So what is it? Cloud is servers, networks, storage, development tools, applications and connectivity housed in private facilities, often undetected by the public, connected through the power of the internet. Essentially, a business owner no longer has to purchase expensive hardware or pay anyone to maintain that equipment because it can all be outsourced via state of the art data centers and co-location facilities that are abundant globally.
According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the five key attributes of cloud computing is as follows:
A Cloud gives its users the ability to plug into their systems from anywhere, on any device which can connect to the internet, even a Wi-Fi capable fridge (with some tinkering).
Instead of blanket costs, a Cloud computing environment is often pay-as-you-go, paid like a utility such as water, gas or power.
As user can request and order services online, they are taken care of fast, due to there not being a need for manual setup and configuration.
More often than not, a Cloud computing system implements a multi-tenancy model. That gives it a single application which is then shared amongst multiple users.
Scale your resources as usage levels up and down, quickly, painlessly and on the fly.
In the days before “the cloud” took over, businesses and individuals had to ensure the safety of their own data on their own hard drives and servers. For larger companies, the amount of storage this took was astronomical. Spikes in user activity on their websites would often crash them; can you imagine having a business which closes its doors every time customers want to spend cash en masse? On the flip side of that coin, writing this today, most people can’t even imagine having to keep photographs and videos of loved ones on tapes and in photobooks, as cloud saving through our cell phones has become so normal, its existence is often just assumed.
Due to Cloud technology giving people the ability to scale and adapt instantaneously. A wise man once said that with every minute organizing, an hour is earned. As the Cloud stores organizes all of your information on carefully maintained systems, there’s no surprise that research shows businesses which strategically measure their use of technology make more money.
Okay, so if Cloud technology is something we all use, most likely on a daily basis, what stores all of this information? Well, Cloud computers are broken down into four unique deployment models, public cloud, private cloud, hybrid cloud and multi-cloud. Additionally, depending on a user’s individual needs, they may be better suited with a Saas (Software as a Service), a Paas (Platform as a Service) and IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service). These considerations will determine a company’s Cloud migration strategy. Below are the basics of these categories.
Public cloud solutions allow organizations to scale at a near infinite rate, something that would not be possible in an on-premises data center. As a business grows, it doesn’t need to acquire additional hardware or maintain a sprawling network. Likewise, cloud-based services and applications require far less hardware than applications delivered in a traditional manner. In other words, users no longer have to worry about installing and updating applications on their machines. Instead, their cloud-hosted applications will always remain up to date with the latest features and security.
Financially, a public cloud strategy offers organizations a way to grow at scale without accumulating substantial costs. Providers such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure offer pay-per-usage deals which allow organizations to pay only for the resources they use. As an operational cost, public cloud services can protect an organization’s budget from high up-front capital investments.
Though public cloud hosts take security very seriously, organizations may choose to protect their data by hosting it on a privately controlled cloud. Organizations operating in heavily regulated industries, such as health care, may get the most benefit from a hybrid model. Established businesses with highly specific computational needs may also prefer a private or hybrid model for enhanced optimization of resources.
Hybrid cloud is a solution that combines a private cloud with one or more public cloud services, with proprietary software enabling communication between each distinct service. A hybrid cloud strategy provides businesses with greater flexibility by moving workloads between cloud solutions as needs and costs fluctuate.
Hybrid cloud services are powerful because they give businesses greater control over their private data. An organization can store sensitive data on a private cloud or local data center and simultaneously leverage the robust computational resources of a managed public cloud. A hybrid cloud relies on a single plane of management, unlike a multi-cloud strategy wherein admins must manage each cloud environment separately.
The private cloud is defined as computing services offered either over the Internet or a private internal network and only to select users instead of the general public. Also called an internal or corporate cloud, private cloud computing gives businesses many of the benefits of a public cloud – including self-service, scalability, and elasticity – with the additional control and customization available from dedicated resources over a computing infrastructure hosted on-premises. In addition, private clouds deliver a higher level of security and privacy through both company firewalls and internal hosting to ensure operations and sensitive data are not accessible to third-party providers. One drawback is that the company’s IT department is held responsible for the cost and accountability of managing the private cloud. So private clouds require the same staffing, management, and maintenance expenses as traditional datacenter ownership.
Multi-cloud is the use of two or more cloud computing services from any number of different cloud vendors. A multi-cloud environment could be all-private, all-public or a combination of both. Companies use multi-cloud environments to distribute computing resources and minimize the risk of downtime and data loss. They can also increase the computing power and storage available to a business. Innovations in the cloud in recent years have resulted in a move from single-user private clouds to multi-tenant public clouds and hybrid clouds — a heterogeneous environment that leverages different infrastructure environments like the private and public cloud.
If you're unfamiliar with the telecommunications world, Cloud Computing solutions may be confusing, but our experts here at Internet Nerdz are here to help. Regardless of your SMB needs, we will match you with one of our 200+ providers to ensure your ship sails smoothly all day, everyday.
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