Components of Cloud computing

Client:

Clients are the devices that the end users interact with to manage their information on the cloud. A Cloud client consists of computer hardware and or computer software that relies on cloud computing for application delivery, or that is specifically designed for delivery of cloud service.. Examples include certain computers, phones and other devices, operating systems and browsers. Client generally fall into the following category

• Mobile: mobile devices include PDA’s or smart phones such as Blackberry, windows mobile smart phone or iPhone
• Thin:  Clients are computers that do not have internal hard drives, but rather let the servers do all the work, but then display the information
• Thick:  This type of client is a regular computer, using a web browser like explorer or firebox..

Data Centre

The data centre is actual physical set of cloud computing infrastructure. It is the collection of servers where applications to which user subscribe (such as Gmail or similar) is housed. It could be a large room inside the premise or a room full of servers on the other side of the world that user access via the Internet. A growing trend in the cloud computing world is virtualizing the servers. Due to virtualization, software can be installed allowing multiple instances of virtual servers to be used. This makes it possible to have half a dozen virtual servers running on a physical server.

Distributed servers

In a cloud computing environment, a user can be anywhere and access applications globally. To serve users with applications, servers are located in geographically dispersed locations. However, user will be able to distinguish between servers and find out which server is serving them. Having severs located all over places gives service provider more flexibility in options and security. For instance, service providers such as Amazon and Google, have their cloud infrastructure in servers all over the world. If something goes wrong with severs in a given site, causing a failure, the services would still be accessed through another site. In addition, additional hardware can be installed in any site and made part of its cloud infrastructure.