Cloud terms
Infinite scale on demand — if you architect it right
Cloud computing transforms infrastructure from a capital expense into an operational one — and from a constraint into a superpower, if you use it correctly. This category covers compute, storage, networking, serverless, managed services, cost optimisation, and the architectural patterns for building systems that scale globally and fail gracefully.
More on Cloud
History
Cloud computing evolved from virtualization and utility computing concepts in the early 2000s, with Amazon Web Services (AWS) launching Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) in 2006 as a foundational moment—offering on-demand compute resources over the internet. This sparked rapid adoption of cloud infrastructure by enterprises seeking to reduce capital expenditure and operational complexity, leading competitors like Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform to enter the market. The practice matured through the 2010s with the rise of managed services, containerization (Docker), and orchestration platforms (Kubernetes), shifting focus from infrastructure management to application-centric deployment. Today, cloud development encompasses diverse models—Infrastructure as Code, serverless architectures, and multi-cloud strategies—reflecting a fundamental shift in how teams architect, scale, and operate software systems without owning physical infrastructure.
Key concepts
- Cloud Computing Models
- Shared Responsibility Model
- Cloud VPC & Networking
- Cloud Region Selection
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Tools
- PHP Deployment on Cloud Platforms
- Cloud Monitoring Tools
Best references
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AWS Documentation Official, authoritative reference for AWS services including EC2, S3, RDS, Lambda, and VPC. Essential for PHP developers working with AWS fundamentals, auto-scaling, managed databases, and serverless functions.
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The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win Seminal work introducing DevOps principles and cloud-native thinking. Provides foundational context for understanding infrastructure as code, deployment automation, and modern cloud operations.
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Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) Glossary Authoritative source for cloud-native patterns, container orchestration standards, and ecosystem best practices. Directly covers Kubernetes, container technologies, and serverless architectures.
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Google Cloud Documentation Comprehensive reference for multi-cloud comparison, cloud CDN, load balancing (L4/L7), managed databases, and IaC tools. Useful for understanding cloud platform choices beyond AWS.
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Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems Canonical text on cloud monitoring, disaster recovery, shared responsibility models, and production best practices. Highly relevant for understanding cloud cost optimization and reliability patterns.
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The Open Group Cloud Computing Model Formal specification and taxonomy for cloud computing models (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS), cloud regions, and standardized cloud architecture frameworks for enterprise deployments.
✦ Latest in Cloud
Typed relationships here
Edges touching a Cloud term.
- PHP Deployment on Cloud Platforms Leverages Cloud Computing Models 15h
- AWS Fundamentals for PHP Developers Often seen in PHP Deployment on Cloud Platforms 15h
- PHP Deployment on Cloud Platforms Leverages Auto Scaling 15h
- PHP Deployment on Cloud Platforms Leverages Serverless Functions 15h
- PHP Deployment on Cloud Platforms Leverages Containerisation (Docker for PHP) 15h
Cloud Multi-Tenancy
PHP 8.0+
3
Serving multiple customers (tenants) from shared infrastructure while keeping their data and behaviour isolated.
2w ago
Cloud intermediate
Cloud Backup & Disaster Recovery
1
Automated backups with tested restores, defined RPO/RTO targets, and cross-region replication for catastrophic failure recovery.
4w ago
Cloud intermediate
Cloud Region Selection
1
The decision of which cloud region(s) to deploy workloads into, balancing user latency, data residency law, cost, and service availability.
1mo ago
Cloud intermediate
Load Balancer Types — L4 vs L7
Layer-4 load balancers forward raw TCP/UDP packets based on IP and port; layer-7 load balancers terminate HTTP and route based on paths, headers and cookies — different trade-offs for different traffic.
2mo ago
Cloud intermediate
Cloud CDN
4
CloudFront, Fastly, Cloudflare — caching at edge PoPs worldwide reducing latency and origin load.
3mo ago
Cloud intermediate
Cloud Cost Optimisation
2
Systematically reducing cloud spend without reducing capability — right-sizing instances, using reserved/spot pricing, eliminating waste, and architecting for cost from the start.
3mo ago
Cloud intermediate
Cloud Message Queues
Managed queue services — AWS SQS, Google Pub/Sub — durable scalable queuing without managing RabbitMQ infrastructure.
3mo ago
Cloud intermediate
Cloud Monitoring Tools
1
CloudWatch (AWS), Cloud Monitoring (GCP), Azure Monitor — auto-collect infrastructure metrics but need explicit instrumentation for application metrics.
3mo ago
Cloud intermediate
Cloud VPC & Networking
Virtual Private Cloud — private subnets for databases/workers, public subnets for load balancers only, security groups as stateful firewalls.
3mo ago
Cloud intermediate
Cloud-Native Patterns
PHP 5.0+
1
Stateless services, externalised config, health checks, graceful shutdown, and immutable infrastructure — the 12-Factor App extended for containers.
3mo ago
Cloud intermediate
Managed Databases
1
Cloud-hosted database services where the provider manages patching, backups, failover, and scaling — RDS (AWS), Cloud SQL (GCP), Azure Database — trading control for operational simplicity.
3mo ago
Cloud intermediate
PHP Deployment on Cloud Platforms
PHP 5.0+
15
Deployment options for PHP on AWS, GCP, and Azure — EC2/VMs, containers (ECS, Cloud Run), serverless (Lambda via Bref), and PaaS (Elastic Beanstalk, App Engine).
3mo ago
Cloud intermediate
Auto Scaling
PHP 5.0+
2
Automatically adding or removing compute instances based on load metrics — ensuring capacity matches demand without over-provisioning or under-provisioning.
3mo ago
Cloud intermediate
AWS Fundamentals for PHP Developers
PHP 5.0+
1
The core AWS services a PHP developer encounters — EC2, RDS, S3, SQS, ElastiCache, and IAM — and how they map to common application components.
3mo ago
Cloud intermediate
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Tools
Tools like Terraform, Pulumi, and AWS CDK that define cloud infrastructure in code — enabling version control, reproducibility, and automated provisioning.
3mo ago
Cloud intermediate
Object Storage
PHP 5.0+ A flat-file storage system (S3, GCS, Azure Blob) where files are stored as objects with metadata and accessed via HTTP — infinitely scalable, separate from application servers.
3mo ago
Cloud intermediate
Serverless Functions
PHP 7.4+
2
Event-triggered, stateless functions managed by a cloud provider — you deploy code, the provider handles servers, scaling, and availability.
3mo ago
Cloud intermediate
Shared Responsibility Model
The division of security responsibilities between the cloud provider and the customer — the provider secures the infrastructure; the customer secures what runs on it.
3mo ago
Cloud intermediate