Cloud computing is described at a high, conceptual level in the two foundational standards ISO/IEC 17788 Cloud computing – Overview and vocabulary and ISO/IEC 17789 Cloud computing – Reference Architecture.
However, as the use of cloud computing has grown, a set of commonly used technologies has grown to support, simplify and extend the use of cloud computing alongside sets of commonly used techniques which enable the effective exploitation of the capabilities of cloud services. Many of these common technologies and techniques are aimed at developers and operations staff, increasingly linked together in a unified approach called DevOps. The aim is to speed and simplify the creation and operation of solutions based on the use of cloud services.
This document aims to describe the common technologies and techniques which relate to cloud computing, how they relate to each other and how they are used by some of the roles associated with cloud computing.
This document describes a series of technologies and techniques commonly used to build applications and systems using cloud computing. These include:
- Virtual Machines (VMs) and Hypervisors
- Containers and Container Management systems
- “Serverless" computing
- Microservices architecture and automation
- Platform as a Service systems and their architecture
- Storage services
- Security, Scalability and Networking as applied to the above cloud computing technologies