Introduction to Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of IT resources over the internet with pay-as-you-go pricing. Instead of buying and maintaining physical data centers and servers, you access technology services like computing power, storage, and databases from a cloud provider like AWS. The three main models are IaaS (Infrastructure), PaaS (Platform), and SaaS (Software as a Service).

IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) — you manage servers, storage, networking (e.g., EC2). PaaS (Platform as a Service) — provider manages infrastructure, you focus on deployment and code (e.g., Elastic Beanstalk). SaaS (Software as a Service) — provider manages everything, you use the application (e.g., Gmail, Salesforce). Each model trades control for convenience.

Trade upfront expense for variable expense, benefit from massive economies of scale, stop guessing capacity, increase speed and agility, stop spending money running and maintaining data centers, and go global in minutes. These advantages allow businesses of any size to access enterprise-grade infrastructure without large capital investments.