Everything you wanted to know about the Cloud but were too afraid to ask

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

With your head in the cloud and your feet on the ground (part one)

My name is Franco Scavuzzo and I am the Software Architect at Zyncro, or so they say.  I personally do not like titles and labels as I think that what one does is more important: amongst other things, I am in charge of defining and implementing the Zyncro top-level architecture as well as integrating Zyncro with other platforms and integrating other platforms with Zyncro, whether this be via our API or via ZyncroApps (which you have already heard about but we will discuss in future posts).

I am writing this post at the request of Patricia Fernandez Carrelo, the biggest blogger within the group, with a mate in one hand and with the objective of tackling the cloud computing concept from a didactic perspective for all of the ZyncroBlog readers and/or users.

A lot has been written already about cloud computing or computing in the Cloud, a term that simply refers to a series of computing services offered on demand via the Internet, Web or Networks.

In a cloud scenario, resources, software and information are supplied upon demand, similarly to the way in which electricity is supplied to houses.  In other words, services such as processing capacity (CPU, memory) and data storage (disk space) amongst so many others, are supplied via remote computers connected to each other.  The final users (consumers) access these services via the Internet.

Services “in the Cloud” have three main characteristics that differentiate them from the traditional ones:

• The services are sold/billed upon demand, normally by time used (minutes, hours, months…) or quantity (GBs, users…)
• The services are flexible, each user obtains or uses as much as they need at any given time.
• The services are administrated and supplied by a provider, users using these services need only a computer and Internet access.

As with all technological tendencies, cloud computing brings with it a number of concepts, buzzwords and a new age to the technology world (the ones that already existed were not enough ). Among them we can find: Public Cloud, Private Cloud, SaaS, PaaS or IaaS

We technicians like to keep our feet on the ground more than flying through the clouds; it is for this reason that I will try to introduce and explain cloud concepts in a series of posts from a more educational, worldly and tangible point of view.  In addition, I will discuss the role that each of these concepts play within Zyncro.

And if you have any queries, you can contact me via Zyncrommunity, by registering on zyncro.com, or by emailing me at franco@zyncro.com