Cloud Computing Advantages

 Cloud computing allows for the immediate consumption of IT services over a network. Cloud computing has the main advantage that it makes it easier for users to manage and maintain the underlying resources.

This includes infrastructure basics like data storage and compute, as well as complete applications.

Cloud computing services can be accessed through hyperscale public datacenters or on-premises in privately-owned datacenters. They can also be hosted or managed. Many companies use a combination of these three options, using a multicloud approach.

Cloud Computing: Benefits

Agility

Your business can respond quickly to changing market conditions by having access to rapid resources. This allows you to innovate quickly and get products to market faster.

Elasticity

As needed, increase or decrease your IT resources to meet changing circumstances

Scalability

Your IT capabilities can be expanded as your business grows without interruption

Simplified operations

The service provider takes care of time-consuming, complicated, and expensive tasks like maintenance, upgrades, remediation, and other tasks. This allows you to concentrate on more valuable tasks.

Business continuity

Cloud providers ensure uptime through extensive investments in resilience and redundancy capabilities.

Disaster recovery

Providers can restore your data, services and applications quickly after disaster strikes.

Cloud Computing Types

These are the three main types cloud computing services.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS),

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Infrastructure as an Service (IaaS

IaaS allows users to have on-demand access the infrastructure resources necessary to run and deploy software such as operating systems or applications. These resources include computing, storage, networking, and virtualization. However, some providers also offer message queuing and database services. This is similar to having a cloud-based virtual datacenter that users can access through an API or dashboard. The OS, middleware and runtime environments, as well as data, are managed by the users.

Benefits and challenges

IaaS offers the most flexibility and control. Users can manage the entire stack and adjust resource capacities and configurations to suit workload requirements. IaaS offers many benefits, including high scalability and consumption-based pricing of hardware. IaaS can present challenges in cost overruns and security (data, system vulnerabilities), multitenancy (sufficient isolution), staff training, as well as integrating legacy applications with a cloud environment.

Platform as a Service

PaaS offers the necessary resources to create, test, run and maintain software. This includes the infrastructure, the OS, middleware and the runtime environment. The platform is accessible via the internet by developers. This allows them to concentrate on the application and not manage resources. PaaS lets users deploy standard or custom applications using supported programming languages, scripts and APIs.

Benefits and challenges

Paas provides simplicity, high availability and scalability, low coding, easy automation, and a path towards hybrid cloud. Data security and compliance are some of the challenges.

Software as a Service

SaaS provides an application to users via the internet. The entire stack is managed by the vendor, which includes the application. Clients do not need to download or install the application.

Benefits and challenges

The services can be accessed via web browsers or mobile apps. Users are also free from the responsibility of managing the software. Depending on the service, SaaS may be the least flexible option of all cloud computing options. Integration with existing systems can be complicated and may not allow for customization. Users may lose control of their data and security models if they are not able to integrate with SaaS.

SaaS can be used for many purposes. These include work productivity tools (Microsoft Office 365 and Google's G Suite), cloud governance tools (Xi Beam) and enterprise applications (Salesforce and SAP). SaaS can also include subsets of "as a Service" offerings such as Desktop as a Service, Disaster Recovery as a Service, or Database as a Service. Depending on its use, the latter could be either PaaS (or SaaS).

Public cloud

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The public cloud provides IT resources and services (IaaS and PaaS), over the internet to the general public. Customers pay by increments of usage, such as MBs, minutes or hours, for the resources they use. Storage, CPU cycles and bandwidth are all resources. Other services include data transfer, load balancing and monitoring.

Benefits and challenges

Public cloud has a central advantage: it is flexible and elastic. Users can expand, contract, or burst their resource usage on the fly to meet seasonal demand or accelerate software development. Public cloud can be cheaper, especially for cases of unpredictable or intermittent demand. It also eliminates the need to maintain and invest in IT resources (especially hardware) that are not being utilized consistently. Users pay for operational expenditure (OpEx) rather than capital expenditures (CapEx).

Public cloud can be more costly for predictable workloads. It also comes with a higher cost management system (avoiding over-utilization of resources). You must take steps to prevent security issues from arising from user mistakes and faulty configurations. Costs associated with staff training, workload migration, and vendor lock in can also be incurred.

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure are the largest public cloud providers. All public clouds are fully virtualized with multitenantarchitectures. This means that many users can share the same resources.

Private Cloud

The private cloud provides many of the same benefits and capabilities as a public cloud but is only owned and used by one organization. The private cloud is hosted in the organization's own datacenter, or it is outsourced to a third party provider (though this will be in a single tenant environment).

Benefits and challenges

Private clouds are often used by organizations when they require greater reliability, scalability and security. Private clouds are used by many enterprises to run sensitive or mission-critical workloads that have specific availability security and performance requirements. Private clouds are able to keep full control of their data so they can meet industry-specific regulations such as data sovereignty and individual privacy. Private cloud means that the company is responsible for the purchase, operation, and maintenance of the IT resources.

Multicloud

Multicloud is the sharing of workloads among multiple clouds. These clouds can be private or public. This allows organizations to choose the cloud that meets their business and technical requirements.

Benefits and challenges

Multicloud has many benefits:

Avoid vendor lock-in. Multicloud allows organizations to use the cloud at the most affordable pricing and the best services for their specific workload.

Higher performance. Multicloud allows organizations the flexibility to select datacenters closer to customers. This lowers the number of network hops between servers, which in turn improves application performance.

Complying with compliance obligations. Companies must adhere to a variety of regulations, particularly in relation to customer data. Many countries have data sovereignty laws, which require companies to keep customer data in the country where they are located. These regulations can often be enforced by multiple clouds, which are geographically dispersed.

Higher resilience. Multiple clouds, as well as cloud service providers, can increase business continuity and disaster recovery readiness.

Multicloud has its downsides. It can lead to increased complexity in management if it is used on an ad-hoc basis or without effective integration.

Hybrid cloud

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Hybrid cloud is a combination of elements from both public and private clouds. One organization can run some workloads on-premises and some in the cloud. Other workloads may be hosted in the cloud by a service provider.

Benefits and challenges

Hybrid cloud is a way for organizations to choose the best cloud for their workloads, thereby improving efficiency, security, cost, and performance. The hybrid cloud must provide seamless integration, particularly around networking, as well as frictionless interoperability between the clouds. Administrators will have the same experience regardless of whether they are on-premises or in the public cloud. Hybrid cloud can present problems in integration, security, workload mobility and latency.