Cloud Computing
Cloud Computing is the method of delivery of computing services over the internet. These computing services include storage, servers, databases, software, analytics and more. Cloud Computing is an information technology paradigm that enables us to access shared computing sources with minimal management effort. By the help of Cloud Computing, we can use computing resources online over the internet without investing money in building and maintaining computing infrastructure. In this way, Cloud Computing enables organizations to focus on their core business instead of making effort in building high-level computer infrastructure. Another great benefit of Cloud Computing is, it provides “pay-as-you-go” or “pay-per-use” model means you need to pay only for the resources you have used. It reduces your operating expenses.
History
The phrase Cloud Computing firstly appeared in 1996 (mentioned in a Compaq internal document). Later on, the term was popularized in 2006 as amazon.com released its Elastic Cloud Computing platform “Amazon web services”. In early 1993 the term cloud was used to refer to a network of distributed computing.
Benefits
The rise of Cloud Computing has offered organizations and individuals a number of benefits including the ability to access any software or resources on any device without having to install it on your local device. Here are some of the top benefits.
- Flexibility
One of the major benefits is the scalability. If your business needs increase, it’s easy to scale your cloud resources from remote servers. Hence, Cloud Computing is ideal for businesses with growing demands for resources. - Cost
It reduces the capital cost of building and maintaining computing infrastructure. You can easily access any resource via cloud without having to run on-site data centers and hire TI experts for managing this large infrastructure. - Productivity
On-site traditional computing infrastructure requires a lot of hardware setup and time-consuming infrastructure management. It increases your productivity by removing these time-consuming tasks and enables organizations to focus on their core business. - Performance
Most of the cloud service providers regularly upgrade the services to the latest generation in order to boost the performance and provide fast and efficient computing services. This increases the productivity of organizations who share it’s resources. - Pay-per-Use
Another great benefit is,the providers offer you “pay-as-you-go” based services means you only have to pay for the services you use. This reduces the management cost of organizations. - Security
It gives you a better security because the data is stored in the cloud, you can access your data and resources from anywhere even if you’ve lost your laptop. And also you can easily delete your personal data from your lost machine so that no one can access it. - Work from anywhere
If you have an internet connection and a laptop in your hand, you can work from any location by accessing cloud resources over the internet. Cloud services are also offering mobile application so that you can also access resources on your smartphone.
Type of services
Generally, It services fall into three categories i.e. IaaS (infrastructure as a service), PaaS (platform as a service), and SaaS (Software as a service). These three Cloud Computing services are sometimes called the Cloud Computing stack because they build a stack as they sit on top of one another. Here’s an overview of these three services.
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Infrastructure as a service is one of the main categories of services. It provides virtualized computing resources such as virtual machines, storage, networks, and operating systems to individuals or an organization from a cloud provider.
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Platform as a service is a category of service that provides the platform for developers to build applications and services over the internet. PaaS provides the on-demand development environment for developing, testing, and managing software applications.
Software as a Service (SaaS)
Software as a service is a category of it’s services that provides on-demand software application over the internet. Cloud providers host and manage software application and allow their users to connect to the application and access the application over the internet.
