According to Udacity’s School of Cloud Computing, the average median salary of cloud computing jobs is $146,000. Moreover, jobs in the cloud industry have grown by 225% since 2015.

But, what is cloud computing? A cloud computing is the supply of computing services such as storage, database, servers, software, networking, analytics and many more over the Internet. 

Cloud service providers offering these cloud computing services usually charge for computing services based on usage. Similarly, it is the same as to how you pay your water and energy bill at home.

A cloud computing service works a bit differently depending on the provider. However, a lot of them provides a friendly, browser backed dashboard which makes it simple for IT experts and programmers to order resources and handle their accounts.

A few cloud services are also developed to work with Command Line Interface (CLI) and REST APIs. As a result, this offers programmers a variety of options.

Uses of Cloud Computing

You’re probably applying cloud computing right now, even if you do not realize it.

If you can send mail, watch movies or television, edit documents and so on over the internet, then it’s likely that cloud computing is making it possible for such activities.

The initial cloud computing services are hardly a decade old. But, already a range of companies from small startups to multi-national companies are slowly integrating cloud computing for their daily works.

Here are some of the things you can do with cloud computing:

• Back up, store, and recover data

• Host blogs and websites

• Deliver software on demand

• Create new services and Apps

• Analyze detail for patterns and create predictions

• Stream video and audio

Advantages of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is a game-changing move from the conventional way of businesses, thinking about IT. Here are six common reasons why companies are taking a route to the cloud:

• Speed

Most services are self-service and on-demand. Therefore even huge amounts of cloud computing resources can be provisioned in a short time.

• Cost

Cloud computing reduces the capital costs of purchasing hardware/software. Hence setting-up and running on-site data centers are not required.

• Global Scale

The advantages of cloud computing services also have the ability to scale elastically. For instance, less or more computing power, bandwidth, storage is available right when you need at the correct geographic place.

• Performance

The largest cloud services run on a global network of source data centers. These are constantly upgraded to the latest technology of effective computing hardware. This provides enormous advantages over a company running data-centers.

• Productivity

On-site datacenters normally need a lot of stacking and racking and other time-consuming IT chores. Cloud removes the need for a lot of these tasks. Hence, IT groups can spend their time working on vital business targets.

• Reliability

It makes disaster recovery and data backup simple and less costly. It is easy to monitor the information. Therefore, the information is readily available for restoration.

Recommended: Google Cloud Platform – Four Basic Features You Should Know About

Types of Cloud Services

Most cloud services fall into 3 board categories: Platform as a service (PAAS), infrastructure as a service (IAAS), and Software as a service (SAAS). Knowing the types and how they work is important to accomplish your business needs.

• Platform As A Service (PAAS)

PAAS refers to cloud services which supply an on-demand platform and environment for testing, developing, delivering and managing software. PAAS is developed to make it simple for a programmer to rapidly work on developments and project. In order to reduce stresses on setting-up or controlling the underlying systems, servers, network, and storage.

• Infrastructure As A Service (IAAS)

This is the most basic category out of all the cloud services. This service provides IT infrastructures, servers or virtual machines, network, operating systems, storage from a cloud service provider on a pay as you go basis.

• Software As A Service (SAAS)

SAAS is a technique for distributing software applications on demand. It is usually on a subscriptions basis. This is a model in which cloud providers host and handle the application. Then they distribute the application and make it available to the customers over the Internet.

Cloud Computing Deployment Types

Not every cloud deployment model is the same. there are three main models of cloud deployment that represents a particular environment: Private Cloud, Public Cloud, and Hybrid Cloud.

• Private cloud

Private cloud computing refers to cloud resources that businesses uniquely apply for their own use. This can be physically placed on the company’s on-site data center. A few companies also pay 3^rd party service providers to host their private cloud computing infrastructure. In this case, the private cloud network maintains services and frameworks.

• Public cloud

Third-party cloud service providers manage the public cloud. For that reason, they supply their cloud computing resources like storage and servers over the Internet. Microsoft Azure or AWS is an example of a Public Cloud. The cloud service provider owns and maintains all software, hardware, and other supporting systems.

• Hybrid cloud

Hybrid cloud computing combine private and public models. Similarly, these two services join together by a technology that allows the sharing of data and applications among them. As a result, it is a flexible solution for businesses to move data between a private platform and the third party public platform.

Where to Learn Cloud Computing

If you want to pursue a career in the cloud computing industry, then the first thing you have to do is get familiar with the different cloud technologies.

Just having a general idea won’t actually help you. You need to get hands-on practice through quality training. And for that, I highly recommend Udacity’s School of Cloud Computing.

Start with Udacity’s one of the following nanodegree programs:

• The Cloud Developer Nanodegree Program
  Through this nanodegree program, you will learn how to design and develop secure cloud applications, services, and products. This is a foundational course that includes working with everything from the back-end, front-end, web application, full-stack, and cloud application deployment. This program is perfect for programmers, web developers, or software engineers looking to get a job in the cloud industry. For more information about the program, click here.
  
• The Cloud DevOps Nanodegree Program
  This is another great nanodegree program that teaches you to become a DevOps (Development & Operations) Engineer. As a DevOps engineer, you will learn how to optimize, automate, and monitor development pipelines. This program might not be suitable for absolute beginners. But, if you have a good knowledge of programming and familiar with system administration, then this program is for you. For more information about the program, click here.

Conclusion

I hope that you understood the overall concept behind cloud computing. There’s so much to learn and explore. Especially if you are looking into a career in the cloud sector.

And honestly, jobs in the cloud sector is one of the highest paying job sectors out there. And the demand for cloud professionals is constantly on the rise.

Here are a few related articles that you might want to check out:

• How to Launch an Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud Instance
• What Is AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)?
• AWS IAM – Five Best Practices for Security

What’s your view on the overall concept behind the cloud?