Difference Between Cloud Computing and Internet of Things

The key difference between Cloud Computing and Internet of Things is that Cloud Computing provides hosted services over the internet while Internet of Things connects surrounding smart devices to the network to share and analyze data for decision making.

Cloud computing and Internet of Things are modern technologies. The short form for Internet of Things is IoT. Cloud computing provides necessary tools and services to create IoT applications. Furthermore, it helps to achieve efficient and accurate IoT based applications.

CONTENTS

1. Overview and Key Difference
2. What is Cloud Computing
3. What is Internet of Things
4. Relationship Between Cloud Computing and Internet of Things
5. Side by Side Comparison – Cloud Computing vs Internet of Things in Tabular Form
6. Summary

What is Cloud Computing?

Organizations need time and budget to scale their IT infrastructure. At premises, scaling the IT infrastructure is difficult and requires more time. Cloud computing provides an optimum solution for this issue. The cloud computing services consist of virtual data centers that provide hardware, software, and resources when required. Therefore, organizations can directly connect to the cloud and use necessary resources.  This helps to reduce cost and to scale up and scale down according to the business requirements.

There are two types of models in cloud computing called deployment models and service models.  The deployment models describe the access type to the cloud. These types are public, private, community and hybrid. Firstly, the public cloud provides services to the general public. Secondly, the private cloud provides services for the organization. Thirdly, the community cloud provides services to a group of organizations. Finally, the hybrid cloud is a combination of public and private clouds. In hybrid, the private cloud performs the critical activities while the public cloud performs non-critical activities.

IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS are three service models in Cloud Computing. Firstly, IaaS stands for Infrastructure as a Service. It provides access to fundamental resources such as physical machines, virtual machines, and virtual storage. Secondly, PaaS stands for Platform as a Service. It provides the runtime environment for applications. Finally, SaaS stands for Software as a Service. It allows using software applications as a service for the end users.

Overall, Cloud Computing provides a number of advantages. It allows to access applications as utilities and to use resources. Furthermore, it provides online development and deployment tools. It is highly efficient, reliable, flexible and cost-effective. One drawback is that there can be security and privacy issues.

What is Internet of Things?

Internet of Things connects all surrounding smart devices to the network. These devices use sensors and actuators to communicate with each other. The sensors sense the surrounding activities while actuators response to the sensed activities. The devices can be a smartphone, smart washing machine, smart watch, smart tv, smart car etc. Assume a smart shoe which is connected to the internet. It can collect data on the number of walked steps. The smartphone can connect to the internet can view these data. It analyzes the data and provides the number of burned calories and other fitness advice to the user.

Another example is a smart traffic camera that can monitor congestion and accidents. It sends data to a gateway. This gateway receives data from that camera as well as other similar cameras. All these connected devices create an intelligent traffic management system. It shares, analyzes and stores data over the cloud. When an accident occurs, the system analyzes the impact and sends instructions to guide the drivers to avoid the accident.

Likewise, there are many examples in healthcare, manufacturing, energy generation, agriculture and many more. One drawback is that there can be security and privacy issues because the devices capture data all day. Overall, Internet of Things is an emerging technology and it will grow exponentially in future.

What is the Relationship Between Cloud Computing and Internet of Things?

  • Cloud computing is the pathway to transfer and store IoT data.

What is the Difference Between Cloud Computing and Internet of Things?

Cloud Computing is the technology that refers to the delivery of hosted services over the internet while Internet of Things connects surrounding smart devices to the network to extract data for analyzing and decision making. Furthermore, Internet of Things allows collecting data from many devices while Cloud Computing provides necessary tools and services to develop IoT applications.

Summary – Cloud Computing vs Internet of Things

The difference between Cloud Computing and Internet of Things is that Cloud computing provides hosted services over the internet while Internet of Things connects surrounding smart devices to the network to share and analyze data for decision making. In brief, Cloud computing provides the pathway to share and store IoT data.

Reference:

1.Meola, Andrew. Business Insider, Business Insider, 20 Dec. 2016. Available here   
2.Internet of Things Explained Simply, Pouria Ghatrenabi, 3 Apr. 2014. Available here
3.Tutorials Point. “Cloud Computing Overview.”  Tutorials Point, 8 Jan. 2018. Available here   

Image Courtesy:

1.’2153286′ by Nikin (CC0) via pixabay
2.’3337536′ by Tumisu (CC0) via pixabay