Grandpa’s Old Filing Cabinet
When I was young, my grandfather’s study had an old, large filing cabinet. Inside it seemed to hold everything—from our family history to all sorts of fascinating stories of the world. Every time I opened its well-worn drawers, a new story unfolded. That cabinet was like a magical gateway connecting me to the world.
Today, each of us has a much bigger and more mysterious ‘filing cabinet’ than my grandfather’s study. This is the cloud. Invisible and intangible, it holds everything—our photos, documents, favorite music, and movies—in a gigantic cabinet. How does this mysterious cabinet hold everything in the world and open its doors whenever and wherever we want? Let’s open this secret drawer together.
1. The Beginning of Magic: How Was the ‘Cloud’ Born?
The name ‘cloud’ might sound like a vague, dreamy concept, but it started from a very practical problem. In the 1960s, computers were as big as houses and extremely expensive. It was like having only one library in an entire city, where everyone had to go and wait in line just to read a single book.
Scientists wondered, “Can multiple people share this expensive, massive computer?” This idea was called time-sharing, the distant ancestor of the cloud. It connected multiple desks (terminals) to one giant computer (filing cabinet), allowing each person to access information from their own seat.
By the 1990s, with the internet’s vast network, this idea exploded. As computers worldwide connected, people started using a ‘cloud’ shape to represent the complex network in diagrams. That’s where the name ‘cloud’ originated.
In the early 2000s, Amazon, a huge online bookstore, realized it had excess computing resources built to run its store. “What if we rent this extra space to others?” This was the start of the cloud computing service we know today (AWS, Amazon Web Services). It’s like a massive library renting out unused shelves to other publishers or authors for a fee.
2. The Cabinet’s Secret: Invisible Magic, ‘Virtualization’
When we upload photos to the cloud, do the files really fly somewhere in the sky? Of course not. Our precious data is safely stored in huge buildings called data centers somewhere on Earth, filled with tens of thousands of computers (servers).
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So how can one computer handle and store data for so many people at once? The secret is the magic of virtualization.
Virtualization is like dividing one sturdy, large filing cabinet into many small drawers. Physically it’s one cabinet, but with partitions, each user gets their own independent drawer.
- Physical server (one big cabinet): A real computer in a data center.
- Hypervisor (magical partition): Software that creates multiple virtual spaces inside the cabinet.
- Virtual machine (my own small drawer): An independent computer space created by the hypervisor. Each drawer (virtual machine) operates as if it’s a separate computer, unaware of the others.
Thanks to virtualization, cloud providers can efficiently divide one server’s resources among hundreds or thousands of users, allowing us to rent just the ‘drawer’ we need at a low cost.
3. Which Drawer to Rent? Three Types of Cloud Services
The giant filing cabinet that holds the world, the cloud, offers different types of drawers to rent depending on our needs. We can easily understand these by comparing them to making pizza.
a. IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service): Rent the Kitchen Only
- Pizza analogy: You rent the kitchen (oven, tools, gas) with ingredients like flour, tomato, and cheese, but you decide what kind of pizza to make and how to bake it.
- Filing cabinet analogy: You rent an empty but sturdy ‘cabinet frame (server, storage, network)’. You decide which operating system (Windows, Linux) and software to install and use.
- Examples: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
b. PaaS (Platform as a Service): Rent the Kitchen with Basic Tools
- Pizza analogy: You rent a kitchen that already provides dough and tomato sauce. You only add your desired toppings and bake.
- Filing cabinet analogy: You rent not only the cabinet frame but also a ‘basic operating system and development tools (platform)’ pre-installed. Developers can focus on building and running their software without complex infrastructure setup.
- Examples: Heroku, Google App Engine
c. SaaS (Software as a Service): Get the Finished Pizza Delivered
- Pizza analogy: You just call and have a freshly baked pizza delivered to your door. No need to worry about making it; just enjoy eating.
- Filing cabinet analogy: You use a fully organized ‘completed drawer (software)’ as is. No installation or management needed; just connect to the internet and use the software anytime, anywhere. This is the most common cloud service we encounter daily.
- Examples: Google Workspace (Gmail, Docs), Microsoft 365, Netflix, Dropbox
| Service Model | Filing Cabinet Analogy | User Management | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| IaaS | Empty cabinet frame (server, storage) | OS, software, data | AWS, Azure |
| PaaS | Cabinet with basic organization (platform) | Software, data | Heroku |
| SaaS | Fully organized drawer (software) | Data | Gmail, Netflix |
4. Choosing Your Own Cabinet: Three Cloud Ownership Models
Not everyone uses the same cabinet. Depending on what information is stored and who uses it, the type and management of the cabinet differ. The cloud is similarly divided into three main forms.
a. Public Cloud: A Public Library Anyone Can Use
The most common form where resources from data centers managed by professional companies like AWS, Azure, and GCP are rented over the internet. It’s like a huge public library run by the city. You can access vast resources at low cost but share the shelves (servers) with others.
- Advantages: Low cost, high scalability, no maintenance needed
- Disadvantages: Possible concerns about security and compliance
b. Private Cloud: Your Own Home Study
A cloud environment built exclusively for a company or organization. Like a private study room at home, only you (your company) can use this independent cabinet. It’s highly secure but requires significant cost and effort to build and maintain.
- Advantages: Strong security, full control
- Disadvantages: High setup and maintenance costs
c. Hybrid Cloud: Using Both Study and Library
A combination of public and private clouds. Important confidential documents are kept in your home study (private cloud), while frequently accessed or less sensitive materials are stored in the public library (public cloud). This approach takes advantage of both.
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- Advantages: Flexibility, cost efficiency, enhanced security
- Disadvantages: Increased complexity in setup and management
Epilogue: Our Stories Above the Clouds
If my grandfather’s old filing cabinet held our family history, today’s massive cloud cabinet holds humanity’s present and future in real time. Every message exchanged with friends, every photo taken on a trip, and vast data analyzed by AI—all these stories accumulate in this invisible cabinet, creating new value.
The cloud is no longer just a term for tech experts. It enriches our daily lives, puts the world’s knowledge in our hands, and turns seemingly impossible ideas into reality. It is the greatest ‘filing cabinet’ and ‘story box’ of our time. Now, what new stories will you store in your cabinet?