What is the difference between compute, storage, and networking?

These three ideas show up in nearly every cloud architecture. If you can separate them, cloud diagrams get much easier to read.

Compute

Compute is where work happens. A virtual machine, container, or serverless function is compute. It receives input, runs code, and returns output.

Storage

Storage is where data lives. That could mean files in object storage, records in a database, disk attached to a server, or shared file storage.

Networking

Networking is the path between users, compute, and storage. It includes routing, subnets, firewalls, load balancers, and DNS.

Study prompt

Pick one app you use. Identify where the code might run, where the data might live, and how users reach it. Do not worry about exact services yet. Map the roles first.