SDM group4 TYIT Blog

 

 What is 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 the 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.

In the simplest terms, however, the definition of cloud computing is this:

“A distributed digital infrastructural resource that delivers hosted services by way of the internet.”

Types of Cloud Services

The dynamic effects of cloud adoption are already playing out and are most evident in the three wide-ranging and common models of cloud computing services: software-as-a-service (SaaS), infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), and platform-as-a-service (PaaS).

Another defining cloud characteristic is that the computing, storage, networking, and integration capabilities of each SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS offering are effectively owned by the vendor and delivered as a service on an on-demand, subscription basis to the customer.

These three categories are designed to be stacked on top of one another, which means they can work independently of each other or in a combination. Imagine a three-tiered pyramid with SaaS sitting on top benefiting end-users, PaaS in the middle aiding developers and serving integration requirements, and IaaS at the base assisting system administrators.

1: Software-as-a-Service (SaaS): 

Commonly referred to as the “on-demand software,” SaaS is the most implemented cloud computing service for business customers. With a wide variety of application and service types, SaaS is replacing or augmenting traditional enterprise systems including ERP, accounting, human resources management, content management systems, supply chain and inventory management, and customer relationship management (CRM) programs, among others. Since SaaS doesn’t require purchasing an expensive licensed program, users can access numerous cloud applications on an as-needed basis. According to the 2017 State of the SaaS-Powered Workplace Report, the average business has 16 SaaS applications deployed, a 33 percent jump over the previous year. For more information on SaaS, read our top SaaS FAQ roundup.

2: Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS): 

Think of PaaS as the middleman of cloud services as it sits central, linking SaaS and IaaS. This cloud service provides users with all the tools needed to create a digital platform. It features the groundwork for storage, networking, and virtual servers with software and hardware necessary to design, develop, test, implement, manage, and operate applications while integrating, analysing, and sharing data.

3: Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS): 

The IaaS layer offers essential building blocks, database storage, and a virtual platform. By building cost-saving and scalable IT solutions, the complex and expensive hardware is outsourced to a third-party cloud vendor. All these IT components are automated for customers who are able to self-provision the storage or processing power of the IaaS platforms. Vendors are also responsible for ongoing maintenance, including system upkeep, backing up data, and business steadiness.

Now that you have the basic understanding of what Cloud Computing is and its types… Let’s see how does it Work??

How does cloud computing work?

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

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.

What Kinda Models are deployed in Cloud Computing??

How an organization handles and secures business assets and needs can be reflected in how it deploys its cloud service. But cloud deployment is more than just a “private cloud vs. public cloud” debate. The rise of hybrid cloud deployment has added a whole different flavor.

1. Public Cloud

A public cloud is maintained through a third-party IaaS cloud provider. Servers, storage, and other digital resources are delivered through the internet. Since the provider absorbs all infrastructure and bandwidth costs, a customer only needs a web browser to access service and manage accounts.

Pros: Reliable service, cost-effective through economies of scale, no maintenance, elastic scalability

Cons: Often deemed unsafe for handling highly private and sensitive data; must comply with strict security regulations

2. Private Cloud

In a private cloud, cloud computing services, infrastructure, and networking are operated solely by an organization independent of other enterprises or public platforms. A private cloud can be maintained in one of two ways: A company’s data centre is physically located in-house, or a third-party vendor is paid to host everything on a private instance.

Pros: More control, customizable, scalable, flexible, secure

Cons: More expensive and maintenance (if kept on-site)

3. Hybrid Cloud

As assumed, a hybrid cloud deployment is a blend of private and public clouds. This infrastructure allows data, information, and apps to be shared and transferred interchangeably. The private side can be used for sensitive processes such as finances and data recovery, whereas the public side can run high-volume applications

Pros: Enhanced agility, accessibility, security

Cons: More maintenance, complex compatibility

Characteristics and advantages of cloud computing

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:

⦁ Self-service provisioning. End users can spin up compute resources for almost any type of workload on-demand. An end-user can provision computing capabilities, such as server time and network storage, eliminating the traditional need for IT administrators to provision and manage to compute resources.

Elasticity. Companies can freely scale up as computing needs increase and scale down again as demands decrease. This eliminates the need for massive investments in local infrastructure, which might or might not remain active.

Pay peruse. Compute resources are measured at a granular level, enabling users to pay only for the resources and workloads they use.

⦁ Workload resilience. CSPs often implement ⦁ redundant resources to ensure resilient storage and to keep users' important workloads running -- often across multiple global regions.

⦁ Migration flexibility. Organizations can move certain workloads to or from the cloud -- or to different cloud platforms -- as desired or automatically for better cost savings or to use new services as they emerge.

⦁ Broad network access. A user can access cloud data or upload data to the cloud from anywhere with an internet connection using any device.

⦁ Multi-tenancy and resource pooling. Multi-tenancy lets numerous customers share the same physical infrastructures or the same applications yet still retain privacy and security over their own data. With resource pooling, cloud providers service numerous customers from the same physical resources. The resource pools of the cloud providers should be large and flexible enough so they can service the requirements of multiple customers.

Disadvantages of cloud computing

But that’s not to say that cloud computing doesn’t have its shortcomings (technology will never be perfect, remember?) There will still be some level of downtime, albeit minimal, and there’s level of downtime, albeit minimal, and there’s always the chance of a data breach and leaky security. The disadvantages of cloud computing aren’t all doom and gloom, though. There are ways to mitigate risks.

1. Downtime 

As more companies rely on third-party cloud service vendors, these providers can become overloaded with excessive client requests and may face technical stoppage. Just like any cloud-related outage or lost internet connection, a business can come to a halt with inaccessible apps, data, and servers.

How to minimize the problem: Demand a service level agreement (SLA) from your provider guaranteeing uptimes more than 99.55 percent.

2. Security

Even the biggest and most well-known brands with the best security practices aren’t completely protected from having their data compromised. And storing important, sensitive information on external service clouds aren’t fool proof measures, either. There are always loopholes in susceptible systems, especially in public clouds where accessibility is wide open to hackers, careless users, and other vulnerabilities.

How to minimize the problem: Limit data access based on user context.

3. Limited control

The cloud offloads much traditional IT maintenance to the cloud service. However, this also leads to less control over IT process. A company’s application leader will only have access to the frontend management tooling for apps, services, and data, but not the backend infrastructure.

How to minimize the problem: Total control might not be an option on the backend, but there’s always a possibility for more visibility into how critical data is being handled by the cloud services provider.

Cloud computing examples and use cases

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:

⦁ Google Docs, Microsoft 365. Users can access Google Docs and Microsoft 365 through the internet. Users can be more productive because they can access work presentations and spreadsheets stored in the cloud at any time from anywhere on any device.

⦁ Email, Calendar, Skype, WhatsApp. Emails, calendars, Skype, and WhatsApp take advantage of the cloud's ability to provide users with access to data remotely so they can access their personal data on any device, whenever and wherever they want.

⦁ Zoom. Zoom is a cloud-based software platform for video and audio conferencing that records meetings and saves them to the cloud, enabling users to access them anywhere and at any time. Another common communication and collaboration platform is Microsoft Teams.

AWS Lambda. Lambda enables developers to run code for applications or back-end services without having to provision or manage servers. The pay-as-you-go model constantly scales with an organization to accommodate real-time changes in data usage and data storage. Other major cloud providers also support serverless computing capabilities, such as Google Cloud Functions and Azure Functions.

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:

⦁ Testing and development. Ready-made, tailored environments can expedite timelines and milestones.

⦁ Production workload hosting. Organizations are using the public cloud to host live production workloads. This requires careful design and architecture of cloud resources and services needed to create an adequate operational environment for the workload and its required level of resilience.

Big data analytics. Remote data centres through cloud storage are flexible and scalable and can provide valuable data-driven insights. Major cloud providers offer services tailored to big data projects, such as Amazon EMR and Google Cloud Dataproc.

⦁ IaaS. IaaS enables companies to host IT infrastructures and access compute, storage, and network capabilities in a scalable manner. Pay-as-you-go subscription models can help companies save on upfront IT costs.

⦁ PaaS. PaaS can help companies develop, run, and manage applications in an easier and more flexible way, at a lower cost than maintaining a platform on premises. PaaS services can also increase development speed for applications and enables higher-level programming.

Cloud computing vs. traditional web hosting

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:

⦁ Users can access large amounts of computing power on demand. It is typically sold by the minute or the hour.

⦁ It is elastic -- users can have as much or as little of a service as they want at any given time.

⦁ The service is fully managed by the provider -- the consumer needs nothing but a personal computer and internet access. Significant innovations in virtualization and distributed computing, as well as improved access to high-speed internet, have accelerated interest in cloud computing.

The International Data Corporation (IDC) estimates that already in 2018 at least half of IT spending is cloud-based and only set to grow over the coming years. In fact, it is likely that virtually all enterprises worldwide will consume some form of cloud service, signaling that inevitably most applications and enterprise information flows will be cloud-based.

The cloud will become more that than just a consumption model – it will be central to shaping business IT strategy.