Cloud Computing, the technology making use of remote servers hosted over the Internet to keep, process, and manage the data, has gained popularity over the past few years. A study by the International Data Group pointed out that the proportion of businesses that have already set up cloud technology is roughly 69% while 18% plan to look for an IT company to implement cloud-computing solutions at some point. Such enterprises in the planning stage may have some questions related to “How can I choose the suitable cloud technology?” or “What are the benefits of this cutting-edge technology?”. So, to learn more, let’s keep reading this blog!

1. What Is Cloud Computing?

Cloud Computing can be described as an action to deliver IT services, such as servers, databases, storage, networking, software, etc over the Internet, or sometimes called “the cloud”. With cloud computing, rather than having to purchase, own and maintain a hard drive or storage tool, businesses and organizations now can easily get access to documents on a remote database, just through a gadget device with Internet connectivity. Therefore, it can be said that this seamless technology can offer faster innovation, flexible resources, and economies of scale. You have to pay only for cloud services you use, which translates into decreasing the operating costs but running the infrastructure more efficiently, and scaling as needed.

2. Different Types Of Cloud Computing Models

There are two models of cloud computing, which are deployment and service. While deployment models consist of public, private, and hybrid clouds, three different types of cloud computing services are IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS.

Different Types Of Cloud Computing Models.

a. Deployment Models

Public Cloud (eg. Google Drive, Dropbox): As the name suggests, this type of deployment model is open and available for anyone who wants to use it. Therefore, such public clouds tend to have a massive amount of space, meaning it is easy for scalability. Normally, the cloud provider would own and manage all hardware, software, and other supporting infrastructures, and the businesses can be accessible to this cloud computing through the Internet on a pay-per-use model. When utilizing this deployment model, the businesses can gain some advantages, such as deploying faster, lower costs, no maintenance, and high reliability.

Private Cloud: Private cloud infrastructure is often protected behind a firewall, and is designed and utilized exclusively for a single organization. This means that only authorized businesses and their employees can access these computing resources. As a result, security is always assured. Such businesses can feel free to control, make any changes as they see fit.

Hybrid Cloud: This is the combination of public and private clouds. It is made available by the integration of the personalized data and applications shared by both platforms. If your business finds Hybrid Cloud service providers to implement this type, you can reap the benefits of both aforementioned cloud environments.

b. Cloud Computing Services

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS): This is the most flexible service for businesses as the operating system would be highly customizable based on clients’ needs. To be more specific, the Cloud Providers, such as AWS, Rackspace, would let you rent the infrastructure ranging from storage, networks, operating systems, servers to virtual machines (VMs). Then, you would deploy code to use it. So, it can be said that IaaS is ideal for small and medium-sized organizations looking for a cost-effective IT solution to support business growth.

Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS): This service helps web creation and mobile app design easier by having an inbuilt infrastructure of servers, networks, databases, and storage that eliminates the need to constantly update or manage them. Some examples of PaaS can be Microsoft Azure, Google App Engine.

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS): The cloud provider would take charge of everything from management to maintenance and the users just need to access the cloud software applications on a pay-per-use basis. Although it is hard to demand the customization of SaaS, the clients can reduce the need for IT specialists, laborious setup, and maintenance to build their own platform. Examples of SaaS are Microsoft Teams or Gmail.  

3. How Businesses Can Gain Benefits From Cloud Computing?

a. Cost Reduction

Compared to the local servers, cloud computing is evaluated more reasonably, which is suited to not only big corporations but also small start-ups on a strict budget. As the businesses can be provided with full of hardware, software as well as deploying and maintenance process, they have the potential to save money as there are no initial infrastructure costs. Instead, they only need to pay for the amount of storage they use per month. They are not charged with any feature or any space they don’t use. Therefore, the pay-as-you-go system is a really cost-effective method for scheduled workloads. 

b. Collaboration Efficiency

Compared to the conventional method, the cloud computing models allow employees to share and access files easily and efficiently. In the past, they had to deal with a large amount of paper documentation, which could be time-consuming, hard to store and manage. By contrast, all information related to work and projects is now kept in the cloud-based platform, which facilitates all team members, clients, and third parties to view, edit and share easily and securely. It also allows you real-time collaboration so you do not have multiple versions of the same files hanging around.

c. Better Security

It is understandable why many businesses/ organizations raise security concerns when adopting cloud solutions. However, according to research, 94% of companies recorded security improvements after switching to the cloud. The security can be enhanced thanks to the encryption of data being transmitted over networks and stored in databases. When utilizing encryption, hackers or unauthorized people would have difficulty accessing your data or information. Moreover, to set clients’ minds at rest, some Cloud Services Companies also add other security measures based on their needs.

Only authorized people can access your cloud.

d. Disaster Recovery

Besides the cyber-attacks, losing important data and applications due to natural disasters or computer malfunctioning is another worrying situation for many businesses. Luckily, this cutting-edge technology can offer a speedy and economical way for such businesses to recover during a disaster. It is possible to keep a continuous data synched copy in the cloud for usage when disaster strikes. Furthermore, the Cloud Computing Service Providers always back up the data to additional remote servers in order to prevent loss or unprecedented circumstances. As a result, while 20% of cloud storage users can recover from a disaster in less than 4 hours, only 9% of non-cloud users can do the same. 

4. Final Thoughts

Thanks to the security, cost-saving, and automation that cloud infrastructure offers, there is no doubt that hundreds of organizations/ businesses/ start-ups are making the jump to this technology. 

Want to find the Top Cloud Services Provider? An IT Outsourcing Firm SotaTek can be your good choice. As an AWS Consulting Partner, SotaTek has sufficient experienced DevOps engineers to assist our global clients of all types and sizes to accelerate their journey to the cloud. We can define your Cloud roadmap, execute the migration, build, deploy and help manage the Cloud Environment with the application of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offerings. So, why not leave us a message right now to get access to Seamless Cloud Migration & Cloud Adoption?