Cloud computing is a hot trend. Many companies have moved to work remotely during the pandemic. The future of cloud computing is very promising and it’s rising. Among top cloud computing providers are – Amazon web services, Microsoft Azure, Google cloud platforms.
Amazon web services has dominated the market of cloud computing. It was the first entrant to the market. Both Aws, Azure and Google cloud provides a wide range of services at different cost and efficiency. I have personally used Google cloud platforms and I think it’s a great tool to run programs on the cloud especially RESTful apis. Google Cloud Platforms (GCP) provides good documentation of how to use their services. The default service is ready to use, whearse as in other platforms, there are more steps needed to get the services ready to work. For example, to run a web app on GCP, only two commands are needed to get the services up and ready: 1- enable GAP (google app engine ) in the project on GCP. Then deploy the project! It’s also easy to integrate other products of GCP.
A great way to learn about cloud computing is to read the documentation provided by the cloud provider. I also suggest that you take the course CS493 which is offered online at Oregon State University.
Types of cloud offerings
- Software as a Service(Saas)
is a software licensing model in which access to the software is provided on a subscription basis. For example, Facebook, Twitter, gmail is a type of Saas. The client gets very little direct control over features.
- Platform as a service (Paas)
Paas provides the programmer with a suite of tools to build applications within constraints defined by the provider. For example, Google App Engine provides set constraints such as the standard environment and operating system that the application will run on.
- Infrastructure as a service (Iaas)
Provides the programmer with greater control and flexibility. The programmer gets to define the environment, operating system and configure the hardware. Google computer engine is an example of Iaas.
- Functions as a service (Faas)
It provides greater level abstraction. The program only needs to write functions which can be triggered by a set of events. There is less work to do by the programmer.
Comparison of cloud offerings
| Service | GCP | AWS | Azure | Service |
| PaaS | App Engine | Elastic Beanstalk | Cloud Services | PaaS |
| IaaS | Compute Engine | Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) | Virtual Machines | IaaS |
| FaaS | Cloud Functions | Lambda | Azure Functions | FaaS |