The `Cloud` is upon us

The Cloud

Fancy technology words! DA CLOUD !~!@~!1 but what exactly does that mean? What is Cloud? Where is it? Will it rain bytes? Brace yourselves, a storm is coming.

Some will say it's someone else machine and while this is accurate let’s make it simpler than that. It’s the internet!!!! Yeap THE internet! If you have ever witnessed ( pun intended ) a network flowchart, the internet is always displayed as a cloud with the word internet inside! Soooo…. the word cloud is a metaphor for the internet and the way people display them in their flowcharts and presentations. If you still want an encyclopedia definition then here it is "hardware and software services from a provider on the internet.".

But Giannis …. how do I use da Cloud?

Oh, you use it already. Yes, even right now! Every time you visit any website ( and when I say ANY … I mean ANY ) you are being served by a machine ( virtual or physical ) in the cloud. That might be in a big farm of servers in a data centre ( those horrifying cold and dark rooms with blinky led lights ) or from a small machine like raspberry pi or Arduino in someone’s barn/garage!!! Even my blog is hosted from a server that is owned/used by github.com! Those machines [insert Terminator theme music in the background] are up and running 24/7. And if they fail, others will replace waiting to take their place instantly (backup) so a blog or anything that they serve has minimum downtime. I am also writing this very blog post in the cloud on a virtual machine provided by Google.

That was it?

Yes, that is, for now, a simple explanation of what the cloud is. Now, my next blog post will be on how to use the cloud for your development environment. Yes you can do that too and it is free ( almost free ) but this is for another time and another blog post.

Till the rain come down from those black clouds that gather above me,

Keep it !false and have fun

~ Giannis~