What is cloud computing? What is cloud computing?

Cloud computing refers to a computing mode that integrates computing resources including hardware, software, data and applications according to a certain computing mode and service mode and provides them to users.

Like utilities such as electricity, water and gas, cloud computing can allocate and use computing resources through the network, allowing users to obtain the required computing resources anytime, anywhere and on demand. Cloud computing concentrates computing resources in the cloud, and users can obtain the required computing resources according to their own needs through the network connection and service interface provided by cloud service providers.

Cloud computing does not need to purchase and maintain resources such as software and hardware. Cloud computing also has the advantages of resource sharing, high availability, scalability, flexibility and security, so it is widely used in IT systems, Internet applications, mobile applications, Internet of Things, big data and other fields.

"Cloud" is essentially a network. Cloud computing in a narrow sense is a network that provides resources. Users can access the resources on the "cloud" at any time, use them according to their needs, or treat them as unlimited expansion, as long as they pay according to their usage.

Broadly speaking, cloud computing is a service related to information technology, software and Internet. This pool of computing resources is called "cloud". Cloud computing brings together many computing resources and realizes automatic management through software. Only a few people need to participate, and resources can be provided quickly.

In other words, computing power, as a commodity, can be circulated on the Internet. Just like water, electricity and gas, it can be easily obtained and used, and the price is relatively low.

Background of cloud computing:

Internet appeared from 1960, which is mainly used for plain text e-mail or news cluster service between the military and large enterprises. It was not until 1990 that they began to enter ordinary families. With the development of websites and e-commerce, the network has become one of the indispensable necessities in people's lives.

The concept of cloud computing was first put forward at the search engine conference in August 2006, which became the third revolution of the Internet. Cloud computing is also becoming the strategic focus of the development of information technology industry, and information technology enterprises all over the world are transforming to cloud computing.

For an enterprise, the computing power of a computer is far from meeting the demand of data computing, so the company will buy a computer with stronger computing power, that is, a server. For large enterprises, the computing power of one server is obviously not enough, which requires enterprises to buy multiple servers.

Even evolved into a data center with multiple servers, and the number of servers will directly affect the business processing capacity of this data center.

In addition to the high initial construction cost, the money spent on electricity in computer operating expenses is far higher than the investment cost. Coupled with the maintenance expenses of computers and networks, these total expenses are unbearable for small and medium-sized enterprises, so the concept of cloud computing came into being.

Reference to the above content: Baidu Encyclopedia-Cloud Computing