Fun fact: Today is the first palindrome date in 909 years: 02/02/2020! The Internet is such a powerful force; it allows us to communicate/recieve information from different parts of the world! It's just insane and amazing to visualize the different aspects of networking; and how the Internet forever revolutionized our way of seeking information! It all has to do with the hyped up term "Internet of Things". The term Internet of Things, or IoT, describes a system of connected devices, appliances, vehicles and digital technologies (and other "things") that can send data/information without human-to-human or human-to-device interactions. So instead of me walking up to another individual/device in another country to send some info, I can do that using the Internet. WiFi vs. InternetI have always used the words WiFi and Internet interchangeably, you don't even know so many times! But there is a slight difference between these terms. WiFi essentially stands for "wireless networks", and the Internet is "interconnected networks". There was a point in time where devices could only be connected through cables to connect from one device to another. It wasn't too efficient, however, since there was a location limit, and it was kinda inconvenient if you wanted to connect more devices. So essentially what WiFi does is it allows you to connect with devices without cables, in a local area network (like your homes, for example). It does this by using a router, which routes information (in small packets of info) from one device to another. The wireless local network is completely separate from the Internet. The Internet is a wide area network, or WAN. It is a huge network which links devices and computers across the world. How is the information transmitted?So first off, every device on the Internet has some sort of unique identifier, for devices to recognize one another. This is called an IP address. Our laptops, phones, and servers (which are devices that manage/store information) have IP addresses. So how are these vast amounts of devices all connected globally, around the world? Well first off, this is a simple diagram of two devices are connected to the Internet: Both of these devices will have unique IP addresses, and the Internet is basically the vast networks which data packets will route to until its destination is reached. So when you send information from your device to another device, the information is split into packets and is routed to the destination device via the Internet. But how exactly does this all work, and that to wirelessly? The computer needs to process the message, convert the text to signals, send it to the Internet, and the router near device 2 needs to convert the signals back into text. For this to be accomplished, there needs to be a protocol stack. Every device needs this, and this usually is in its operating system. Server being downWhen you are accessing a website, you are basically sending a HTTP protocol command to the web server in the Internet, to transmit the webpage (that's why websites start with http!!) Now you know when you were trying to access a website, and for some reason your web browser isn't processing the request. It often happens when the web server is down and under maintenance. These are some examples of when the server might be facing a technical problem: Gateway time-out occurs when web server is communicating fast enough with other servers to process your request. Networking and the Internet is just a whole new world; there is so much more to explore!
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When storing data on the "cloud" became a super big thing, I never really understood what the "cloud" meant. Was it just a supercomputer which handled massive amounts of data from companies, individuals, and other entities? Or was it more than that? The term 'cloud computing' refers to the ability to offer many services--such as storing data, servers, networking, and intelligence--over the cloud or Internet. Cloud Computing is literally one of the most BIGGEST services ever. Many companies, such as the Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure offer cloud computing support mainly in order to handle and store data, and offer software applications. but first, what is the cloud?Before diving deep into cloud computing, we should first learn about what cloud is. What does the term "cloud" refer to? It would be really cute if it were an actual cloud lol, but its actually not. I know, the term is very misleading. The cloud is essentially a bunch or "network" of servers. What does this mean? A server is a computer device which stores data, and offers support for other software programs or devices called clients. An example of a cloud service is Office 365 or Google Drive. So whenever you are storing your data or information in a cloud service, you are storing it in the cloud, which basically leads to storing it in a physical server. So this is how communication between a client (aka your device, or applications in your device) and a server occurs. It is known as the client-server model. big data and cloud computingNow, we know that data is all around us. For companies, every day, and every second of the day, some amount of data is generated. There is basically too much data to handle. So many companies have too much data to handle and store. This is known as big data. How do you store large amounts of data, and how can you handle, cleanse and protect it? These companies can store it in their own data centers or servers, but it requires a lot of effort and cost. Cloud Computing services can take care of all of that. AWS and Azure are just a few of the services offered to protect, handle, and store data from other companies or individuals. So essentially, other companies would buy the service, and pay per month, for the cloud computing service to store, handle, and protect the company's data in their servers. These are just some of the few services offered from AWS and Azure. There are many more. potential risks in cloud computingNow, all of this sounds very good. Companies with vast amounts of data can go to a cloud computing service and purchase their plan in order to store all of their data in the service's servers. However, there are some potential risks. Privacy is a huge concern for these companies. They are basically trusting the cloud computing services to protect their data and not leaking it to other competitors and companies. There will defintely be mutual agreements about privacy between the companies and the services. But, privacy is still a concern, and the data in the servers and in the "cloud" needs to be secure, protected and monitored. Even though there are a few risks, cloud computing makes accessing data much faster and efficient. It is a great technological lead for this industry.
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