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LostInParadise's avatar

What is the difference between a Web service and a cloud service?

Asked by LostInParadise (32216points) May 10th, 2012

As a programmer, this is something that I should know, but I have been looking at the explanations and I can’t make sense of them. They say that if I have a Web page as a Web service, the program takes up a fixed location on the hardware, by which I assume they mean that it resides on a disc drive, and that when the service is accessed each user is allocated space in memory. Having written Web services, I can agree with that. Then they say that the cloud service does not take up fixed space on the hardware. Where then is the program? It can’t be floating in the air like its namesake.

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3 Answers

wundayatta's avatar

I don’t know, but I had the impression that the cloud is really for storage purposes more than for running applications. So we store our stuff in the cloud, and maybe the applications run off of servers somewhere, or they might run off our own computers, but our data is stored out there in places that, I guess, move around to where they can be held most efficiently.

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ETpro's avatar

The cloud refers to a distributed processing and storage approach, where there are multiple servers all serving data. When all are functioning, server activity can be parceled to multiple machines to speed response time. If one or more hit a glitch and must reset, you don’t crash and burn. Things just slow down a bit till the full array is back online. The full cloud computing logical diagram is shown here.

ETpro (34605points)“Great Answer” (2points) Flag as…
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