You have a bright idea...Before someone touches the market with that idea, are you looking out for plugin and play services so that you can develop quality product and touch the market with jet speed?. Are you in need of computing power, storage, bandwidth—right when it is needed and from the right geographic location and in the right quantity?Then, Cloud computing may be one stop solution for your needs...
Simply put, cloud computing is the delivery of computing services—servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, intelligence and more—over the Internet (“the cloud”) to offer faster innovation, flexible resources and economies of scale. You typically pay only for cloud services you use, helping lower your operating costs, run your infrastructure more efficiently and scale as your business needs change.
I. Cloud Computing Models: There are three main models for cloud computing. Each model represents a different part of the cloud computing stack.
1. Software as a service (SaaS) allows users to connect to and use cloud-based apps over the Internet.The common examples are Google Apps, Microsoft Live meeting, Microsoft Share point online, Salesforce, Citrix GoToMeeting, Cisco WebEx etc.
SaaS allows your organisation to get quickly up and running with an app at minimal upfront cost.Using SaaS, organizations can avail complete software solution by paying on pay-as-you-go basis from cloud service provider. You rent the use of an app for your organisation and your users connect to it over the Internet, usually with a web browser. All of the underlying infrastructure, middle-ware, app software and app data are located in the service provider’s data center. The service provider manages the hardware and software and with the appropriate service agreement, will ensure the availability and the security of the app and your data as well.
2. Platform as a service (PaaS) is a cloud computing model that provides a platform allowing customers to develop, run, and manage applications without the complexity of building and maintaining the infrastructure typically associated with developing and launching an app. Examples include Microsoft Azure, Google app engine etc.
3. Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is an instant computing infrastructure, provisioned and managed over the internet. IaaS quickly scales up and down with demand, letting you pay only for what you use. It helps you avoid the expense and complexity of buying and managing your own physical servers and other datacenter infrastructure. Each resource is offered as a separate service component, and you only need to rent a particular one for as long as you need it. Amazon Web Services (AWS), Cisco Metapod, Microsoft Azure, Google Compute Engine (GCE) are some of the common examples of IaaS.
II. Deployment models of cloud computing The cloud deployment can be achieved through (1) Private cloud (2) Public cloud (3) Hybrid cloud:
III. Benefits with cloud computing:
Cost: Cloud computing eliminates the capital expense of buying hardware and software and setting up and running on-site data-centers—the racks of servers, the round-the-clock electricity for power and cooling, the IT experts for managing the infrastructure. It adds up fast.
Speed: Most cloud computing services are provided self service and on demand, so even vast amounts of computing resources can be provisioned in minutes, typically with just a few mouse clicks, giving businesses a lot of flexibility and taking the pressure off capacity planning.
Global scale: The benefits of cloud computing services include the ability to scale elastically. In cloud speak, that means delivering the right amount of IT resources—for example, more or less computing power, storage, bandwidth—right when it is needed and from the right geographic location.
Productivity: On-site data centers typically require a lot of “racking and stacking”—hardware set up, software patching and other time-consuming IT management chores. Cloud computing removes the need for many of these tasks, so IT teams can spend time on achieving more important business goals.
Performance: The biggest cloud computing services run on a worldwide network of secure data-centers, which are regularly upgraded to the latest generation of fast and efficient computing hardware. This offers several benefits over a single corporate data center, including reduced network latency for applications and greater economies of scale.
Security: Many cloud providers offer a broad set of policies, technologies and controls that strengthen your security posture overall, helping protect your data, apps and infrastructure from potential threats.
Cost: Cloud computing eliminates the capital expense of buying hardware and software and setting up and running on-site data-centers—the racks of servers, the round-the-clock electricity for power and cooling, the IT experts for managing the infrastructure. It adds up fast.
Speed: Most cloud computing services are provided self service and on demand, so even vast amounts of computing resources can be provisioned in minutes, typically with just a few mouse clicks, giving businesses a lot of flexibility and taking the pressure off capacity planning.
Global scale: The benefits of cloud computing services include the ability to scale elastically. In cloud speak, that means delivering the right amount of IT resources—for example, more or less computing power, storage, bandwidth—right when it is needed and from the right geographic location.
Productivity: On-site data centers typically require a lot of “racking and stacking”—hardware set up, software patching and other time-consuming IT management chores. Cloud computing removes the need for many of these tasks, so IT teams can spend time on achieving more important business goals.
Performance: The biggest cloud computing services run on a worldwide network of secure data-centers, which are regularly upgraded to the latest generation of fast and efficient computing hardware. This offers several benefits over a single corporate data center, including reduced network latency for applications and greater economies of scale.
Security: Many cloud providers offer a broad set of policies, technologies and controls that strengthen your security posture overall, helping protect your data, apps and infrastructure from potential threats.