What is the number one concern about cloud computing

06.11.202321.08.2022 admin 0 Comments

What is the number one concern about cloud computing

What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is changing the world, but lots of people donвЂ™t yet know what exactly cloud computing is and how it might affect their business or personal decisions and goals.

This guide will break down everything you need to know about cloud computing, what its benefits and disadvantages are, and how youвЂ™re likely already using cloud computing in your day-to-day life. LetвЂ™s get started.

What is Cloud Computing?

LetвЂ™s break down exactly what cloud computing is before we get into any more details.

In a nutshell, cloud computing means computing through the delivery of services and resources using the Internet as a medium.

Where regular computing requires you to use programs, retrieve files, or store data with hardware or components connected to a primary computer.

Cloud computing allows one computer to benefit from the shared resources and databases of computers connected to a single network.

Basically, all the computation occurs through the cloud or the Internet.

Cloud computing is advantageous since youвЂ™re able to store all your files and data on remote databases instead of being limited to local hard drives or storage devices. This extends not only to single files but also to huge swaths of data, up to and including complex programs or software.

Many people are looking to cloud computing due to this benefit and many others, including cost savings, more speed and efficiency, and other advantages that weвЂ™ll cover below.

Why Cloud Computing?

Because all the resources and processing power needed to complete computation is accessed in the cloud or virtual spaces.

There are companies that can provide cloud services, which then enables users (who normally pay subscription fees) to access those servers for their needs.

Cloud computing only works because the Internet allows for near-light speed communication.

It doesnвЂ™t matter if the computational resources for a company or business are located halfway around the world. If the company has access to those cloud servers, they should be able to complete all the same objectives they need without a significant delay.

As a bonus, cloud computing can be found in both private and public formats. Private cloud services must usually be rented and only provide servers and resources to certain people. Public cloud services are available to the general public for a small fee.

Of course, some companies also provide hybrid options that blend both styles for their users.

Cloud computing is crucial for software that are looking for streamlined and productive workflow, however you shouldn’t neglect the safety of your business. DevSecOps does just that, it allows the development team to do their jobs while the security team keeps everyone and everything safe.

Cloud Computing Examples

Most people likely utilize cloud computing in at least some way every day even if they donвЂ™t realize it. Here are a few basic but popular examples of cloud computing that demonstrate what it can bring to the table:

Many people use Netflix or similar streaming services.

Netflix and other companies rely on cloud computing to run video streaming and provide almost instantaneous video downloads to its customers.

This is the only way Netflix can work вЂ“ otherwise, the company would need a truly staggering amount of server space given all the content under the Netflix umbrella

Many people also use cloud computing for their apps. Software as a Service is becoming more and more standard since it allows users to access applications through the cloud without having to physically download those apps to their computers.

This allows software developers to push out patches or updates much more quickly and distribute them to their user base without anyone being left behind

Lots of people also utilize cloud backups for important data or files, like photographs.

Storing your photographs on the cloud allows them to be remotely stored on a database far from your physical computerвЂ™s location. This makes it more difficult for you to lose the photos by misplacing an external hard drive or something similar.

What Defines Cloud Computing?

Although cloud computing is becoming more commonplace, lots of people think itвЂ™s essentially the same as downloading files or regular Internet activity. There are, in total, five primary characteristics that are common in all cloud computing services:

Broad network access

This means that the user must be able to access the cloud servers from across the Internet using any device with Internet connectivity. This includes smartphones, tablets, and regular computers. The data or servers must be accessible through a standard web browser.

On-Demand Self-Service

This means that the user must be able to use the servers whenever necessary and can pay for that usage.

There should be no limits on accessibility at any time aside from payment depending on the agreement made between the user and the cloud service provider.

Elasticity вЂЌ

The nature of cloud computing means that the network and its processing or storage capabilities can grow or shrink rapidly and as much as possible.

This should not affect the traffic or speed of the users since the cloud can harness more servers and storage space whenever necessary.

Resource Pooling вЂЌ

Of course, cloud computing demands that resource pooling be available. If a network canвЂ™t access more resources and pull them together for high-traffic events or big jobs, itвЂ™s not really cloud computing.

Measured Service вЂЌ

Lastly, cloud computing services usually measure how much their servers or resources are being used. In this way, cloud computing can be thought of as a kind of вЂњutilityвЂќ computing along the lines of electricity or heat.

Indeed, cloud computing is the closest that the Internet has come to a public utility since its original inception.

The History of Cloud Computing

While cloud computing is now commonplace, its concept was originally envisioned as far back as the 1960s. In those days, certain computer bureaus would let companies rent time on their server mainframes instead of having to buy a computer for themselves.

This was originally a cost-effective measure since computers back then were quite costly, even for big businesses.

Due to the development of Apple and Microsoft as companies, and the rise of PCs, timesharing services were eventually shuttered and companies and individuals bought their own computers.

Companies, in turn, then purchased their own hard server mainframes and storage locations so they could have all their data on hand at all times.

Only recently has the concept of shared and network-based computing returned to the public consciousness. Cloud computing really took hold when software as a service and hyperscale cloud computing providers came into profitability.

Since network architecture is so much more stable and responsive than it was before, itвЂ™s no longer difficult for cloud computing to compete with the raw abilities of on-site hardware and server farms.

Types of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing comes in a wide variety of types depending on the needs of the users and the goal of the cloud providers. LetвЂ™s break down the different types of cloud computing you can encounter or request for your company.

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)

Software as a Service is one of the most common types of cloud computing available, in part due to the profitability and convenience it provides for developers and licensors. In a nutshell, SaaS forms a licensing and delivery model for software.

Rather than customers buying a disk or the files for some software, that same software can be centrally hosted by the developer or licensor.

The software is then licensed on a subscription basis. This allows individuals or companies to request software on demand and benefit from much more rapid and up-to-date patches or extra services from the developers at the cost of never really вЂњowningвЂќ the software.

Software as a Service is so prevalent that itвЂ™s the default for cornerstone software offerings like Microsoft Office.

Many people and companies are turning to SaaS since it allows individuals and companies to acquire software more quickly, to benefit from patches more consistently, and to benefit from additional security measures that prevent the software from being altered or negatively affected.

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)

Like software as a service, infrastructure as a service or IaaS is a type of cloud computing that provides high-level APIs from a centralized server location to various companies or clients (licensees).

It offers instantaneous computing infrastructure that can be provisioned, managed, and updated exclusively over the Internet.

IaaS is advantageous for many of the same reasons as SaaS, including increased scalability up and down depending on your demand and helping companies and individuals only pay for what they use.

ItвЂ™s also particularly nice since it can help companies avoid the expense and complexity of having to buy or create and manage their own physical servers and data center infrastructure.

When used in combination with SaaS computing, IaaS can effectively allow companies to outsource or rely on cloud computing for all of their major processing or computing tasks, including storage and client services.

Most IaaS services allow users to rent every resource as separate service components, meaning that users only need to rent particular infrastructure components as long as absolutely necessary.

Some IaaS providers will also offer to manage infrastructure in order to allow the company or user to focus on other aspects of cloud computing or their business.

Some great Infrastructure as a Service examples include ICM Cloud or Microsoft Azure.

Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)

Platform-as-a-Service or PaaS is very similar to the last two types of cloud computing. It offers a service or application platform from a centralized server location.

It offers, in essence, a complete and thorough development and deployment environment exclusively on the cloud, plus the resources you need to deliver everything your business or endeavors require.

Like other cloud computing services, clients can pay for exactly what they need then access those resources and infrastructure right over the Internet without having to do a lot of downloading beforehand.

PaaS includes many pieces of infrastructure in addition to вЂњmiddlewareвЂќ, development tools, database management systems, and much more.

Furthermore, many PaaS services can support complete web application development lifecycles, including all the major phases like building, testing, deploying, and managing a piece of software or a web application.

This can be particularly useful for developers that donвЂ™t have the time or cash to create, buy, or manage their own development platforms but who still need those resources to complete their goals.

Users are allowed to manage the applications and services that they develop using the PaaS platform, although other aspects of the service are usually managed by the cloud provider itself. Single platform as a Service examples include Heroku and Salesforce.com.

Alongside those вЂњas a serviceвЂќ cloud computing types, there are three other major categories that cloud services fall into.

Public Cloud

The first of these are public cloud services. Think of these as public digital spaces like parks or computer cafes where individuals can share computing resources with other tenants or renters.

This is generally quite affordable and is a perfect choice for developing systems and Web servers or for those on tight budgets.

In many cases, public cloud computing is cost-efficient since most public cloud services provide pay-as-you-go models. Individuals can pay for the number of hours they need to utilize the cloud servers and exit whenever they are finished.

The downsides are similarly obvious. There isnвЂ™t any privacy and you will sometimes have to deal with other individuals who take up extra cloud server resources or space in the digital domain. This can sometimes make public cloud computing a little less consistent than the other computing types.

Private Cloud

Private cloud computing is the counterpart to public cloud computing. It offers exactly what it says in the name: privacy.

This means that the user doesnвЂ™t have to share the digital space or server resources with anyone else. Since most private cloud platforms are built in-house, this also means that most users physically own the cloud architecture, which can provide some legal or security benefits.

In fact, security is often the number one reason why big businesses will look to private cloud computing instead of public cloud computing.

Private cloud networks, by their very nature, offer better web application security and defense, which can be vital for companies that handle a lot of sensitive customer or other information.

Private cloud networks also give administrators additional security tools, such as providing information about who accessed data, what changes were made, and additional emergency controls.

Hybrid Cloud

Last but not least is hybrid cloud computing. Hybrid cloud computing usually requires the primary client or user to control an internal database or private cloud network but also have access to public cloud computing when necessary.

For example, say that a company mostly used private cloud computing but realized that it needed additional server resources.

That company could then move some of their data from the private cloud to the public cloud, especially for the purposes of receiving scheduled maintenance or in the event of an unexpected blackout.

Thus, hybrid cloud computing is popular and provides the best of both worlds. Users can benefit from the privacy and increased control of private cloud computing with the extra server resources and flexibility/cost efficiency of public cloud computing.

Benefits of Cloud Computing

Ultimately, cloud computing wouldnвЂ™t be so popular if there weren’t significant advantages and benefits to using these types of services. This list breaks down covers most of the major benefits of cloud computing.

Software Can Be Used from Any Device

By far the most tangible benefit of cloud computing is that it allows users to utilize or enjoy software and other services from any device. With cloud computing, you donвЂ™t have to have a particular piece of software or program installed on a given device or hardware set.

You can use the same software or program from your mobile device, like a smartphone or tablet, your desktop, and your laptop without individually downloading and installing that program each time.

This is invaluable for companies in particular that need all of their workplace computing devices to utilize the same programs consistently.

Doing things the old-fashioned way would likely take a much longer time and there would undoubtedly be instances where certain employees didnвЂ™t have access to programs or files they should have.

Easy File Retrieval

Similarly, cloud computing makes it trivially easy to retrieve files from anywhere in the world since the cloud network is maintained over the Internet. Companies and individuals can both benefit from this aspect since it allows users to retrieve files without having a physical data storage device on hand.

For instance, regular people can store private photos or other documents over the cloud in secure locations and retrieve that information whenever they like. This limits the likelihood of them accidentally misplacing prized photos or financial information and not being able to find it later.

Companies can benefit from easy and universal file retrieval, particularly if their employees constantly travel and are not always at their corporate offices.

This allows anyone in the company to get access to sensitive company information they may need for business deals or other purposes anywhere they go in the entire world so long as they can connect to the Internet.

Easy Backup for Files/Data

In addition to those benefits, cloud computing allows companies and individuals to benefit from easy file or data backup. ItвЂ™s one thing to have a physical backup of your favorite photos or your company employee information.

ItвЂ™s another thing to have both a physical backup and another digital backup stored somewhere else in the world far from the physical data centers or corporate offices of your company.

By storing your files and data far from home, users can ironically make that data more secure. That data becomes much harder or impossible to steal physically or to misplace.

This backup benefit is also important since it protects companies and users from accidentally erasing key information that canвЂ™t be retrieved otherwise. For instance, a blackout may affect an office building and white many of the computers contained within.

But if key company information was instead stored in the cloud, that data can easily be retrieved since it was backed up ahead of time вЂ“ it can be re-downloaded once the power grid is back to normal.

This has an ancillary benefit in that it allows individuals or companies to save storage space on their physical computers or servers.

This can be particularly pertinent if you need to store lots of «big» data files, like images or videos, and donвЂ™t have the raw storage capacity on your home computer to do the job.

Big Savings for Companies

Cloud computing often results in fantastic savings for companies. Before cloud computing another вЂњas a serviceвЂќ offerings were provided, companies had to purchase, construct and maintain their own IT management technology and digital infrastructure.

They had to create their own server farms and computing centers or otherwise rent space on nearby IT computing centers built by other companies.

Naturally, this results in huge bills more often than not, both for the initial cost of construction and for the cost of maintaining the infrastructure physically, plus paying for employees (security, maintenance, management, and so on).

Cloud computing allows companies to cut many of those costs and enjoy fantastic savings.

Plus, it results in savings in other ways since it makes employees more flexible as they can retrieve information or access company programs from anywhere in the world instead of being tethered to an office.

Faster Patching for Software

Many developers and users appreciate cloud computing since it allows for faster and more regular software patching or updates.

Say that a piece of software was recently discovered to have a critical security concern that could be exploited at any time.

Under a traditional software model, a patch would have to be rolled out and individually downloaded by every computer or user that wanted to close the security breach. But with cloud computing, the software can automatically be updated since the software is hosted from a centralized server location.

Then everyone who uses the software in the future will automatically benefit from the security patch.

This is cost-effective and excellent for company/developer reputation. ItвЂ™s also great for cloud security. Speaking of whichвЂ¦

Better Security in Some Ways

Cloud computing offers excellent security in many ways, though weвЂ™ll break down more about this aspect below. Since software is hosted on a centralized server network instead of on-site, security is often a little better for big companies that would be otherwise.

ThatвЂ™s because security can be handled by dedicated IT security teams and the aforementioned software patches can be rolled out a little more effectively and consistently.

Furthermore, company information is not as vulnerable to physical theft or manipulation вЂ“ there arenвЂ™t physical servers that can be breached or attacked by malicious or negligent employees on-site.

While cloud servers can still be physically attacked, itвЂ™s not as vulnerable as having company information physically stored in the same building.

Disadvantages of Cloud Computing

Although cloud computing has a lot to offer, there are some disadvantages that everyone should be aware of.

Sometimes Security is Still a Concern

Although security can sometimes be better through cloud computing, this type of service also comes with unique risks. For instance, many cloud computing services rely on encryption to protect vital information for consumers and companies.

If the encryption key is ever lost through regular human error, this could cause a huge breach for all the users in the network.

Remember, cloud computing is still mostly as effective as the people using it.

Furthermore, cloud computing can also ironically open up users to geographical risks that they would otherwise be insulated from. Say that a company in California hired server space from a cloud computing firm in Texas.

If Texas experienced a power outage, the company in California might see their cloud access disappear instantaneously, whereas theyвЂ™d have been safe if their information was stored on servers on-site.

California is one of the states that are most involved with cyber security, however, even they are having issues with big ransomware attacks.

Mistakes Are Magnified

The big selling point for cloud computing вЂ“ that everyone can draw from the same collective pool of server resources and storage space вЂ“ is also something of an AchillesвЂ™ heel.

ThatвЂ™s because any mistakes made by the cloud server management team or individual users can rapidly expand to affect everyone on the cloud server network.

Say that someone accidentally causes a security breach for a cloud network, giving total access to all the files and programs in all the companies tethered together through shared server resources. Employees from one company could easily access the information of another.

This type of simple mistake may end up being much more serious due to the very nature of cloud computing.

Internet Connection Required

Lastly, all cloud computing requires that the user have access to an Internet connection. With traditional computing, and Internet connection isnвЂ™t required: all you need is a hardwired connection to the server or storage device holding the data or programs you want to use.

With cloud computing, you wonвЂ™t field access any of your data or programs unless you can connect to the Internet. In certain areas, where Internet connectivity is spotty or difficult to maintain, this can make cloud computing a no-go for certain homes or companies.

This Internet connectivity also highlights another risk of cloud computing вЂ“ if the Internet at large ever goes down due to some natural disaster (like a solar flare), then cloud computing will instantaneously go with it.

UsersвЂ™ data will likely still be fine and stored on physical servers, but no one will be able to access the cloud until the Internet is back up and running.

Cloud Computing Security

One of the biggest issues for cloud computing and its future by far is server security. ThereвЂ™s a lot to digest about this particular topic.

Cloud computing security is usually focused on a few key focuses or technologies:

Lots of cloud computing services use firewalls as their primary security features. These can protect the perimeter of network security and any and users and safeguard traffic between apps that may be stored on the same cloud

Access controls are also often utilized.

This allows cloud services to set access lists for different assets or applications, preventing employees or users from other clients from interacting with one another. Or companies can use these tools to only give employees access to the tools necessary for their jobs, preventing in-company data breaches

VPNs are sometimes used. Virtual private networks can allow remote employees to connect to corporate or private networks without leaving themselves as vulnerable to hacking

Disaster recovery and data backups are often offered as standard inclusions for cloud services these days. This involves regularly backing up company or user data so that, in the event of an outage, short-term recovery is possible and the total damages suffered can be minimized

Data masking is another type of cloud computing security tactic that involves encrypting identifiable information like employee company numbers or names. For example, medical companies can utilize data masking to share data without violating certain HIPAA laws.

The Progress of Cloud Computing

The good news is that cloud computing security is evolving, and rapidly. Since more and more companies are putting their eggs into the cloud computing basket, itвЂ™s of prime concern to find answers for many of the security questions that still remain.

While cloud computing offers unique solutions for data retrieval and backup, these servers are still vulnerable to hacking and management mistakes.

Furthermore, cloud computing can potentially be even riskier than regular on-site server use and storage since one cloud network servicing multiple clients could potentially put them all at risk if they are breached in the course of an attack.

Overall, though, cloud computing is generally thought to be a little safer and more secure than вЂњregularвЂќ computing due to all the advantages mentioned earlier.

Since many data breaches or security problems are caused by employees rather than malicious hackers, taking away the opportunity for those security issues to occur in the first place can go a long way toward showing up a businessвЂ™ security.

Conclusion

Ultimately, cloud computing is the way of the future since it provides so many fantastic benefits for individual users and big companies alike.

Though there are some learning curves to tackle and some security questions to answer, itвЂ™s clear that cloud computing is set to evolve digital commerce and the world at large.

Hopefully, you now understand more about cloud computing and what it can provide to your endeavors.

Cloud computing

Understanding what cloud is and what it can do for you.

Introduction to cloud computing

Cloud technology is helping businesses and people weather the ongoing storm caused by the global pandemic.

Companies are seizing on cloud as the key enabler to complete their digital transformation, and the COVID pandemic has further accelerated this mandate. Cloud is becoming a top C-suite agenda item as businesses are transitioning from a piece-meal approach to a more holistic end-to-end digital transformation with cloud at its core. The winners of tomorrow will be the ones that navigate this change rapidly, make the right choices and engage with the appropriate partners to augment their own capabilities.

This guide is here to help people and businesses accelerate their migration to the cloud – one that requires speed, new thinking, and an entirely different level of skills and investments to achieve end-to-end digital transformation. Now, more than ever, cloud is vital to help businesses reopen, reinvent, and outmaneuver uncertainty.

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01. What is cloud computing?

Let’s start with the name. Where did ‘cloud’ come from?

When the internet was in its infancy the word ‘cloud’ was used as a metaphor to describe how the complex telephone networks connected. Now, many people and organizations refer to it as ‘THE cloud’ but it’s not a single entity, and it doesn’t exist in just the one place. So, what exactly is it?

Cloud is a model of computing where servers, networks, storage, development tools, and even applications (apps) are enabled through the internet. Instead of organizations having to make major investments to buy equipment, train staff, and provide ongoing maintenance, some or all of these needs are handled by a cloud service provider.

There are five key characteristics of a cloud computing environment, as defined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST):

Internet Access
With a public cloud environment, users «plug into» the data and applications via an internet connection giving anytime, anywhere access.

Measured Service
Cloud is often pay-as-you-go, where you only pay for what you use. Think about how a utility company meters how much water, electricity, or gas is used and charges based on consumption. The cloud is the same.

On-Demand Self-Service
Services can be requested and provisioned quickly, without the need for manual setup and configuration.

Shared Resource Pooling
Cloud often uses the multi-tenancy model. This means a single application is shared among several users. So, rather than creating a copy of the application for each user, several users, or «tenants» can configure the application to their specific needs.

Rapid Elasticity
Cloud platforms are elastic. An organization can scale its resource usage levels up or down quickly and easily as needs change.

What is cloud?

In this short video, we answer the question «What is cloud?»

02. Why is cloud computing important?

Before cloud computing, companies had to store all their data and software on their own hard drives and servers. The bigger the company, the more storage they needed. This way of treating data is not scalable at speed. For example, if word started spreading about your business and you suddenly had a lot of online orders, your servers would probably crash. Good business meant hard work for the IT department.

It’s not just businesses that benefit from cloud computing. The cloud has transformed our lives as individuals as well. Many of us use cloud services every day. When we update our status on social media, binge a new streaming series, or check our bank accounts we’re most likely using applications that are hosted by cloud services. These apps are accessed through an internet connection rather than installed on our hard drives or devices.

Today, cloud technology means that companies can scale and adapt at speed and scale, accelerate innovation, drive business agility, streamline operations, and reduce costs. Not only can this help propel companies through the current crisis, it can lead to increased, sustainable growth. According to our Future Systems research, companies that are more strategic in their approach to technology are doing better financially. They’re achieving more than twice the average revenue growth of companies slow to implement and use their tech. In fact, 95 percent of leaders have adopted sophisticated cloud services.

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03. What are the types of cloud computing?

We’ve established that most of us are already using cloud technology in some form or another. But where does all this data actually live and who runs it?

Cloud computing can be deployed in different ways depending on what services a business needs. The first thing to consider is the deployment model—public cloud, private cloud, hybrid cloud, and multi-cloud. The next element is the service category—Saas (Software as a Service), Paas (Platform as a Service) and Iaas (Infrastructure as a service). When a company is considering its cloud migration strategy, it must consider both factors. Here’s a primer on how they work and what they mean for your business.

Deployment models

Public Cloud
Connecting to a public cloud means using an internet connection to access computing resources hosted on data centers managed by a third-party cloud service provider, rather than owning and maintaining these resources on-premise. A shared public cloud has many organizations (or tenants) sharing the same infrastructure.

The largest cloud service providers with data centers that enable massive scaling are called hyperscalers. The big four hyperscalers, collectively referred to as MAAGs, are: Microsoft (Azure), Amazon (Amazon Web Services or AWS), Alibaba (Alicloud), and Google (Google Cloud). Other cloud providers include IBM and Oracle.

Private Cloud
This cloud model is great for organizations concerned about sharing resources on a public cloud. It is implemented on servers owned and maintained by the organization and accessed over the internet or through a private internal network.

A private cloud environment gives you complete control over data and security in order to meet specific regulatory and other compliance requirements (e.g., HIPAA for healthcare, GDPR, GxP for Pharma, etc.).

Hybrid Cloud
Many organizations actually use a combination of several cloud environments. This is referred to as a hybrid cloud approach. Hybrid cloud often includes a combination of public cloud and private cloud, frequently in combination with some on-premise infrastructure. To create a true hybrid cloud architecture, you must set up communication or orchestration between the various deployments.

Hybrid cloud eliminates reliance on any single cloud provider and allows for additional levels of flexibility in terms of capabilities, security compliance, etc.

In the past, choosing a hyperscaler meant picking public over private. This is no longer the case. To support regulatory, performance, and data gravity requirements, the hyperscalers are now offering private cloud carveouts in public environments. VMware on AWS (VMC), Azure VMware Services (AVS), and Google’s SAP, Oracle and Bare Metal solutions are good examples. Similarly, the hyperscalers have been working on private cloud extensions. This blurring of public and private under a hybrid cloud umbrella is likely to accelerate in the future. Over time, we will no longer see a delineation between «public» and «private» but instead, between «dedicated» and «shared.»

Multi-cloud
A multi-cloud approach is a particular case of hybrid cloud in which an organization uses services from multiple public cloud providers.

Service categories

Software as a Service (SaaS)
SaaS is the most commonly used cloud application service and is becoming a dominant way for organizations to access software applications.

With SaaS, an organization accesses a specific software application hosted on a remote server and managed by a third-party provider. On a subscription basis, the application is accessed through a web browser, reducing the need for on-device software downloads or updates. Popular SaaS products include Salesforce, Workday, or Microsoft Office 365.

Cloud computing

Understanding what cloud is and what it can do for you.

Introduction to cloud computing

Cloud technology is helping businesses and people weather the ongoing storm caused by the global pandemic.

The power of innovation & cloud computing

Kishore Durg talks sustainability & cloud computing

Artificial intelligence & cloud computing

What is cloud?

Explore our latest insights

Reinvent business via ever-ready IT infrastructure

A new approach can help enterprises truly reinvent their enterprise with the cloud.

Ever-ready for every opportunity

What’s beyond cloud migration? Our new report reveals four key tenets Continuum Competitors share to unleash competitiveness on the cloud.

Transform your data foundation on cloud

Data on cloud gains scale, agility, and the power to drive reinvention. Modernize your data foundation, so you can innovate and your business can soar.

Secure cloud

Learn how to accelerate resilience and make your Cloud-First journey safe from the start.

Harmonize with the Continuum Control Plane

Bring simplicity to your increasingly complex cloud estate.

Cloud migration is a must: How to get it right

Cloud value is an essential requirement for digital transformation. Learn how to migrate the right way and increase cloud value.

Accenture unlocks innovation with sovereign cloud

01. What is cloud computing?

Let’s start with the name. Where did ‘cloud’ come from?

There are five key characteristics of a cloud computing environment, as defined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST):

Internet Access
With a public cloud environment, users «plug into» the data and applications via an internet connection giving anytime, anywhere access.

On-Demand Self-Service
Services can be requested and provisioned quickly, without the need for manual setup and configuration.

Rapid Elasticity
Cloud platforms are elastic. An organization can scale its resource usage levels up or down quickly and easily as needs change.

What is cloud?

In this short video, we answer the question «What is cloud?»

02. Why is cloud computing important?

Why does cloud matter?

In this short video we answer the question ‘Why does cloud matter?’

Learn how a cloud can accelerate 360° value.

03. What are the types of cloud computing?

We’ve established that most of us are already using cloud technology in some form or another. But where does all this data actually live and who runs it?

Deployment models

Hybrid cloud eliminates reliance on any single cloud provider and allows for additional levels of flexibility in terms of capabilities, security compliance, etc.

Multi-cloud
A multi-cloud approach is a particular case of hybrid cloud in which an organization uses services from multiple public cloud providers.

Service categories

Software as a Service (SaaS)
SaaS is the most commonly used cloud application service and is becoming a dominant way for organizations to access software applications.

Cloud Computing

What is cloud computing?

Cloud computing is on-demand access, via the internet, to computing resources—applications, servers (physical servers and virtual servers), data storage, development tools, networking capabilities, and more—hosted at a remote data center managed by a cloud services provider (or CSP). The CSP makes these resources available for a monthly subscription fee or bills them according to usage.

Compared to traditional on-premises IT, and depending on the cloud services you select, cloud computing helps do the following:

The term ‘cloud computing’ also refers to the technology that makes cloud work. This includes some form of virtualized IT infrastructure—servers, operating system software, networking, and other infrastructure that’s abstracted, using special software, so that it can be pooled and divided irrespective of physical hardware boundaries. For example, a single hardware server can be divided into multiple virtual servers.

Virtualization enables cloud providers to make maximum use of their data center resources. Not surprisingly, many corporations have adopted the cloud delivery model for their on-premises infrastructure so they can realize maximum utilization and cost savings vs. traditional IT infrastructure and offer the same self-service and agility to their end-users.

If you use a computer or mobile device at home or at work, you almost certainly use some form of cloud computing every day, whether it’s a cloud application like Google Gmail or Salesforce, streaming media like Netflix, or cloud file storage like Dropbox. According to a recent survey, 92% of organizations use cloud today (link resides outside IBM), and most of them plan to use it more within the next year.

Cloud computing services

SaaS (Software-as-a-Service)

SaaS—also known as cloud-based software or cloud applications—is application software that’s hosted in the cloud and that you access and use via a web browser, a dedicated desktop client, or an API that integrates with your desktop or mobile operating system. In most cases, SaaS users pay a monthly or annual subscription fee; some may offer ‘pay-as-you-go’ pricing based on your actual usage.

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

SaaS is the primary delivery model for most commercial software today—there are hundreds of thousands of SaaS solutions available, from the most focused industry and departmental applications, to powerful enterprise software database and AI (artificial intelligence) software.

PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service)

PaaS provides software developers with on-demand platform—hardware, complete software stack, infrastructure, and even development tools—for running, developing, and managing applications without the cost, complexity, and inflexibility of maintaining that platform on-premises.

With PaaS, the cloud provider hosts everything—servers, networks, storage, operating system software, middleware, databases—at their data center. Developers simply pick from a menu to ‘spin up’ servers and environments they need to run, build, test, deploy, maintain, update, and scale applications.

Today, PaaS is often built around containers, a virtualized compute model one step removed from virtual servers. Containers virtualize the operating system, enabling developers to package the application with only the operating system services it needs to run on any platform, without modification and without need for middleware.

Red Hat OpenShift is a popular PaaS built around Docker containers and Kubernetes, an open source container orchestration solution that automates deployment, scaling, load balancing, and more for container-based applications.

IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service)

IaaS provides on-demand access to fundamental computing resources–physical and virtual servers, networking, and storage—over the internet on a pay-as-you-go basis. IaaS enables end users to scale and shrink resources on an as-needed basis, reducing the need for high, up-front capital expenditures or unnecessary on-premises or ‘owned’ infrastructure and for overbuying resources to accommodate periodic spikes in usage.

In contrast to SaaS and PaaS (and even newer PaaS computing models such as containers and serverless), IaaS provides the users with the lowest-level control of computing resources in the cloud.

IaaS was the most popular cloud computing model when it emerged in the early 2010s. While it remains the cloud model for many types of workloads, use of SaaS and PaaS is growing at a much faster rate.

Serverless computing

Serverless computing (also called simply serverless) is a cloud computing model that offloads all the backend infrastructure management tasks–provisioning, scaling, scheduling, patching—to the cloud provider, freeing developers to focus all their time and effort on the code and business logic specific to their applications.

What’s more, serverless runs application code on a per-request basis only and scales the supporting infrastructure up and down automatically in response to the number of requests. With serverless, customers pay only for the resources being used when the application is running—they never pay for idle capacity.

FaaS, or Function-as-a-Service, is often confused with serverless computing when, in fact, it’s a subset of serverless. FaaS allows developers to execute portions of application code (called functions) in response to specific events. Everything besides the code—physical hardware, virtual machine operating system, and web server software management—is provisioned automatically by the cloud service provider in real-time as the code executes and is spun back down once the execution completes. Billing starts when execution starts and stops when execution stops.

Types of cloud computing

Public cloud

Public cloud is a type of cloud computing in which a cloud service provider makes computing resources—anything from SaaS applications, to individual virtual machines (VMs), to bare metal computing hardware, to complete enterprise-grade infrastructures and development platforms—available to users over the public internet. These resources might be accessible for free, or access might be sold according to subscription-based or pay-per-usage pricing models.

The public cloud provider owns, manages, and assumes all responsibility for the data centers, hardware, and infrastructure on which its customers’ workloads run, and it typically provides high-bandwidth network connectivity to ensure high performance and rapid access to applications and data.

Public cloud is a multi-tenant environment—the cloud provider’s data center infrastructure is shared by all public cloud customers. In the leading public clouds—Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, IBM Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Oracle Cloud—those customers can number in the millions.

The global market for public cloud computing has grown rapidly over the past few years, and analysts forecast that this trend will continue; industry analyst Gartner predicts that worldwide public cloud revenues will exceed USD 330 billion by the end of 2022 (link resides outside IBM).

Many enterprises are moving portions of their computing infrastructure to the public cloud because public cloud services are elastic and readily scalable, flexibly adjusting to meet changing workload demands. Others are attracted by the promise of greater efficiency and fewer wasted resources since customers pay only for what they use. Still others seek to reduce spending on hardware and on-premises infrastructures.

Private cloud

Private cloud is a cloud environment in which all cloud infrastructure and computing resources are dedicated to, and accessible by, one customer only. Private cloud combines many of the benefits of cloud computing—including elasticity, scalability, and ease of service delivery—with the access control, security, and resource customization of on-premises infrastructure.

A private cloud is typically hosted on-premises in the customer’s data center. But a private cloud can also be hosted on an independent cloud provider’s infrastructure or built on rented infrastructure housed in an offsite data center.

Many companies choose private cloud over public cloud because private cloud is an easier way (or the only way) to meet their regulatory compliance requirements. Others choose private cloud because their workloads deal with confidential documents, intellectual property, personally identifiable information (PII), medical records, financial data, or other sensitive data.

By building private cloud architecture according to cloud native principles, an organization gives itself the flexibility to easily move workloads to public cloud or run them within a hybrid cloud (see below) environment whenever they’re ready.

Hybrid cloud

Hybrid cloud is just what it sounds like—a combination of public and private cloud environments. Specifically, and ideally, a hybrid cloud connects an organization’s private cloud services and public clouds into a single, flexible infrastructure for running the organization’s applications and workloads.

The goal of hybrid cloud is to establish a mix of public and private cloud resources—and with a level of orchestration between them—that gives an organization the flexibility to choose the optimal cloud for each application or workload and to move workloads freely between the two clouds as circumstances change. This enables the organization to meet its technical and business objectives more effectively and cost-efficiently than it could with public or private cloud alone.

Watch my video, “Hybrid Cloud Explained” (6:35):

Multicloud and hybrid multicloud

Multicloud is the use of two or more clouds from two or more different cloud providers. Having a multicloud environment can be as simple using email SaaS from one vendor and image editing SaaS from another. But when enterprises talk about multicloud, they’re typically talking about using multiple cloud services—including SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS services—from two or more of the leading public cloud providers. In one survey, 85% of organizations reported using multicloud environments.

Hybrid multicloud is the use of two or more public clouds together with a private cloud environment.

Organizations choose multicloud to avoid vendor lock-in, to have more services to choose from, and to access to more innovation. But the more clouds you use—each with its own set of management tools, data transmission rates, and security protocols—the more difficult it can be to manage your environment. Multicloud management platforms provide visibility across multiple provider clouds through a central dashboard, where development teams can see their projects and deployments, operations teams can keep an eye on clusters and nodes, and the cybersecurity staff can monitor for threats.

Cloud security

Traditionally, security concerns have been the primary obstacle for organizations considering cloud services, particularly public cloud services. In response to demand, however, the security offered by cloud service providers is steadily outstripping on-premises security solutions.

Nevertheless, maintaining cloud security demands different procedures and employee skillsets than in legacy IT environments. Some cloud security best practices include the following:

Cloud use cases

With 25% of organizations planning to move all their applications to cloud within the next year, it would seem that cloud computing use cases are limitless. But even for companies not planning a wholesale shift to the cloud, certain initiatives and cloud computing are a match made in IT heaven.

Disaster recovery and business continuity have always been a natural for cloud because cloud provides cost-effective redundancy to protect data against system failures and the physical distance required to recover data and applications in the event of a local outage or disaster. All of the major public cloud providers offer Disaster-Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS).

Anything that involves storing and processing huge volumes of data at high speeds—and requires more storage and computing capacity than most organizations can or want to purchase and deploy on-premises—is a target for cloud computing. Examples include:

For development teams adopting Agile or DevOps (or DevSecOps) to streamline development, cloud offers the on-demand end-user self-service that keeps operations tasks—such as spinning up development and test servers—from becoming development bottlenecks.

IBM Cloud

IBM Cloud offers the most open and secure public cloud platform for business, a next-generation hybrid multicloud platform, advanced data and AI capabilities, and deep enterprise expertise across 20 industries. IBM Cloud hybrid cloud solutions deliver flexibility and portability for both applications and data. Linux®, Kubernetes, and containers support this hybrid cloud stack, and combine with RedHat® OpenShift® to create a common platform connecting on-premises and cloud resources.

Learn how IBM Cloud solutions can help your organization with the following:

To get started, sign up for an IBM ID and create your IBM Cloud account.

About the Author

Sai Vennam is a Developer Advocate at IBM with expertise on Kubernetes, OpenShift, and managed cloud offerings. He’s passionate about connecting developers with technology that allows them to be successful. As a hobby, he works on his home automation using Raspberry Pis and serverless technology.

Twitter: @birdsaiview (link resides outside IBM)

cloud computing

Cloud computing is a general term for anything that involves delivering hosted services over the internet. These services are divided into three main categories or types of cloud computing: infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS).

A cloud can be private or public. A public cloud sells services to anyone on the internet. A private cloud is a proprietary network or a data center that supplies hosted services to a limited number of people, with certain access and permissions settings. Private or public, the goal of cloud computing is to provide easy, scalable access to computing resources and IT services.

Cloud infrastructure involves the hardware and software components required for proper implementation of a cloud computing model. Cloud computing can also be thought of as utility computing or on-demand computing.

The name cloud computing was inspired by the cloud symbol that’s often used to represent the internet in flowcharts and diagrams.

Cloud computing works by enabling client devices to access data and cloud applications over the internet from remote physical servers, databases and computers.

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An internet network connection links the front end, which includes the accessing client device, browser, network and cloud software applications, with the back end, which consists of databases, servers and computers. The back end functions as a repository, storing data that is accessed by the front end.

Communications between the front and back ends are managed by a central server. The central server relies on protocols to facilitate the exchange of data. The central server uses both software and middleware to manage connectivity between different client devices and cloud servers. Typically, there is a dedicated server for each individual application or workload.

Cloud computing relies heavily on virtualization and automation technologies. Virtualization enables the easy abstraction and provisioning of services and underlying cloud systems into logical entities that users can request and utilize. Automation and accompanying orchestration capabilities provide users with a high degree of self-service to provision resources, connect services and deploy workloads without direct intervention from the cloud provider’s IT staff.

Cloud computing can be separated into three general service delivery categories or forms of cloud computing:

Private cloud services are delivered from a business’s data center to internal users. With a private cloud, an organization builds and maintains its own underlying cloud infrastructure. This model offers the versatility and convenience of the cloud, while preserving the management, control and security common to local data centers. Internal users might or might not be billed for services through IT chargeback. Common private cloud technologies and vendors include VMware and OpenStack.

In the public cloud model, a third-party cloud service provider (CSP) delivers the cloud service over the internet. Public cloud services are sold on demand, typically by the minute or hour, though long-term commitments are available for many services. Customers only pay for the central processing unit cycles, storage or bandwidth they consume. Leading public CSPs include AWS, Microsoft Azure, IBM and Google Cloud Platform (GCP), as well as IBM, Oracle and Tencent.

A hybrid cloud is a combination of public cloud services and an on-premises private cloud, with orchestration and automation between the two. Companies can run mission-critical workloads or sensitive applications on the private cloud and use the public cloud to handle workload bursts or spikes in demand. The goal of a hybrid cloud is to create a unified, automated, scalable environment that takes advantage of all that a public cloud infrastructure can provide, while still maintaining control over mission-critical data.

The three main cloud deployment models

In addition, organizations are increasingly embracing a multi-cloud model, or the use of multiple IaaS providers. This enables applications to migrate between different cloud providers or to even operate concurrently across two or more cloud providers.

Organizations adopt multi-cloud for various reasons. For example, they could do so to minimize the risk of a cloud service outage or to take advantage of more competitive pricing from a particular provider. Multi-cloud implementation and application development can be a challenge because of the differences between cloud providers’ services and APIs.

Multi-cloud deployments should become easier, however, as providers’ services and APIs converge and become more standardized through industry initiatives such as the Open Cloud Computing Interface.

Cloud computing has been around for several decades now, and today’s cloud computing infrastructure demonstrates an array of characteristics that have brought meaningful benefits for businesses of all sizes. Some of the main characteristics of cloud computing are the following:

These characteristics support a variety of important benefits for modern business, including the following:

Despite the clear upsides to relying on cloud services, cloud computing carries its own challenges for IT professionals:

Cloud computing has evolved and diversified into a wide array of offerings and capabilities designed to suit almost any conceivable business need. Examples of cloud computing capabilities and diversity include the following:

So, how is the cloud actually used? The myriad services and capabilities found in modern public clouds have been applied across countless use cases, such as the following:

Given the many different services and capabilities of the public cloud, there has been some confusion between cloud computing and major uses, such as web hosting. While the public cloud is often used for web hosting, the two are quite different. A cloud service has three distinct characteristics that differentiate it from traditional web hosting:

The cloud service market has no shortage of providers. The three largest public CSPs that have established themselves as dominant fixtures in the industry are the following:

Other major CSPs include the following:

Though cloud services typically rely on a pay-per-use model, different providers often have variations in their pricing plans to consider. Furthermore, if the cloud provider will be storing sensitive data, physical location of the provider’s servers should also be considered.

Naturally, reliability and security should be top priorities. A provider’s service-level agreement should specify a level of service uptime that is satisfactory to client business needs. When considering different cloud vendors, close attention should be given to what technologies and configuration settings are used to secure sensitive information.

Many organizations bound by complex regulatory obligations and governance standards are still hesitant to place data or workloads in the public cloud for fear of outages, loss or theft. However, this resistance is fading, as logical isolation has proven reliable and the addition of data encryption and various identity and access management tools have improved security within the public cloud.

The history and evolution of cloud computing date back to the 1950s and 1960s.

In the 1950s, companies started to use large mainframe computers, but it was too expensive to buy a computer for each user. So, during the late 1950s and early 1960s, a process called time sharing was developed to make more efficient use of expensive processor time on the central mainframe.

Time sharing enabled users to access numerous instances of computing mainframes simultaneously, maximizing processing power and minimizing downtime. This idea represents the first use of shared computing resources, the foundation of modern cloud computing.

The origins of delivering computing resources using a global network are, for the most part, rooted in 1969 when American computer scientist J.C.R. Licklider helped create the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network, the so-called precursor to the internet. Licklider’s goal was to connect computers across the globe in a way that would enable users to access programs and information from any location.

In the 1970s, cloud computing began taking a more tangible shape with the introduction of the first VMs, enabling users to run more than one computing system within a single physical setup. The functionality of these VMs led to the concept of virtualization, which had a major influence on the progress of cloud computing.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Microsoft, Apple and IBM developed technologies that enhanced the cloud environment and advanced the use of the cloud server and server hosting. Then, in 1999, Salesforce became the first company to deliver business applications from a website.

In 2006, Amazon launched AWS, providing such services as computing and storage in the cloud. Following suit, the other major tech players, including Microsoft and Google, subsequently launched their own cloud offerings to compete with AWS.

Over 30% of enterprise IT decision-makers identified public cloud as their top priority in 2019, according to the «RightScale 2019 State of the Cloud Report.» Still, enterprise adoption of the public cloud, especially for mission-critical applications, hasn’t been happening as quickly as many experts predicted.

Today, however, organizations are more likely to migrate mission-critical workloads to public clouds. One of the reasons for this shift is that business executives who want to ensure that their companies can compete in the new world of digital transformation are demanding the public cloud.

Business leaders are also looking to the public cloud to take advantage of its elasticity, modernize internal computer systems, and empower critical business units and their DevOps teams.

Additionally, cloud providers, such as IBM and VMware, are concentrating on meeting the needs of enterprise IT, in part by removing the barriers to public cloud adoption that caused IT decision-makers to shy away from fully embracing the public cloud previously.

Cloud providers are locked in ongoing competition for cloud market share, so the public cloud continues to evolve, expand and diversify its range of services. This has led public IaaS providers to offer far more than common compute and storage instances.

With serverless computing, developers simply create code, and the cloud provider loads and executes that code in response to real-world events so users don’t have to worry about the server or instance aspect of the cloud deployment. Users only pay for the number of transactions that the function executes. AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Functions and Azure Functions are examples of serverless computing services.

Public cloud computing also lends itself well to big data processing, which demands enormous compute resources for relatively short durations. Cloud providers have responded with big data services, including Google BigQuery for large-scale data warehousing and Microsoft Azure Data Lake Analytics for processing huge data sets.

Another crop of emerging cloud technologies and services relates to AI and machine learning. These technologies provide a range of cloud-based, ready-to-use AI and machine learning services for client needs. Amazon Machine Learning, Amazon Lex, Amazon Polly, Google Cloud Machine Learning Engine and Google Cloud Speech API are examples of these services.

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