Cloud Computing: Scaling Your Business for the Future

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Introduction

On-demand delivery of IT resources, i.e. servers, storage, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence, over the Internet (“the cloud”) is known as Cloud computing.

 

Cloud computing offers faster innovation and flexible resources. Organizations use cloud services by following the policy of “Pay-as-you-go”. The policy helps organizations lower operating costs run their infrastructure more efficiently, and scale as their business needs change.

 

Cloud computing enables users to access information, infrastructure, and applications online without installing and maintaining them on-premises. It’s fast, efficient, and secure. The cloud resources like data storage, development tools, and networking capabilities are hosted at remote data centres and are managed by a cloud service provider. Cloud services providers (CSP) like IBM Cloud, AWSGoogle Cloud, Microsoft Azure, etc., are responsible for providing cloud computing services.

Who is using cloud computing?

Cloud computing now becomes a part of daily life activities, whether it’s a cloud application like Google Gmail, streaming media like Netflix, or cloud file storage like Dropbox. Industry analyst Gartner predicted the worldwide end-users, public cloud spending to reach nearly USD 600 billion in 2023.

 

Organizations belonging to different sectors are using cloud computing daily. Cloud Services most enterprises use are; Data backup, disaster recovery, email, virtual desktops, software development and testing, big data analytics, and customer-facing web apps. Healthcare providers are utilizing the cloud to provide more individualized patient therapies—the cloud for financial services organizations powers real-time fraud detection and prevention. Video game developers use the cloud to give online games to millions of players worldwide.

Benefits of cloud computing

Cloud computing provides Agility.

Cloud supports innovation and provides different technologies to create advanced solutions. Organizations can use resources like computation, storage, databases, the Internet of Things, machine learning, data lakes, and analytics per the solution needs.

 

Cloud is time efficient and allows the freedom to test and experiment with new ideas to improve customer experience and transfer business ideas.

Scale more efficiently and cost-effectively

 

Cloud offers elasticity, allowing organizations to scale up and down in response to spikes in data traffic instead of purchasing excess capacity. Organizations can move their applications closer to users worldwide by utilizing the cloud provider’s global network.

Cloud computing allows Deployment globally in minutes.

 

Organizations can quickly deploy globally and grow to new geographic areas with the cloud. For example, AWS offers infrastructure worldwide, allowing organizations to deploy their applications in several physical locations quickly. Applications nearer to end users have lower latency and provide better user experiences.

Types of cloud computing

One type of cloud computing is not suitable for everyone, as not all clouds are alike. Different models, services, and types are there to offer organizations the right solutions for the specific problem. The three ways to deploy cloud services are;

  • Public cloud
  • Private cloud
  • Hybrid cloud

Public Cloud Computing

Public clouds are owned and run by third-party cloud service providers, who distribute their computing resources, such as servers and storage, over the Internet. An example of a public cloud is Microsoft Azure. The public cloud is multi-tenant because all customers share the cloud provider’s data centre infrastructure. 

 

The cloud provider owns and manages all of the hardware, software, and other supporting infrastructure in a public cloud. Using a web browser, organizations can get to these services and control their account. The public cloud resources might be accessible for free, or access might be sold according to subscription-based or pay-per-usage pricing models.

Private Cloud Computing

Cloud computing resources used solely by a single company or organization are called private clouds. A private cloud can be physically located in the company’s on-site data centre. Businesses pay outside service providers to host their private clouds. A private cloud is one where the infrastructure and services are kept on a private network.

Hybrid cloud Computing

Public and private clouds are combined in hybrid clouds, which are connected by technology that enables data and applications to be transferred between them. A hybrid cloud allows organizations to have better flexibility and additional deployment options. It helps organizations optimize their current infrastructure, security, and compliance by enabling data and apps to flow between private and public clouds.

Multicloud and hybrid multi-cloud

Multicloud uses two or more clouds from two or more different cloud providers. Using two or more public clouds alongside a private cloud system is a hybrid multi-cloud.

Organizations adopt multi-cloud to access more innovation, avoid vendor lock-in and have a broader range of services. Managing a cloud environment with the addition of more clouds, each with its management tools, data transmission rates, and security protocols, becomes difficult and hectic for organizations.

Cloud computing services

Most cloud computing services fall into four broad categories: infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), serverless, and software as a service (SaaS). These categories are known as “cloud computing stacks” because they are built on top of one another.

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)

Infrastructure as a service is the fundamental class of cloud computing services. IaaS allows you to pay-as-you-go rent IT infrastructure from a cloud provider, including servers and virtual machines (VMs), storage, networks, and operating systems. IaaS provides users with the lowest-level control of computing resources in the cloud.

Platform as a service (PaaS)

PaaS is a cloud computing service that provides an on-demand environment for designing, testing, delivering, and maintaining software applications.

PaaS aims to free developers from having to set up or manage the servers, storage, networks, and databases required for software development. With PaaS, the cloud provider hosts everything in their data centre, including servers, networks, storage, middleware, and operating system software. The developers pick the resources to develop, run, test, and deploy the applications across different platforms.

Software as a service (SaaS)

software as a service is a technique for offering on-demand software applications over the Internet via subscription. Saas is known as cloud-based software or cloud applications. Common examples of SaaS are Gmail and Netflix.

In addition to the cost savings, and scalability benefits of the cloud, SaaS offers the following:

 

Automatic upgrades: SaaS allows users to get new features as soon as the provider makes them available, eliminating the need to plan an on-premises upgrade.

 

Protection from data loss: Users don’t lose data if their device malfunctions because SaaS maintains application data in the cloud alongside the application.

Cloud Security

Traditionally organizations need help to consider cloud services, especially public cloud services, due to security issues. However, nowadays, the security cloud service providers are offering is outstripping on-premises security solutions.

.Some cloud security best practices include the following:

 

Data encryption: Data encryption should be used for data in use, transit, and rest. Customer control over security keys and hardware security modules must be unrestricted.

 

User identity and access management: Customer and IT teams require complete knowledge of and visibility into the network, device, application, and data access.

 

Shared security responsibility: Generally, the client and cloud provider are each responsible for protecting their respective cloud infrastructure and data. However, it’s also crucial to clarify data ownership between private and public third parties.

 

Cloud computing is gradually evolving into the new technology norm, given the many advantages it provides to businesses. Cloud computing assists society in addressing upcoming issues, including big data, cyber security, and quality control. Cutting-edge technologies like distributed ledger technology, artificial intelligence, and many other technologies are becoming accessible as services due to cloud computing.

Arcana and cloud computing

By utilizing Infrastructure As A Service (IaaS), Arcana can provide cloud application development services suitable to your business requirements. Arcana offer both Public and Private cloud services along with the use of advanced Containerization (Kubernetes) technology. Our other services include; Cloud Infrastructure Planning, Cloud Infrastructure Management, and Application Cloud & DB Migration. Arcana collaborate with the best in cloud technology pioneers, AWS, Microsoft Azure, VMware, and Google Cloud, to offer the best cloud services to our customers. Connect with us for more information about our offerings.

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