What is cloud computing is still being discussed widely. Cloud computing is the delivery of computing services such as servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence—over the internet (“the cloud”). It offers faster innovation, flexible resources, and cost advantages. Users can access these resources remotely through a network of servers hosted in data centers instead of relying on local servers or personal devices.
How does cloud computing work?
Cloud computing works by having cloud companies host or retain data centers that deliver huge storage capacity, security, and computing power to support cloud infrastructure. Customers pay to use these cloud services with an ecosystem to communicate between devices and programs.
What are the benefits of cloud computing?
Cloud computing is a move from the traditional way businesses operate with IT resources. Here are a few reasons organizations are choosing cloud computing services:
Cost
By moving IT operations to the cloud, companies improve their IT costs. They can get rid of the capital expense of buying hardware and software, and setting up and running on-site data centers. The cloud eliminates the racks of servers, electricity for power and cooling, and IT experts for managing the infrastructure.
Performance
Cloud computing companies often upgrade their computing hardware to the latest generation. This provides several advantages over a single corporate data center, including reduced network latency for applications and greater economies of scale.
Global scale
Cloud computing delivers the right amount of IT resources such as more or less computing power, storage, and bandwidth when they are needed from the right geographic location.
Security
Most cloud providers offer a variety of policies, technologies, and controls that strengthen your security posture overall, helping protect data, apps, and infrastructure from potential threats.
What are the types of cloud computing?
There are several different ways to deploy cloud services. These are public cloud, private cloud, hybrid cloud, multicloud and community cloud. You need to find out the type of cloud deployment, or cloud computing architecture, that your cloud services will be implemented on.
Public cloud
Public clouds are owned and operated by third-party cloud service providers. They deliver computing resources like servers and storage on the internet. Here are some public cloud companies;
- Google Cloud (GCP—formerly Google Cloud Platform)
- IBM Cloud (formerly SoftLayer)
- Microsoft Azure
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Alibaba Cloud
- Oracle Cloud
Private cloud
A private cloud‘s computing resources are used only by a single business or organization. It can be physically located on the company’s onsite datacenter and its infrastructure and services are maintained on a private network. Here are some private cloud companies;
- Oracle
- IBM / Red Hat
- Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
- VMware
- Dell Technologies
- Microsoft
- Amazon Web Services
- Netapp
- Cisco
Hybrid cloud
A hybrid cloud refers to combining public and private clouds. These two types are bound together by technology that allows data and applications to be shared between them. A hybrid cloud provides more flexibility and deployment options to improve infrastructure, security, and compliance. Here are some hybrid cloud companies;
- Google Cloud Platform
- Oracle Cloud
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Microsoft Azure
- VMware
- Cisco
- Alibaba Cloud
- IBM
Multicloud
A multicloud is a cloud framework that works with the combination of multiple cloud services. When an organization operates its cloud services from a minimum of two cloud providers to manage their applications. Multicloud infrastructure usually includes a combination of two or more public clouds, two or more private clouds, or a combination of both. Here are some multicloud companies;
- Microsoft
- Dell
- IBM
- Accenture
- Citrix
- Micro Focus
- BMC Software
- UnityOneCloud
- Cisco
Community cloud
A community cloud is a cloud infrastructure that enables systems and services to be accessible by a specific group of several organizations and companies to share information. The infrastructure may be owned, managed, and run by one or more of the organizations in the community, a third party, or some combination of them, and it may exist on or off premises. Here are some community cloud companies;
- Dropbox
- Rackspace
- Microsoft
- Cisco
- NetApp
- Workday
- Salesforce
What are the types of cloud services?
Many cloud computing companies have wide cloud service categories. These categories are platform as infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), software as a service (SaaS), and serverless computing.
IaaS
IaaS provides users more control over their IT infrastructure by virtualizing computing resources such as servers, storage, and networks. It is the most basic category of cloud computing services. IT infrastructures, servers and virtual machines (VMs), storage, networks, and operating systems are rented from a cloud provider on a pay-as-you-go basis.
PaaS
Platform as a service (PaaS) offers developers an environment for building, testing, delivering, and deploying applications without the need to manage the underlying infrastructure. PaaS allows developers quickly to create mobile apps or web easier.
SaaS
Saas delivers fully software applications over the internet usually on a subscription basis. It eliminates the need for local installations and maintenance. The application can be connected over the internet, usually with a web browser on their phone, tablet, or PC.
Serverless Computing
Serverless computing focuses on building and running application code without provisioning or managing servers or backend infrastructure.
Serverless allows developers to focus on writing the best application code and business logic they can. The developers only need to do is write their application code and place it in containers handled by a cloud service provider.
What is cloud security?
Cloud security is a discipline of cybersecurity procedures and technology built to locate external and internal threats to business security. It is a responsibility shared by the cloud provider and the customer. Commonly, the cloud provider takes the responsibility of protecting the infrastructure that they lease to their customers. On the other hand, the client is responsible for securing the areas of the cloud infrastructure over which they operate.
However, the exact cloud security responsibilities are up to the details of the cloud service that a customer is using. For example, a customer takes more responsibility for security in an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) model than they have under a Software as a Service (SaaS) model.
Is cloud computing secure?
Cloud security is a very extensive area in information technology. it may never be possible to prevent all cyber-attacks. But it is possible to reduce the risk by having a well-designed cloud security strategy. There will always be cybersecurity risks. But even with these risks, cloud computing may be more secure than in-house computing. It is because most cloud providers have more resources for keeping data secure than an organization does.
Why is it called ‘the cloud’?
This part is a little bit blurry. The belief in network-based computing dates back to the 1960s. But the very first use of “cloud computing” in its modern definition took place on August 9, 2006. It was when then Google CEO Eric Schmidt introduced the term to an industry conference. Schmidt said; “What’s interesting [now] is that there is an emergent new model,”.He continued; “I don’t think people have understood how big this opportunity really is. It starts with the premise that the data services and architecture should be on servers. We call it cloud computing—they should be in a “cloud” somewhere.”
Future of Cloud Computing
Here are some projections that IT experts expect to see in the future of cloud computing;
- More AI And Machine Learning In The Scene
- More Focus On Security
- The Rise Of Hybrid And Multi-Cloud
- Increased And Better Regulation
- The Advance Of Edge Computing
- More Demand For Storage Capacity
- Internet of Things Along With Cloud Computing
History of cloud computing
Cloud computing was invented and developed by J.C.R Licklider (Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider), an American Psychologist and Computer Scientist in the early 1960s. He aimed to connect people and data all around the world with his network research work on ARPANet (Advanced Research Project Agency Network). That started nowadays cloud computing architecture. In those years the concept of time-sharing grew via Remote Job Entry. This terminology was associated especially with IBM and DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation). As a result, full-time-sharing systems were available by the early 1970s.
In the 1990’s, some telecommunication giants started delivering VPN (Virtual private network) services at affordable costs. This made them use the overall network more effectively. By 1994, the cloud was started to be used for virtualized services.
The cloud computing phase went on and developed throughout the era of the 21st Century. In 2006 Amazon created AWS (Amazon web services) and also noted its Elastic Computing Cloud (EC2). By 2008, Google also introduced its beta version of the search engine. In the year 2008, Microsoft released its cloud computing service named Microsoft Azure for testing, deployment, and managing applications and services. In the year 2012, Google‘s compute engine was released but was rolled out to the public by the end of Dec 2013. Oracle developed Oracle Cloud with three primary services for business (IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS). Currently, as per records, Linux and Microsoft Azure share most of their work in parallel.
