The Cloud

What is the cloud?

Think about 5 applications of the cloud. You are already using them everyday without even knowing it.

In the past we could only store files on our HDD, SSD, optical disk (DVD, CD,..) but then the cloud came. This is a major emerging trend and way of storing files.

You then do not store your files on your computer or a device close to your computer, but on a computer of a company that offers a cloud. In order to guarantee this service, you have to pay a small sum every month.

Cloud and Virtualization go hand in hand and it is difficult to separate them.

Storing files in the cloud is therefore only 1 application of the cloud, there are many more applications of the cloud. We will explore this a bit more

Cloud Applications: If you use an online service to send emails (e.g. Gmail), edit documents (e.g. Google Docs or Microsoft Office 365), watch movies or TV shows (e.g. Netflix), listen to music (e.g. Spotify or iTunes), playing games (e.g. Xbox Live or PlayStation Now) or when you store photos and other files (e.g. iCloud, Dropbox or Google Drive)

Companies make extensive use of the cloud for:

• Test and deployment phases of new services or applications

• Big data analysis with massive data flows

• Disaster recovery so that a company can quickly recover from a disaster thanks to the data stored in the cloud and the duplication of its entire system in a virtual server

• Deep learning or machine learning in general, where massive amounts of data are needed to train an algorithm

• Internet of Things (IoT) where the ever-growing number of devices with an internet connection generate massive amounts of data

• Agile Development, where developers continuously work on improving/expanding the code of an application: the cloud infrastructure provides a uniform, unique code structure for a given project

• Cloud backup and data recovery systems that are indispensable for any business, especially with ransomware becoming more common

More and more sectors are therefore switching to cloud computing, for example:

• Education, where schools no longer have to take care of the infrastructure themselves

• Insurance, where the broker can access information in real time, wherever he is

• Hotel industry, where booking at a simple B&B via adapted portal sites is also super simple

• Real estate, where it is extremely important to have access to up-to-date information anytime, anywhere, from any device

Cloud Engineer

As a Cloud Engineer you are involved in analyzing, designing and developing Cloud solutions focused on Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud or Microsoft Azure. You are a specialist in delivering innovative Cloud solutions.