Cloud computing
What is cloud computing?

Cloud computing is an approach for computing services over a network. Provides access to storage, servers, databases, networking, software, analytics, applications, and other resources on demand. These resources are typically on a pay-per-use basis enabling organizations to implement flexible and scalable IT solutions without the need to directly manage the underlying infrastructure. This model facilitates efficient resource utilization, allowing businesses to dynamically scale their IT capabilities in response to varying demands while optimizing costs.

Learn about how cloud computing works and its components.
  • How does cloud computing work?
  • What are the different cloud computing models?
  • What are the different cloud computing deployment models?
  • What are the benefits of cloud computing?
  • What are the challenges of cloud computing?
  • What are the uses of cloud computing?
  • What are the key security features in cloud computing?
  • How can HPE help you with cloud computing?
How does cloud computing work?
Cloud computing architecture diagram.

How does cloud computing work?

Cloud computing requires a service provider that owns and hosts the physical computing resources (back end)—such as storage, processing power, and software— in a remote location. The cloud computing buyer then accesses these resources using front-end devices and interfaces/tools over the network.

Instead of the traditional model of owning and maintaining these resources by your own, cloud computing delivers them on-demand as a service, typically on a pay-per-use basis. This approach eliminates the burden of ownership and maintenance, offering flexibility and cost efficiency.

The front end serves as the entry point to the cloud, encompassing any device used to connect to the internet, such as computers, smartphones, or tablets. This interface allows users to interact with cloud services. The internet functions as the conduit between the front-end device and the back end, facilitating the transmission of requests to the cloud provider and the delivery of services back to the user.

The back end comprises the infrastructure that powers the cloud, consisting of expansive data centers operated by cloud providers. These data centers house powerful servers responsible for processing tasks, storage systems for data, networking equipment to manage data flow, and virtualization technology that creates virtual versions of hardware resources to run operating systems and software on top of it. This technology ensures efficient resource sharing among multiple users.

In practice, users initiate requests for cloud services via their front-end devices, whether accessing a file or running an application. These requests traverse the internet to the cloud provider's data center, where systems receive and process them by allocating necessary resources such as processing power, memory, and storage. Virtualization plays a crucial role in optimizing, resource allocation and isolation etc are the use of the infrastructure. Once processed, the results—whether files, computational outputs, or application access—are sent back to the user over the internet.

Related topics

Cloud services

Virtualization

Cloud native