An exorbitant amount of data is generated every day by businesses, educational institutions, different federations, and whatnot. You name the field and there is a huge amount available on their databases. To keep the records, to refer, and there are many more reasons to save and generate data. The rate of data breaches is also increasing every day. So it has become essential to secure and save data. Here, Cloud Computing comes into play. Cloud Computing is the delivery of computing services like servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence over the internet.
Cloud Computing is an on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Not all clouds are the same and one type of cloud is not the perfect fit for everyone. There are different models, types, and services to provide everyone according to their needs. At first, one should determine the type of cloud computing on which your services will be implemented. There are three different ways to deploy cloud services:
Public Cloud:
Public Clouds are owned and operated by third-party cloud service providers. They deliver the computing services like servers and storage over the internet. With the public cloud, all hardware and software supporting infrastructure are managed by the cloud provider. It can be accessed by using a web browser.
Private Cloud:
These services can be used by both a single business or an organization. A private cloud can be physically located in the company’s on-site data center. If needed, companies can also pay third-party services to host a private cloud for the business. The infrastructure and the services are maintained on a private network when a private is being used by the company.
Hybrid Cloud:
Hybrid clouds combine public and private clouds, bound together by technology that allows data and applications to be shared between them. By allowing data and applications to move between private and public clouds, a hybrid cloud gives your business greater flexibility, and more deployment options and helps optimize your existing infrastructure, security, and compliance.
These are the types of cloud computing available in the market. Now let’s have a look at types of cloud services. The types of cloud services are IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, and serverless.
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS):
With IaaS, one can rent IT infrastructure from a cloud provider on a pay-as-go basis. The infrastructure consists of servers, virtual machines, storage, networks, and operating systems.
Platform as a Service (PaaS):
Platform as a service refers to cloud computing services that supply an on-demand environment for developing, testing, delivering, and managing software applications. PaaS is designed to make it easier for developers to quickly create web or mobile apps, without worrying about setting up or managing the underlying infrastructure of servers, storage, network, and databases needed for development.
Software as a Service (SaaS):
Software as a service is a method for delivering software applications over the Internet, on-demand, and typically on a subscription basis. Cloud providers host and manage the software application and underlying infrastructure with SaaS and handle any maintenance, like software upgrades and security patching. Users connect to the application over the Internet, usually with a web browser on their phone, tablet, or PC.
Serverless Computing:
Overlapping with PaaS, serverless computing focuses on building app functionality without continually managing the servers and infrastructure required. The cloud provider handles the setup, capacity planning, and server management for you. Serverless architectures are highly scalable and event-driven, only using resources when a specific function or trigger occurs.
There are several advantages of cloud computing. The top benefits of cloud computing are:
Cost: The capital expense of buying hardware and software and running them on the data centers is eliminated.
Speed: Most cloud computing services are provided self-service and on-demand, so even vast amounts of computing resources can be provisioned in minutes, typically with just a few mouse clicks, giving businesses a lot of flexibility and taking the pressure off capacity planning.
Performance: The biggest cloud computing services run on a worldwide network of secure data centers, which are regularly upgraded to the latest generation of fast and efficient computing hardware. This offers several benefits over a single corporate data center, including reduced network latency for applications and greater economies of scale.
Security: Many cloud providers offer a broad set of policies, technologies, and controls that strengthen your security posture overall, helping protect your data, apps, and infrastructure from potential threats.
