Speaker 1: Welcome to the deep dive. You know, if you're online
Speaker 1: right now listening to this, you're using the cloud. It's everywhere,
Speaker 1: it really is.
Speaker 2: But it's more than just a buzzword, right, it's this
Speaker 2: vast shared infrastructure that's kind of invisible.
Speaker 1: Exactly, and it has completely rewired global business, global economics.
Speaker 1: So today we're doing a deep dive into cloud computing fundamentals.
Speaker 2: Yeah, our goal here is to give you a really solid,
Speaker 2: structured understanding. We want to get past the jargon and
Speaker 2: look at the architecture, the models, the tech that makes
Speaker 2: while modern digital life possible.
Speaker 1: We'll hit the why, the how, and the what the
Speaker 1: strategic disruptions.
Speaker 2: Let's start with the why because it's a classic story
Speaker 2: really necessity driving invention.
Speaker 1: Our source material has this great example. Souris he's got
Speaker 1: a small business, maybe twenty employees. Think about the old
Speaker 1: way he'd have to operate.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he'd need a server room, actual physical hardware,
Speaker 2: software licenses, security stuff, backup systems.
Speaker 1: Plus a dedicated IT team just to keep the wife.
Speaker 1: It's on for email and basic operations.
Speaker 2: And the killer is as Sorage's company grows, that cost
Speaker 2: that capital expenditure or capex, it just balloons buying servers,
Speaker 2: paying for power cooling.
Speaker 1: Every new hire, every new software feature means buying more stuff.
Speaker 1: It's a huge drain, a management headache exactly.
Speaker 2: So the cloud emerges to fix that specific pain point.
Speaker 1: At its core, it's about flipping that huge upfront capex
Speaker 1: into a variable cost, an operational cost. Right.
Speaker 2: Cloud offers this scalable, convenient, on demand access and crucially,
Speaker 2: paper use access to.
Speaker 1: This massive shared pool of resources, storage, networks, computing power, application.
Speaker 2: Delivered instantly over the internet, usually just through your web browser.
Speaker 1: You're not building the power plan anymore. You're just plugging
Speaker 1: in your toaster and paying for the electricity you use.
Speaker 2: Precisely, and that radically cuts cost because you don't own
Speaker 2: the physical gear, you just consume the service.
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's get into the defining features. What makes
Speaker 1: something cloud. It's not just remote access, right, There are
Speaker 1: specific rules, specific characteristics. NIST has a definition.
Speaker 2: Yeah, these characteristics are key to how it all works strategically.
Speaker 2: First up, on demand self service.
Speaker 1: Which sounds like what it.
Speaker 2: Is pretty much. It means you the user can get
Speaker 2: computing resources, spin up a server, adds storied whenever you
Speaker 2: need it.
Speaker 1: Through a simple web portal, usually no need to file
Speaker 1: a ticket and wait for an admin.
Speaker 2: Exactly, no human intervention needed from the provider side to
Speaker 2: provision it.
Speaker 1: It's instant, and that speed connects directly. The next one
Speaker 1: rapid elasticity.
Speaker 2: Elasticity. This is huge. It's the ability for those resources
Speaker 2: to scale up or down really quickly, automatically.
Speaker 1: Even so, if your website suddenly gets slammed with traffic.
Speaker 2: The cloud infrastructure just expands to handle it and then
Speaker 2: shrinks back when the traffic dies down. You match capacity
Speaker 2: to demand almost perfectly.
Speaker 1: Which sounds expensive. That instant scaling, how is that affordable?
Speaker 2: Well, that brings us to the economic engine. Multi tenancy.
Speaker 2: This is where the uh the real efficiency comes from.
Speaker 1: Meaning multiple customers are using the same underlying hardware.
Speaker 2: Exactly, thousands of businesses like Sourishes are sharing the same
Speaker 2: physical server, the same storage array. The provider pools these
Speaker 2: resources at massive.
Speaker 1: Scale, turning everyone's potential CAPEX headache into their own highly
Speaker 1: efficient operational cost their op X.
Speaker 2: Precisely, that sharing drives down the cost per user and
Speaker 2: makes the elasticity possible.
Speaker 1: Okay, but sharing that immediately raises security questions. If we're
Speaker 1: all on the same box.
Speaker 2: That's a critical point and it leads into the architecture
Speaker 2: and especially virtualization, which we'll dig into. The short answer
Speaker 2: is the resources are logically isolated, very rigorously.
Speaker 1: So even though you're sharing hardware, your data and processes
Speaker 1: are kept private and secure from other tenants. If their
Speaker 1: virtual server crashes, yours is fine.
Speaker 2: Correct. That isolation is fundamental. So we have on demand elasticity,
Speaker 2: multi tenancy. And the last key bit is paper use.
Speaker 1: You only pay for what you can and zume like utilities.
Speaker 1: Like utilities, measure the resources you use, CPU hours, gigabytes
Speaker 1: stored and get built for just that simple, transparent Okay,
Speaker 1: those are the rules of engagement. Now, how is the
Speaker 1: system actually structured? The architecture right, front end and back end.
Speaker 2: Right. The front end is pretty straightforward. It's what you
Speaker 2: the user see and interact with.
Speaker 1: My laptop, my phone, the web browser, the app interface
Speaker 1: like Gmail or Google.
Speaker 2: Docs exactly, the client side interface.
Speaker 1: And the back end that's the mysterious part. The cloud itself.
Speaker 2: That's the provider's domain. It's the massive data centers. The
Speaker 2: warehouse is full of servers, the huge storage systems, the networks,
Speaker 2: the security infrastructure, everything that makes the cloud work.
Speaker 1: And as a user, I don't know or really need
Speaker 1: to know where that back end physically is or how
Speaker 1: it's configured.
Speaker 2: Correct, That complexity is abstracted away. That's part of the service.
Speaker 2: You interact with the simple front end. The provider manages
Speaker 2: the complex back.
Speaker 1: End right moving up the stack or maybe down, depending
Speaker 1: on how you see it. The service models. This is
Speaker 1: about what you're actually buying and how much control you
Speaker 1: keep versus handover.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's often shown as a pyramid or stack. Three
Speaker 2: main layers sauces, Polus, and ISS. It's about the division
Speaker 2: of responsibility.
Speaker 1: Start at the top with sas software as service. This
Speaker 1: feels like the most common one for end users.
Speaker 2: It is SAUCE is delivering software applications over the Internet.
Speaker 2: You just access them, usually through your browser, think Gmail,
Speaker 2: Salesforce Office three sixty five.
Speaker 1: You don't install anything, you don't manage updates, you don't
Speaker 1: worry about the servers of the OS it runs on.
Speaker 2: Nope, the vendor handles all of that. You just use
Speaker 2: the software. Our source analogy is good here. Sauce is
Speaker 2: like hailing a cab.
Speaker 1: You get the ride, you don't worry about the car,
Speaker 1: the driver, the fuel, the maintenance. You just use the service.
Speaker 1: You manage your data, maybe user access, but that's it exactly.
Speaker 2: Maximum convenience, minimum control over the underlying stuff.
Speaker 1: Okay, moving down one level. PASS platform is a service's
Speaker 1: more for developers.
Speaker 2: It generally is PASS provides a platform and environment for
Speaker 2: developers to build, deploy, and manage their own applications.
Speaker 1: So the vendor still manages the infrastructure, servers, storage, networking,
Speaker 1: the operating system.
Speaker 2: Right, but you, the customer, you manage your application code
Speaker 2: and your data. The vendor provides the workshop and the
Speaker 2: heavy machinery. You bring your tools and build your product.
Speaker 1: What's in that platform they provide beyond just the OS.
Speaker 2: Crucially, it includes middleware, things like database management systems, messaging queues,
Speaker 2: development tools, business intelligence services. Stuff you normally have to
Speaker 2: install and manage yourself.
Speaker 1: Ah okay, So it streamlines the development process. The analogy here.
Speaker 2: Calling a cab, but driving it yourself. The cars provided
Speaker 2: and maintained, making it easier, but you control the journey
Speaker 2: the destination. Examples are things like Google app Engine or
Speaker 2: Heroku or Microsoft Azure app Service.
Speaker 1: Got it so less convenience than saws, but more control
Speaker 1: for building custom.
Speaker 2: Some things precisely now the base layer IAS infrastructure as
Speaker 2: a service.
Speaker 1: This sounds like the most fundamental raw ingredients.
Speaker 2: Pretty much. ISS provides the basic building blocks of computing
Speaker 2: resources like virtual servers, storage networks. You rent it infrastructure
Speaker 2: on a paper use basis.
Speaker 1: Like we discussed.
Speaker 2: Exactly with IRIS, you manage almost everything above the raw
Speaker 2: hardware virtualization, your own operating systems, your middleware, your applications,
Speaker 2: your data.
Speaker 1: So wait, if I'm managing the OS and everything else,
Speaker 1: haven't I just swapped owning a physical server in my
Speaker 1: office for rending a virtual server somewhere else Where's the
Speaker 1: big advantage over just running my own data center? Apart
Speaker 1: from maybe initial cost, That's a.
Speaker 2: Really important question. The revolutionary gain isn't just cost, though
Speaker 2: that's part of it. It's the scale and speed.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: With iiras, you get access to essentially unlimited resources provisioned
Speaker 2: almost instantly. Need one thousand servers for a four hour
Speaker 2: data processing job.
Speaker 1: With a WSEC two or Google Compute engine, you click
Speaker 1: a few buttons, run your job, and then shut them down.
Speaker 1: You pay only for those four hours.
Speaker 2: Try doing that with physical hardware the procurement, time, the setup.
Speaker 2: It's impossible. That elasticity, that ability to access massive scale
Speaker 2: on demand is what changes the game. No small or
Speaker 2: even medium business could replicate that capability on their own.
Speaker 1: Okay, that makes sense. It's the scale and the agility
Speaker 1: you're buying, so we know the whatsas pi os ohes.
Speaker 1: But where does this stuff live and who else is
Speaker 1: using it? That brings us to deployment models, right.
Speaker 2: This defines the access and ownership. The most common one
Speaker 2: you hear about is the public cloud.
Speaker 1: Like AWS, Google Cloud, Azure exactly.
Speaker 2: Resources, servers, storage networks are owned and operated by the
Speaker 2: provider and they're offered over the public Internet to anyone
Speaker 2: who wants to sign up.
Speaker 1: It's multi tenant, like we talked about shared infrastructure.
Speaker 2: Yes, the big advantages are massive scalability and cost effectiveness
Speaker 2: because you're leveraging the provider's huge scale and only paying
Speaker 2: for your slice. The vendor handles all the maintenance.
Speaker 1: Okay, so maximum scale, potentially lowest cost, but maybe less
Speaker 1: control over the environment.
Speaker 2: What's the opposite That would be the private cloud. This
Speaker 2: is cloud infrastructure operated solely for a single organization.
Speaker 1: So they might build it themselves in their own data center,
Speaker 1: or have a third party host it just for them,
Speaker 1: but it's dedicated, single tenant.
Speaker 2: Correct resources are usually accessed over a private network, often
Speaker 2: behind the company firewall.
Speaker 1: Why do this? Seems like you lose some of the
Speaker 1: cost benefits of public.
Speaker 2: Cloud control and security. For organizations with really strict regulatory
Speaker 2: requirements or sensitive data think finance, government, healthcare, a private
Speaker 2: cloud offers much leater control over the infrastructure and data security.
Speaker 1: Okay, public for scale and cost, private for control and security.
Speaker 1: But the real world.
Speaker 2: Is messy, right it is, and that's why the hybrid
Speaker 2: cloud is so common, especially for larger.
Speaker 1: Enterprises, mixing and matching.
Speaker 2: Exactly, binding a private cloud with one or more public
Speaker 2: cloud services you orchestrate between the two.
Speaker 1: What's the strategy there? Why combine them?
Speaker 2: It lets you optimize. You can keep your super sensitive
Speaker 2: data and core applications on your private cloud for security
Speaker 2: and control, but.
Speaker 1: Use the public cloud for things that need massive scale
Speaker 1: or are less sensitive, like maybe customer facing websites, or
Speaker 1: development and testing environments or big data analytics.
Speaker 2: Precisely, you get the best of both worlds security where
Speaker 2: you need it, scale and cost efficiency where you can
Speaker 2: leverage it, and this.
Speaker 1: Hybrid approach enables a really cool concept cloud bursting.
Speaker 2: Ah, cloud bursting. Yeah, this is a fantastic use case
Speaker 2: for hybrid. Imagine your application running happily on your private cloud.
Speaker 1: Then suddenly a massive spike in demand hits, like a
Speaker 1: big sale event or end of quarter reporting.
Speaker 2: Your private cloud might get overwhelmed. With cloud bursting. The
Speaker 2: application can automatically burst spill over the extra demand to
Speaker 2: the public cloud.
Speaker 1: So you seamlessly tap into the public clouds elasticity just
Speaker 1: for that peak period.
Speaker 2: Right, You handle the spike without crashing, pay for the
Speaker 2: extra public cloud resources only while you need them, and
Speaker 2: then scale back down. It's a great way to balance cost,
Speaker 2: performance and availability smart.
Speaker 1: We should also quickly mention the community cloud. It's less common,
Speaker 1: but it exists.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of a niche model. It's like a
Speaker 2: semi private cloud where infrastructure is shared by several organizations
Speaker 2: with common concerns.
Speaker 1: Maybe specific security requirements or compliance needs, or a joint
Speaker 1: project exactly.
Speaker 2: Think of a group of government agencies or universities, or
Speaker 2: maybe companies in a specific industry sharing the cost of
Speaker 2: a tailored cloud environment.
Speaker 1: Okay, we've covered the models, the services, the deployments. But
Speaker 1: none of this, the elasticity, the multi tenancy, the paper use,
Speaker 1: none of it works without one core enabling technology.
Speaker 2: You got it, virtualization. It's the absolute foundation, the engine
Speaker 2: driving the whole thing.
Speaker 1: What is it exactly?
Speaker 2: In simple terms, virtualization is basically using software to create
Speaker 2: a virtual version of something physical. Most often it's creating
Speaker 2: virtual machines vms that act like real physical computers.
Speaker 1: So you take one powerful physical server, you.
Speaker 2: Use software to slice it up into multiple independent virtual servers.
Speaker 2: Each VM gets its own share of the physical servers CPU, memory, storage,
Speaker 2: and networking, and each.
Speaker 1: VM can run its own operating system and applications completely
Speaker 1: isolated from the others. Correct.
Speaker 2: This is how cloud providers can efficiently pack many customers
Speaker 2: onto the same physical hardware. It gives each customer the
Speaker 2: illusion of having their own dedicated machine.
Speaker 1: That ability to run many pretend computers on one real one.
Speaker 1: That's the source of the efficiency and cost savings. Who
Speaker 1: manages this slicing and dicing.
Speaker 2: That magic piece of software is called the hypervisor, or
Speaker 2: sometimes the virtual machine monitor VMM.
Speaker 1: The hypervisor sits between the physical hardware and the virtual.
Speaker 2: Machines exactly it's the traffic cop It creates the vms,
Speaker 2: runs them, and allocates the physical resources among them. It
Speaker 2: makes sure they don't interfere with each other, which.
Speaker 1: Brings us back to that isolation benefit we mentioned earlier.
Speaker 2: Absolutely critical because the hypervisor isolates each VM. If one
Speaker 2: VM crashes or gets compromised, it doesn't take down the
Speaker 2: others running on the same physical host.
Speaker 1: That's essential for multi tenancy to work securely totally.
Speaker 2: So virtualization gives you cost reduction, fewer physical servers needed,
Speaker 2: less power, less space, much better resource utilization, packing more
Speaker 2: workloads onto hardware, and that crucial isolation. It's the technology
Speaker 2: that makes the cloud business model possible. Hashtag tag tag outrop.
Speaker 1: Wow. Okay, we've really covered the landscape here, the why,
Speaker 1: solving the CAPEX burden, the how, the architecture and virtualization,
Speaker 1: what's a sauce passis, and the deployment models, and.
Speaker 2: You can see why it's so popular. Rapid resources, amazing scalability,
Speaker 2: significant cost savings, especially avoiding buying and maintaining all that
Speaker 2: expensive hardware yourself.
Speaker 1: But like anything power, there's another side to the coin.
Speaker 1: Convenience often comes with trade offs with challenges. You need
Speaker 1: to be aware of absolutely.
Speaker 2: Let's touch on a few key ones. The most obvious,
Speaker 2: perhaps is dependency on the Internet connection. Totally your entire operation,
Speaker 2: your apps, your data, your servers is accessed over the Internet.
Speaker 2: If that connection goes down or even just get slow
Speaker 2: and unreliable.
Speaker 1: You dead in a water. Your access just vanishes. That's
Speaker 1: a big one.
Speaker 2: It is. Then there are ongoing security issues. Now, providers
Speaker 2: are incredibly good at securing the underlying infrastructure, the data centers,
Speaker 2: but you're.
Speaker 1: Still often sharing resources in a multi tenant environment, and
Speaker 1: the customer still has responsibility for securing their own applications
Speaker 1: and data configurations within the cloud. Right.
Speaker 2: It creates a shared responsibility model and storing sensitive data
Speaker 2: on servers you don't physically control. Well, it's a persistent concern,
Speaker 2: requires constant vigilance, robust security practices on the user side too.
Speaker 1: Okay, dependency security. What else?
Speaker 2: A big one actually, if you lean heavily into pass
Speaker 2: or ias, is the risk of vendor lock.
Speaker 1: In, meaning it's hard to switch providers later.
Speaker 2: It can be Yeah, imagine you build a complex application
Speaker 2: deeply integrated with one provider's specific platform services, their proprietary database,
Speaker 2: their unique machine learning tools. Their specific APIs.
Speaker 1: Moving that whole setup to a different cloud provider who
Speaker 1: has different proprietary services.
Speaker 2: It can become incredibly complex, time consuming, and expensive. It's
Speaker 2: like building your house perfectly fitted to one very specific
Speaker 2: plot of land. Moving the whole house later is often
Speaker 2: harder than just building a new one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense. You trade some portability for the
Speaker 1: convenience of those integrated platform services.
Speaker 2: And all these challenges dependency, security, complexity, lock in, they
Speaker 2: all feed into what might be the biggest strategic challenge
Speaker 2: for enterprises using cloud today, especially multi cloud environments, which
Speaker 2: is governance and control. Think about it, the provider manages
Speaker 2: all the underlying infrastructure. As a client, you often lack
Speaker 2: deep visibility and fine grained control over exactly how resources
Speaker 2: are provisioned, how data is handled, how compliance is enforced
Speaker 2: consistently across different cloud environments.
Speaker 1: So you gain massive convenience in scale, but you potentially
Speaker 1: lose that direct, granular oversight you had when everything was
Speaker 1: in your own.
Speaker 2: Data center exactly managing it governance, risk, and compliance in
Speaker 2: a world where your infrastructure is abstracted and spread across
Speaker 2: multiple providers, that's a huge ongoing challenge.
Speaker 1: So The final thought for you, the listener might be
Speaker 1: what's the real price of convenience? Wrestling with that tension,
Speaker 1: balancing the cloud's power with the need for robust governance
Speaker 1: and control. That's the critical task is you navigate this landscape.