What is cloud computing?
Nakhla has a server room in its warehouse: an ERP server, a file server, and air conditioning that must run 24/7. Every few years it buys new servers for hundreds of thousands. The idea of cloud computing: instead of buying servers, you rent computing from a provider such as AWS, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud, and pay for what you use, like an electricity bill.
The widely used NIST definition sets out five characteristics of any cloud service:
| On-demand self-service | Spin up a server yourself from a console in minutes, without talking to anyone. |
| Broad network access | Reach it from anywhere, on any device, over the internet. |
| Resource pooling | The provider serves many customers from the same huge data centres. |
| Rapid elasticity | Scale resources up or down as needed: Ramadan is not like the rest of the year. |
| Measured service | Everything is metered and billed: running hours, gigabytes stored. |
| On-premises | Cloud | |
|---|---|---|
| Paying | A large upfront sum (capital expense, CapEx) | Pay as you go (operating expense, OpEx) |
| Scaling | Weeks: order, ship, install | Minutes |
| Maintenance | Your team: power, cooling, spare parts | The provider handles the hardware |
| Control | Full | Less, and you depend on the provider |
Watch outThe cloud isn't always cheaper! If the workload is steady all year and you have a strong team, on-premises can cost less over time. The decision needs numbers, and that's an MIS analyst's job.