DEV Community: Simran Rajoriya

cloudcomputing

Simran Rajoriya — Sun, 27 Sep 2026 06:06:08 +0000

If you're just starting your journey into AWS and DevOps, understanding a few core concepts first will make everything else — EC2, S3, VPC — click into place much faster. Here's a breakdown of the fundamentals every beginner should know.

What Is Cloud Computing, Really?

At its core, cloud computing means using computing resources — servers, storage, databases, networking — over the internet, instead of owning and maintaining your own physical hardware.

Think of it like electricity. You don't build your own power plant to light your house; you plug in and pay for what you use. Cloud computing works the same way: you "plug into" AWS's infrastructure and pay only for what you consume.

Traditional setup: Buy servers, build a data center, hire a team to maintain it — expensive and slow to scale.
Cloud setup: Rent what you need from a provider like AWS — fast, flexible, and billed on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Understanding IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS

Cloud services come in three main flavors, based on how much you manage versus how much the provider handles for you:

Model What You Get Example Who Manages What
IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) Raw building blocks — VMs, storage, networking AWS EC2, S3 You manage the OS, runtime, and apps; AWS manages the hardware
PaaS (Platform as a Service) A ready platform to deploy your code on AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Heroku You just deploy code; the provider handles the rest
SaaS (Software as a Service) A fully built, ready-to-use application Gmail, Dropbox, Salesforce You just use it — nothing to manage

A simple way to remember it: IaaS hands you bricks to build a house, PaaS gives you a house frame ready for furnishing, and SaaS hands you a fully furnished apartment.

Public, Private, and Hybrid Cloud

These describe where your cloud infrastructure lives:

Public Cloud — Shared infrastructure run by providers like AWS, Azure, or GCP. Cost-effective and scalable; most companies run here.
Private Cloud — Dedicated infrastructure for a single organization, offering more control and security, but at a higher cost.
Hybrid Cloud — A mix of both. Sensitive data stays in a private environment, while scalable workloads run on the public cloud. Banks and healthcare companies often use this model.
AWS Global Infrastructure

AWS's physical footprint spans the globe, organized into three layers:

Regions — A geographic area (e.g., Mumbai = ap-south-1, N. Virginia = us-east-1). Each region operates independently, and data typically stays within the region it's stored in — important for compliance and latency.
Availability Zones (AZs) — Each region contains multiple AZs — physically separate data centers with their own power, cooling, and networking. If one AZ fails, others keep running, which is the foundation of high availability.
Edge Locations — Smaller sites, even more numerous than regions, positioned close to end-users. These power services like CloudFront (CDN), delivering content faster by caching it closer to users.

The hierarchy: Region (broad geographic area) → Availability Zone (data centers within a region) → Edge Location (closest point to the user).

The Shared Responsibility Model

This is one of the most important — and most tested — AWS concepts. It defines where AWS's security responsibilities end and yours begin.

AWS handles "Security OF the Cloud": physical data centers, hardware, networking infrastructure, and virtualization.
You handle "Security IN the Cloud": OS patching, firewall/security group configuration, data encryption, IAM permissions, and your application's own security.

Example: If you launch an EC2 instance, AWS ensures the physical server is safe and always available — but if you leave a weak password or misconfigure a security group, that's on you.

The split shifts depending on the service: with IaaS (like EC2), you carry more responsibility; with SaaS, AWS carries more.

Cloud Computing Fundamentals — Access the World Without Buying Hardware

Simran Rajoriya — Sun, 27 Sep 2026 05:47:42 +0000

When I first heard the term "cloud computing," I honestly thought it meant your data gets stored somewhere literally in the clouds. Turns out, the reality is a bit more boring but way more powerful.

In simple words — cloud computing means using resources like servers, storage, and databases over the internet, without buying your own hardware. Companies like AWS or Azure basically "rent" out these resources to you. And the best part? You only pay for what you actually use — just like your electricity bill. Didn't run the AC all month? Lower bill. Cloud works the exact same way.

Think about how things used to work traditionally: if a company wanted to launch an app, they'd first have to buy physical servers, build an entire data center, and then hire a separate team just to maintain it. It was expensive and slow — need to scale? Order new servers, wait for delivery, install them.

Cloud got rid of this entire problem. Now, even a startup can sit in their bedroom, create an AWS account, and spin up a server in minutes. Traffic spikes? Scale up with one click. Traffic drops? Scale down and save money.

When I started my DevOps roadmap, this was the first concept I made sure to get clear — because AWS, Docker, Kubernetes, all of it is built on this foundation. If the basic "why cloud" doesn't make sense, everything else just feels like a bunch of tools with no real purpose behind them.

Launching an EC2 Instance

Simran Rajoriya — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 02:49:06 +0000

What is Amazon EC2?
Amazon EC2 stands for Elastic Compute Cloud.It is a service provided by AWS that allows users to create virtual servers in the cloud.

Steps to Launch an EC2 Instance
Step 1: Login to AWS Console

First, login to the AWS Management Console.
After login, go to the search bar and type EC2.
Click on EC2 service to open the dashboard.

Step 2: Launch Instance

1.Inside the EC2 dashboard, click on Launch Instance.
2.This will start the process of creating a new virtual

server.

Step 3: Choose Instance Type

1.Next step is selecting the instance type.
2.t2.micro or t3.micro
(These are free-tier eligible instances.)

Step 4: Configure Key Pair

1.Now you need to create a key pair.
2.This key pair is used to securely connect to your EC2 instance.
(Download the key pair file and keep it safe.)

Step 5: Configure Security Group

In this step, you allow network access.
1.SSH (port 22) for connecting to server
2.HTTP (port 80) if you want to host a website

Step 6: Launch the Instance

Now click on Launch Instance.
(After a few seconds your EC2 instance will start running.)

Step 7: Connect to the Instance

Go to the EC2 dashboard and select your instance.
Click Connect and follow the instructions to connect using SSH.

Now your cloud server is ready to use.