[FIXED] What is the real difference between a cloud platform and a normal website?

Issue

I am always faced with the term "cloud platform" and don't understand how a cloud platform differs from "a normal website" as a cloud platform still is a content delivered by the internet to the client computer typically through the web browser!

Microsoft 365, Slack are some examples of a cloud platform, but still i can use slack like any other website, so why i can't simply tell it is " a website"

1 - Can i call a cloud platform also a "website"?

2 - How a cloud platform differ from a normal website?

Solution

The simple version...

Stuff runs on computers. The computers can be located in various places.

Your computer might be a laptop, or something that sits on/under your desk. We conventionally call that the local computer because it's close to you.

Small companies put servers in a locked room with some good air conditioning. This is called on-premises because it is on the same premises as the business.

Larger companies prefer to put their computers in a data center because they are better for security, fire safety, access to backup power, and generally have better networking connections. The data center might be owned by the company, or it might be co-located (co-lo) meaning that somebody else (eg Equinix) runs the data center and the company leases space, power and network from them.

In the case of cloud computing, the company does not actually own the computer equipment. Rather, it is either rented (eg a hosting provider charges a monthly fee for a web server) or pay-as-you-go (eg Amazon EC2 instances are charged per-second).

Also, some 'cloud' services simply provide a service rather than a computer, such as Salesforce (online software) or Amazon S3 data storage. Microsoft 365 and Google's G-Suite fall into this category.

The term 'website' is not specific. For example, I could run a web server on my home computer and make it accessible to the Internet -- I could call it a 'website'. Or, I could upload a few static pages to Amazon S3 and create a website, or run a WordPress server and call it a website. The term simply means that it is something that responds to requests from a web browser. However, there is a lot more that typically happens 'behind the scenes' on a website. For example, StackOverflow is accessible as a website, but it also has a database, search engine, email system, etc to support the StackOverflow service. See: https://stackexchange.com/performance

Answered By - John Rotenstein

Answer Checked By - Candace Johnson (PHPFixing Volunteer)