Cloud infrastructure basics

Cloud computing is like renting versus buying. Instead of buying expensive servers for your office, you rent computing power from cloud providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), or Microsoft Azure. When you need more, you rent more. When you need less, you pay less. Also, some companies use more than one cloud provider to reduce risks like downtime or service outages and to take advantage of different providers’ strengths.

Every app needs 3 things: a place to run code, somewhere to store files, and a database for information. Cloud providers offer all 3. Upload a photo? Goes to cloud storage. Check login credentials? Cloud servers handle it. Everything happens on their computers, not yours.

The killer feature is flexibility. Imagine Black Friday traffic hitting your shopping site. With your own servers, you'd crash. With cloud, new servers spin up automatically to handle the load, then disappear when traffic drops. You pay only for those busy hours.