Imagine a world where you don't have to turn off your PC, a world where the PC can run indefinitely without overheating or you having to worry about hardware, to take it even further, imagine a world where a team of professionals can work using the same PC, at the same time to do different things. I know all the above sounds rather farfetched 😅, however, what if I tell you that all the above is real and currently obtainable? 😏. This brings me to what we'll be looking at today; VPC (Virtual Personal Cloud) 🤩.
A VPC IN SUMMARY
A VPC is what sizeable organizations use to have their cake and eat it 😂. In clearer terms, VPCs enable organizations to access (and leverage) the internet from a private bubble. It's kind of like tinted windows in the sense that you see what's outside but those on the outside can't see you. With VPCs specific IP addresses need to be whitelisted and given specific permissions to be able to access the VPC in question. You're probably wondering how all these relate to my promise of what feels like the perfect PC, I'll get to that now 😉.
THE MECHANISM BEHIND VPCs
For VPCs to be implemented, virtual servers need to be created and these virtual servers are what users use in the same way we use our PCs, the difference is these are called virtual CPUs (VCPU). They typically have specific resources like storage and other system specs allocated to them. Where it gets interesting is that a number of individuals can share the same virtual server as some virtual servers are used as test environments for software solutions. The team can share access to that virtual server and operate in it as a standalone system in the same way you can open multiple user accounts on your normal PC.
A RELATABLE EXPLANATION
To provide further clarity, you can have two types of VCPU; the ones that provide you with an increased form of exclusivity or the general "group chat" kind of VCPU where you all share the same resources. Ultimately there's limited privacy on VCPUs because the system administrator (and in some cases everyone) can control your system or access your files. While it seems like VPCs are God's gift to humanity 😂, it's important to note the drawbacks so you don't get in trouble or destroy sensitive data. VCPUs are amazing because you don't need to turn them off, at the same time it's because turning them off has huge consequences.
FINALLY
If you're sharing a virtual server, there will be multiple people using it, turning it off at your end powers down the VCPU for everyone (remember, in theory, it's just one system), if your colleagues are working on something sensitive, or didn't close and save their files, they may lose their data. People hardly close files (on VPCUs) because the moment you log into the VPC you meet your work exactly as you left it, you might think it's fairly easy to avoid shutting down the VCPU but there are app updates that require you to restart the system after it's installed, that's where you need to be careful 😓.