Cloud(y) with a chance of data
You don't have to be in the IT field to have heard about the cloud. EVERYONE is talking about the cloud, but what is it? How does it work? What can you do with it? How do you store your data and pictures in the cloud??? And when someone says it's in the cloud, where is it really???
If you've ever wondered about any of those things - never fear, your friendly neighborhood DBA is here to get some of that confusion cleared up!
I'm going to start with the most obvious, the "cloud" is not actually in the literal, physical cloud in the sky. Now, that I've gotten that out of the way, let's talk Cloud computing!
To simplify things, I'll be talking about something almost everyone can relate to, your phone. If you have an iPhone, or know someone that does, you've heard about iCloud - the wonderful magical place in the Apple sky where all your pictures are stored until you get the inevitable notification that you have to delete half of the items on your phone in order to take that video of the perfect sunset!
The reason you get that notification is because iCloud is just a collection of remote servers a.k.a. computers that can be accessed via the internet - that's why you need to be connected to WiFi or cellular data for your phone's pictures to be uploaded to iCloud.
So, what is cloud storage? It's a collection of remote physical servers hosted by a cloud storage service such as Amazon, that is accessible via the internet e.g. AWS Console.
How does it work? Since your data is being stored in a remote location but on physical hardware(servers), you have to be able to retrieve it easily, reliably, and quickly via the internet e.g. S3 buckets, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.
What can you do with it? The most obvious, you can store your data in the cloud - pictures, videos, files, etc - without needing to walk around with 5 different USB Jump drives like it's 2005! Storing data in the cloud allows companies to be flexible and highly scalable - giving them the opportunity to grow without the constraints and hassles of dealing with their own personal physical servers.
We live in a world in which data is essentially another form of currency - think about all the information you can google, how Facebook ads are tailored to the sites you've visited in the past, and how you expect an answer when you ask Siri or Alexa a question and you'll realize you create and ingest a lot of data every day.
Finding options that can make capturing and storing as much data as possible is a big conversation in a lot of companies, and is a task that the IT department is expected to research and resolve. So, companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle, and others have presented a solution - coupling cloud storage with cloud databases (some may call this Database as a Service DaaS) to provide a highly scalable and fully managed service that attracts a lot of business to move their enterprise to the cloud.
I hope this post answers some of the basic questions you have around the cloud - what it is and what it can be used for, in an overly simplistic way. With that said, I will be posting on how to launch a MySQL RDS Database Instance in the next post, so stay tuned!
*Cover Images from stuffablog