and then AWS Amazon. And while everybody has a marketing spin on the cloud, what is more of that formalized definition, and I guess this is a two for here, where would we see that definition coming from? - Right, so when it comes down to what cloud computing really means, and how you actually kind of put it into play is that there's actually five different characteristics of cloud computing. Four different service models if I remember correctly, and then three deployment models, unless I got that one backwards. So we'll actually end up talking about those. Well actually there's four different deployment models and three service models is what we're actually going to be talking about. Now to ensure that we actually have an understanding of that, you might be wondering, "Well who the heck told you that, Ronnie?" Well, there's actually a documentation from NIST, right? The National Institute of Standards and Technology. - [Wes] And Technology, yep. - There is a Special Publication always labeled as SP, and then 800 series is where you tend to want to go when you're in IT. And that's 145, so SP 800-145. That kind of gives us the initial definition of what we mean when we start describing the idea of cloud computing. So let's go ahead and make sure that we understand about those five different characteristics, okay? So first and foremost, Wes, one of the easiest things for us to understand here, okay, when it comes down to cloud characteristics, and really what makes it different than a regular data center that exists on the workplace that you're at, is what we call the idea of actually having the resources on-demand. Now, Wes, that actually kind of throws a little, a few people when they get started. What do we mean by that? So Wes, when I say something is on-demand, especially in cloud computing, what were we talking about? - You know, one of the first times I actually seen this concept, it really had nothing to do with cloud, which is kind of interesting. I remember in the days when you would have to go to, back when Blockbuster still exists, right? You have to go out to the Blockbuster, you have to pick the movie that you wanted to watch. And then as network, internet technologies, became a little bit better, you were able to watch the video when you wanted it through streaming services, like, let's say Netflix. Now, not the actual definition, but it seems like, Ronnie, this is almost like a little kid, when I want it, I get it, I can get access to it. - Yeah, and that's kind of the key here. Cloud computing is different than a regular place that you end up working with that has servers and everything is that you can actually get it when you actually need it. You don't have to go ahead, and buy it, and then use it when you actually need to, when you need it at that point, you can provision the resources that you need. In other words, get them ready to go then, you don't have to pay for it before that time. But you can do that, so it's actually on-demand. Another particular characteristic for us is what we call broad access, okay? Now Wes, in the beginning, even when we start talking about regular data centers that would be inside of our building, when we normally access, let's say a file share, what types of equipment would we access that file share with? - Well, we would sit down at a laptop, and typically we'd have some kind of file based browser, you know, that we would connect to. We would have to, you know, open up like if we were in Windows, if you will, some kind of GUI based interface. But we were typically limited to the access, a lot of times for us, via some kind of workstation, and you're not supposed to access stuff like this on servers, but generically speaking we could do this with servers. So traditional operating systems, I would say, - Yep, pretty much anything that you would actually sat down at a particular computer, workstation, PC, laptop, connected to that physical network, then you can actually go there. Well, in terms of broad access, that means that the resources that are actually available inside of the cloud, we can access them through the same methods that we want to, or if I have a cell phone or a tablet or whatever method that we can do, it has to have that ability to be able to be accessed regardless of what type of equipment that we're on. - So Ronnie, if I was to pick up my phone right here and I had the pro the appropriate, maybe they got an an app there. - An app, yep. - Maybe they got a web browser in here, I should be able to provide it. I have internet connectivity, connect, and gain access to that. And if I was to, let's say, put this down, and I was to pull up a tablet, right? I should be able to have access. So all the traditional methods, and see some of the more newer methods. Now, I know mobile's been out for a long time now, but it's newer in the concept of accessing those resources. - Sure, so there's no limitation. We want to make sure that people can gain access to it, not only by whatever device that they want to, but a lot of times whenever they want to as well. Now another characteristic here is what we call elasticity. So this one a little bit more familiar with, as I eat more and more, my waistband continues to actually kind of expand out. Hopefully one day I'll actually end up losing weight and that will kind of shrink back in. So we have that idea of elasticity as well. Now when we start mentioning this, okay, idea of elasticity in the cloud, in terms of resources, Wes, people start to get a little bit more confused when we try and use regular analogies to define this. So Wes, what would you think about this in terms of elasticity? - Well, you know, I have to join you in the waistband analogy. I think that's actually a really good analogy, and not too far from home as well. But I'll tell you, you know, I like the fact that, hey, if I need certain amount of resources, right, that we can kind of flex those amount of resources that we have and we could scale out, right? And scaling out, I mean, we could add more resources on demand when we need to. But then when we don't need those resources, unlike other traditional models where we would just have to eat the cost 'cause we've already purchased these things, we could scale that back down. So that's the waistband analogy, I really like that, is if I need additional resources, we can increase the amount of resources, right, elasticity. But at the same time, if we didn't need those resources, we could shrink those back down, or we could put our network on a diet, if you will. - Right, so the idea behind this is not just the idea of elasticity, but rapidly being able to do so. - That's right, sure. - So when we actually need more resources, let's say that we run a system load on our particular machines that we're accessing in the cloud, it becomes very heavy. Well, instead of us actually going, all right, let's take the time to spin up another device that we need that has more available resources, transfer that over, we can a lot of times simply add in what we need, whether it's storage, whether it's CPU, RAM, whatever it is, we can go ahead and do so, and then when we don't need, we don't need it, we can also go ahead and do the exact opposite. We tend to do this with things like load balancing as well. So we scale up when we need to or we scale out when we need to and then we can reduce that back down when the load is just not as on-demand. The other part of this is what we call metering here, okay? So this is a very important concept in the cloud. Wes, the importance of this is because we don't own the equipment that we're actually working with in the cloud. So why is metering so important? - Well, you know, I think of a traditional power company, right? Maybe some of you out there have seen, or even even if you do live in an apartment complex, maybe seen a little electrical meter out there, and what happens, your electrician or the electrical company, they have to come out and they read the meter and what are they doing? They're charging you for the services that you're using, 'cause let's face it, those power lines, they're not yours. They're, you know they're property of the electrical company, and what you're doing is you're paying them for the services that they're providing you with in your house or your apartment. And I believe it's really no different, Ronnie, that when we talk about, you mentioned using somebody else's network, we're using somebody else's network, and metering gives that provider the ability to charge you really for what you've used, but a good thing on the customer side is only charging you for what you've used, - Right, instead of what everybody else is using at the same time. - Sure, sure. - So metering is that way. And then lastly, our fifth particular characteristic here is scalability. To be able to actually do the things that we need to on a rapid onset pace. Now when we start talking about this, it's not just elasticity, we add in more resources. Scalability means if I need to grow, I will continue to grow. I can add in more. I only have 10 servers, I need 20. I can do that without having to wait to buy and do all those other things, but that's the idea. So those are the primary five characteristics when it comes down to defining cloud resources. - Sure, Ronnie and I love how you mentioned, don't get that confused with elasticity, 'cause that's very, very easy to do. Remember scalability allows you to the ability to do exactly what Ronnie said, we can add more resources. Remember the elasticity side of that is the ability to reduce those resources if we don't need it. So definitely pay attention to that kind of definition on the exam, because it could be one that trips you up. Now Ronnie, earlier in the intro, one of the things that you mentioned is that when it comes to deployment, how we deploy these, and what resources are available to us and other people really depend on something known as the deployment model. Can you help us out with that? - Sure, when it comes down to us working in the cloud, we are going to actually see that there's multiple deployment models. In other words, how we actually access what's actually out there. I know that sounds strange, but the idea of the deployment model is that we're going to find out that there's actually different ways and different types of clouds that we can access. So I've got some descriptions I went ahead and put up there, 'cause I want you to be able to match these terms with the idea here. So the first one is what we call public cloud. Now, when it comes down to public cloud, the infrastructure is normally owned by a company, we'll say Azure, AWS, whatever it might be. But then anybody that actually can access it publicly can also use those resources to gain a tendency. So if I wanted a different set of resources than what Wes wanted, well we could both go ahead and create accounts in Azure if we wanted to. And then that becomes his tendency or his tenant, and I actually have my own, those resources are essentially separated, metered in that particular way, but that is publicly accessible to just about anyone that has the ability to do so. So those are not hidden at all. So that's the idea of the public. Now the other ones that we can mention is what we call private cloud. Now sometimes you'll hear the term cloud within a cloud. Well, when you hear that term, you always want to think about the idea of private cloud here. This is when instead of everybody can access those resources that have multi-tenancy and shared resources here, private cloud means you access it, and you alone, your company. A lot of times you'll even hear about a hybrid approach, But private cloud means no, all the access to the machines that your services So instead of you having to share like in the public one where there's multiple tenants working, So that's the idea of the private cloud too. Now along with that, let's talk about this idea of hybrid.