What is cloud Service?
Cloud computing is a concept that revolves around the location of data. The location or service on which a tool is running is irrelevant to the user. A common metaphor used to describe cloud computing is that it’s a “cloud” of services.
Why use cloud service?
Rather than owning expensive hardware and data centers companies can rent access to anything from storage to applications. All you need to do is to hire space on a cloud service provider.
With cloud computing, providers can deliver the same services to a lot of people. That creates large economies of scale for the provider.
History of cloud computing
Cloud computing as a term has been around for the last 20 years, but the idea of computer rental dates back to the 1960s. During this time companies would rent access to large mainframes from bureaux rather than buy them themselves.
The concept of renting access to computing power has resurfaced many times throughout the years – in application service providers, utility computing, and grid computing. This was then followed by cloud computing, which really took hold with the emergence of software as a service and hyper-scale cloud-computing providers such as Amazon Web Services.
Examples of cloud computing
Cloud computing is the backbone of many services. This includes popular services like Gmail or the cloud backup of photos on your phone. Cloud computing also allows large enterprises to host their data and run all their HR systems and other business applications. For example, Netflix relies on cloud computing to power its video-streaming service and its other business systems, as well.
Cloud computing is becoming the default option for many apps. Software vendors are increasingly offering their applications over the Internet rather than making them self-contained products.
The Importance of the Cloud Computing
As more and more computing workloads move to the cloud, spending on traditional in-house IT decreases while spending on cloud computing infrastructure increases. And public and private clouds are growing at a significant rate as businesses take advantage of the dynamic benefits.
Therefore It’s becoming more and more clear that, with regard to business computing platforms, the cloud is the way to go.
Gartner believes that by 2025, half of total spending across the software industry will be on the cloud. It predicts that by 2025, 63% of software spending will come from application software in the cloud. And by 2022 it estimates that 41% of infrastructure software will also be using the cloud.
What are cloud computing’s core elements?
Cloud computing can involve a number of different aspects, all of which are important to the technology. Let’s take a look at some of the most notable elements and how they work together:-
Infrastructure as a Service
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) involves renting the fundamental building blocks of computing: physical or virtual servers, storage, and networking. This can be beneficial for companies that want control over all the components in their applications, but they may need to have the technical skills to orchestrate those services.
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
This refers to an integrated solution that provides computing, development, service, and data hosting on a shared system.
PaaS sits on top of infrastructure as a service. It also includes the underlying storage and networking but goes a step further by providing developers with the tools they need to work on their applications. These include middleware, database management, operating systems, and development tools.
What is multi-cloud computing?
With enterprise customers looking for more options than just cloud providers, many companies are opting to use a multi-cloud strategy. One of the main reasons for this is to avoid becoming locked into one vendor (since having too few options can lead to higher costs and inflexibility). Multi-cloud also serves a strategic purpose – it provides the best mix of technologies across industry boundaries.
The benefits of cloud computing
- Less upfront cost.
- Higher business agility.
- Easier to get started on new applications fast
- Less manpower (IT Personnel) is required as you do not need on premise set up
- You can do supercomputing on your own personal computer with the cloud.
What’s cloud security?
There is some uncertainty about the security of cloud services, but this has very little to do with the technology itself. With your existing systems exposed on a network, if you were to experience a breach of security it’s likely that the attackers will find their way onto your system. With cloud providers focusing on protecting that infrastructure with well-trained engineers, you’re safest there.
What is the difference between public and private clouds?
With public cloud computing, the provider has access to vast amounts of computing power that they share with the customer on a multi-tenant basis. The customers can scale the service easily and for varying reasons, and a significant benefit of this type of architecture is that it allows for a rapid scaling up or down in capacity.
A private cloud is a type of cloud data storage that offers a lower cost and better availability than other types of cloud storage.
Advantages of Private Cloud over Public Cloud
- Private cloud providers offer some of the same advantages as a public cloud:
- Provide good security as it is shielded behind the corporate firewall.
- Providers provide control over data location
- Offer infrastructure that can be customized to meet various needs, such as IaaS or PaaS projects.
What is a hybrid cloud service?
A hybrid cloud is a type of use case for the modern IT environment. It combines public and private resources to achieve IT agility and deliver applications from any device.
Cost migrating to the cloud
For startups that plan to run their whole business in the cloud, getting started is pretty simple. But for the majority of other big corporate companies, however, it is not so simple: with existing applications and data, they need to figure out which systems they should keep running without interruption, and which ones they should start moving over to a cloud infrastructure. This could be risky or expensive if they underestimate the complexity of the project, but migrating will cost much less if they have the right tools.
Factors to be paid attention to before migration to the cloud
- Migration architecture
- Assessment of cloud platform
- High fees for transferring data
- Shortage of skills when it came to moving their mission-critical applications
- Navigating this process is difficult and expensive
- Leaving best skills ( being acquired by cloud computing firms with deep pockets)
- Expenses
- The span of time required for migration
Is geography irrelevant to cloud computing?
In reality, the cloud does matter for the following reasons:-
Latency problem
If your application is coming from a data center on the other side of the world or on the wrong side of a congested network, it might be sluggish compared to one that is local. That’s what latency can do.
The problem with data sovereignty
This emerges when companies are forced to worry about where their data might end up. European companies are especially wary of the idea that their customer data could end up in a US-owned data center, where it might then be subject to US law enforcement requests. As a result, many providers have been expanding their own regional data center systems to ensure that every company can keep its content within its own borders.
AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud – which is best for your business?
The three largest cloud companies all have different strengths. AWS is the most established player and helped Amazon support peak demand from consumers during the holiday season. It’s been out in the market for the longest and it has bested competitors with its aggressive tactics for gaining market share. Microsoft Azure is an essential component of Microsoft’s strategy, which boasts an enterprise background and an extensive list of cloud-based products. Google Cloud is the smallest of the big three players, but Google backs it up with a great history in advertising, data storage, email service, and Android development.
These other big names on the cloud computing scene are
-Google,
-Salesforce, and
-Microsoft Azure.
Google is one of the biggest corporations in the world and provides enterprise cloud services. Beyond them, there are other big companies that want to provide enterprise cloud services, including Alibaba Cloud, IBM, Dell, and HP Enterprise. All these big companies have something in common – even if they’re a giant like Salesforce or a small startup, pretty much every company is now providing SaaS-based services.
Future of Cloud Computing
The future of cloud computing is very bright.
As more and more companies get the opportunity to save on the cloud computing they need, so many are jumping at the chance. When an organization finds itself with fewer funds than it would like, they opt to switch to the cloud as it can help them rethink business processes and accelerate business change. Some opposers might find enthusiasm for the cloud waning as the costs of making the switch add up.
While cloud computing may seem daunting, there are actually plenty of reasons to feel the opposite. Here are the big three: security, reliability, and accessibility.
As digital transformation becomes increasingly important, cloud computing services will thrive.
Conclusion
Cloud migrations are hard and there’s a lot to do before you get to the point of migrating data to the cloud. The first step is building a migration architecture for your organization. It’s responsible for defining the requirements of different departments, creating a migration strategy, and designing approaches for transferring data from on-premise environments to the cloud. There may be some disagreements about these details among IT managers, but ultimately it’s up to the architect in charge of making these decisions so that your organization can have a successful migration.