It is rare to come across an organization these days that is not already using or considering the cloud in some capacity. Additionally, the terms "cloud computing" and "cloud" have become common in today's lexicon and are, for the most part, understood by the general public. However, for someone studying to protect and defend the cloud from growing cyber attacks, you must go a bit further than the general cloud overview and closely examine the various cloud elements that work together to make it possible. Doing so will equip you with the necessary knowledge to identify and address potential security gaps before an attacker takes advantage of them.

In this module, you learned about the three major cloud service models: IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS. For this assignment, explore each of the three cloud service models in detail and describe the importance of the underlying building blocks that make them possible. Examples of these building blocks include physical networks, storage servers, hypervisors, computer servers, identity management, applications, and virtual appliances, such as domain name systems $($DNS$)$ and firewalls.

In your writeup, answer the following for each model:

Give an introduction to cloud computing and its impact.

Compare and contrast the three cloud service models and their associated advantages and disadvantages.

Describe the division of responsibility between the cloud customer and the cloud service provider.

For each service model, describe the various individual components of their underlying technologies and their importance in making the cloud a reality. Are there any that you think are more important than others?