WEBVTT - How Cloud Computing Works

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<v Speaker 1>Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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<v Speaker 1>It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With

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<v Speaker 1>tech stuff from how stuff Works dot com. Hi there,

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<v Speaker 1>and welcome to the podcast. I'm Chris Pollette. I'm one

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<v Speaker 1>of the editors here How Stuff Works, and with me

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<v Speaker 1>is Jonathan Strickland. Hello from the cloud. So we were

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<v Speaker 1>going to talk about cloud computing today, right we're calling

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<v Speaker 1>this cloud computing one oh one because the term is

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<v Speaker 1>reaching saturation in the tech world, and if you're not

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<v Speaker 1>in the tech world, you might be confused as to

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<v Speaker 1>what all this talk about cloud computing is is in

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<v Speaker 1>regards to and and not to mention the other terms

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<v Speaker 1>that pop up. Sometimes they're used in place of cloud computing,

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<v Speaker 1>and sometimes they seem to be differentiated from cloud computing.

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<v Speaker 1>We're gonna try and uh and muddy the one, I mean,

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<v Speaker 1>clear everything up for you. We're gonna we're gonna give

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<v Speaker 1>our definitive explanation of cloud computing. Well, to start with,

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<v Speaker 1>I think what maybe what we should do is just

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<v Speaker 1>give you a the most basic overview of the entire thing,

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<v Speaker 1>which is basically what we're talking about doing is not

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<v Speaker 1>having everything you do be run on the computer on

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<v Speaker 1>your desktop, you're actually allowing somebody else to uh maybe

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<v Speaker 1>store information or host applications. It sort of depends on

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<v Speaker 1>on a lot of different things. You know, how you're

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<v Speaker 1>going to be using it and what you're going to

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<v Speaker 1>be doing. But that's essentially it that you're actually sharing

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<v Speaker 1>some part of the computing process with a network of

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<v Speaker 1>other computers. That's correct, and and most of us are

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<v Speaker 1>doing this in some form already, or many of us

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<v Speaker 1>are anyway. If you have any sort of email web

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<v Speaker 1>based email application such as a hotmail or Yahoo mail

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<v Speaker 1>or Gmail, any of those, that's sort of a that's

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<v Speaker 1>a kind of cloud computing. You are accessing your email,

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<v Speaker 1>sending email, storing email all on someone else as computers.

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<v Speaker 1>You're you're accessing it through your browser, but the actual

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<v Speaker 1>information and applications live on computers that belong to someone

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<v Speaker 1>else there in the cloud. So that's what that means.

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<v Speaker 1>If you ever hear the information is stored in the

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<v Speaker 1>cloud somewhere, that means it's living on servers that belong

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<v Speaker 1>to a certain company or certain certain organization, uh that

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<v Speaker 1>provide these services. So that's like cloud storage. Then cloud

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<v Speaker 1>storage would be if you were to save it on

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<v Speaker 1>someone else's servers. Okay, well, so then if you are

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<v Speaker 1>using a web based word processor program like Google Docs

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<v Speaker 1>or UM like Adobe's um buzzword, then that's actually cloud computing.

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<v Speaker 1>Then yes, because you're using an application, you're doing everything

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<v Speaker 1>on the web, but the the network, the cloud is

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<v Speaker 1>handling the actual computing power. That's right. The only thing

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<v Speaker 1>that your computer is really handling is to keep your

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<v Speaker 1>browser going and whatever other applications you happen to have

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<v Speaker 1>on in the background. But the horsepower is being provided

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<v Speaker 1>by this this cloud. Now, there are some other terms

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<v Speaker 1>that do pop up when you're talking about cloud computing

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<v Speaker 1>that sometimes are confusing. Uh. Those include grid computing and

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<v Speaker 1>utility computing. Now, grid computing often is used interchangeably, but

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<v Speaker 1>sometimes it's meant more as a way of adding processing

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<v Speaker 1>power to an application. So we're talking here about let's

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<v Speaker 1>say you have a really, really big computing job that's

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<v Speaker 1>going to take one computer thousands of hours to complete.

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<v Speaker 1>Grid computing would use a grid of computers and break

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<v Speaker 1>that job up into parts, and each computer would work

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<v Speaker 1>on a part, and when it completed, it would send

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<v Speaker 1>that part back to some administrative computer and then eventually

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<v Speaker 1>you could reassemble all these pieces to make the whole.

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<v Speaker 1>That's grid computing, So that could be like a setting

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<v Speaker 1>at home or folding at home. Basically, these are shared

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<v Speaker 1>computing projects where people who are doing research can send

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<v Speaker 1>out chunks of information. They have so much that they

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<v Speaker 1>can't do it themselves, so they send it to uh

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<v Speaker 1>out to individuals like you or me, and they use

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<v Speaker 1>their home computers to share in the computing power and

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<v Speaker 1>send back the chunk of data once it's been processed, right,

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<v Speaker 1>and and then utility computing is more about charging people

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<v Speaker 1>to use this kind of uh, these kind of resources,

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<v Speaker 1>whether it's processing power or storage. UH. You're you're putting

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<v Speaker 1>in a metered rate for people to log in and

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<v Speaker 1>take advantage of these resources. Sometimes we refer to that

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<v Speaker 1>also as a software as a service. That's more about

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<v Speaker 1>let's say that you have a word processing application on

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<v Speaker 1>the web that's really really good. UH, you might want

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<v Speaker 1>to charge people to use that. That would be using

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<v Speaker 1>that software as a service. You're providing a service for people,

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<v Speaker 1>but they don't actually get that software. They can access

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<v Speaker 1>it over the interne at, but they don't get a

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<v Speaker 1>copy of it on their own. Computer. So that's what

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<v Speaker 1>utility computing is. So basically what we're talking about then

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<v Speaker 1>is not having to lug your computer home every day,

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<v Speaker 1>because you should be able to access the same information,

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<v Speaker 1>the same programs, anywhere, any time, from any computer that

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<v Speaker 1>has access to the Internet. That's correct. Yes, it's supposed

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<v Speaker 1>to really free us up. It's also kind of going

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<v Speaker 1>back to the old model of the supercomputer. Well that's uh,

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<v Speaker 1>it's kind of funny how things end up full circle,

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<v Speaker 1>I guess sometimes. All right, Well, you can read more

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<v Speaker 1>about this. We have a whole suite of articles how

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<v Speaker 1>cloud computing works, how grid computing works, how shared computing works,

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<v Speaker 1>and their links to many many others online right now

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<v Speaker 1>at how stuff works dot com for more on this

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<v Speaker 1>and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works

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<v Speaker 1>dot com. Let us know what you think. Send an

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<v Speaker 1>email to podcast at how stuff works dot com. Brought

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<v Speaker 1>to you by the rein Into two thousand and twelve camera.

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<v Speaker 1>It's ready, are you