What is Cloud Computing
cloud computing is the delivery of computing services—servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics and more—over the Internet (“the cloud”). Companies offering these computing services are called cloud providers and typically charge for cloud computing services based on usage, similar to how you are billed for water or electricity at home.
Uses of
cloud computing
You
are probably using cloud computing right now, even if you don’t realise it. If
you use an online service to send email, edit documents, watch movies or TV,
listen to music, play games or store pictures and other files, it is likely
that cloud computing is making it all possible behind the scenes. The first
cloud computing services are barely a decade old, but already a variety of
organisations—from tiny startups to global corporations, government agencies to
non-profits—are embracing the technology for all sorts of reasons. Here are a few
of the things you can do with the cloud:
- · Create new apps and services
- · Store, back up and recover data
- · Host websites and blogs
- · Stream audio and video
- · Deliver software on demand
- · Analyse data for patterns and make predictions
Top
benefits of cloud computing
Cloud computing is a big shift from the traditional way
businesses think about IT resources. What is it about cloud computing? Why is
cloud computing so popular? Here are 6 common reasons organisations are turning
to cloud computing services:
1. Cost
Cloud computing eliminates the capital expense of buying
hardware and software and setting up and running on-site datacenters—the racks
of servers, the round-the-clock electricity for power and cooling, the IT
experts for managing the infrastructure. It adds up fast.
2.
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.
3.
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 its needed and from the right geographic location.
4.
Productivity
On-site datacenters 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.
5.
Performance
The biggest cloud computing services run on a worldwide network
of secure datacenters, which are regularly upgraded to the latest generation of
fast and efficient computing hardware. This offers several benefits over a
single corporate datacenter, including reduced network latency for applications
and greater economies of scale.
6.
Reliability
Cloud computing makes data backup, disaster recovery and
business continuity easier and less expensive, because data can be mirrored at
multiple redundant sites on the cloud provider’s network.
SAAS: SOFTWARE
AS A SERVICE
Cloud application services, or Software as a Service (SaaS),
represent the largest cloud market and are still growing quickly. SaaS uses the
web to deliver applications that are managed by a third-party vendor and whose
interface is accessed on the clients’ side. Most SaaS applications can be run
directly from a web browser without any downloads or installations required,
although some require plugins.
Because of the web delivery model, SaaS eliminates the need to
install and run applications on individual computers. With SaaS, it’s easy for enterprises
to streamline their maintenance and support, because everything can
be managed by vendors: applications, runtime, data, middleware, OSes,
virtualization, servers, storage and networking.
Popular SaaS offering types include email and collaboration,
customer relationship management, and healthcare-related applications. Some
large enterprises that are not traditionally thought of as software vendors
have started building SaaS as an additional source of revenue in order to gain
a competitive advantage.
SaaS Examples: Google Apps, Salesforce,
Workday, Concur, Citrix GoToMeeting, Cisco WebEx
Common SaaS Use-Case: Replaces traditional on-device software
Technology Analyst Examples: Bill Pray (Gartner), Amy DeMartine (Forrester)
Common SaaS Use-Case: Replaces traditional on-device software
Technology Analyst Examples: Bill Pray (Gartner), Amy DeMartine (Forrester)
Cloud platform services, or Platform as a Service (PaaS), are
used for applications, and other development, while providing cloud components
to software. What developers gain with PaaS is a framework they can build upon
to develop or customize applications. PaaS makes the development, testing, and
deployment of applications quick, simple, and cost-effective. With this
technology, enterprise operations, or a third-party provider, can manage OSes,
virtualization, servers, storage, networking, and the PaaS software itself.
Developers, however, manage the applications.
Enterprise PaaS provides line-of-business software developers a
self-service portal for managing computing infrastructure from centralized IT
operations and the platforms that are installed on top of the hardware. The
enterprise PaaS can be delivered through a hybrid model that uses both public
IaaS and on-premise infrastructure or as a pure private PaaS that only uses the
latter.
Similar to the way in which you might create macros in Excel,
PaaS allows you to create applications using software components that are built
into the PaaS (middleware). Applications using PaaS inherit cloud
characteristic such as scalability, high-availability, multi-tenancy, SaaS
enablement, and more. Enterprises benefit from PaaS because it reduces the
amount of coding necessary, automates business policy, and helps migrate apps
to hybrid model. For the needs of enterprises and other organizations, Apprenda is
one provider of a private cloud PaaS for .NET and Java.
Enterprise PaaS Examples: Apprenda
Common PaaS Use-Case: Increases developer productivity and utilization rates while also decreasing an application’s time-to-market
Technology Analyst Examples: Richard Watson (Gartner), Eric Knipp (Gartner), Yefim Natis (Gartner), Stefan Ried (Forrester), John Rymer (Forrester)
Common PaaS Use-Case: Increases developer productivity and utilization rates while also decreasing an application’s time-to-market
Technology Analyst Examples: Richard Watson (Gartner), Eric Knipp (Gartner), Yefim Natis (Gartner), Stefan Ried (Forrester), John Rymer (Forrester)
Cloud infrastructure services, known as Infrastructure as a
Service (IaaS), are self-service models for accessing, monitoring, and managing
remote datacenter infrastructures, such as compute (virtualized or bare metal),
storage, networking, and networking services (e.g. firewalls). Instead of
having to purchase hardware outright, users can purchase IaaS based on
consumption, similar to electricity or other utility billing.
Compared to SaaS and PaaS, IaaS
users are responsible for managing applications, data, runtime, middleware, and
OSes. Providers still manage virtualization, servers, hard drives, storage, and
networking. Many IaaS providers now offer databases, messaging queues, and
other services above the virtualization layer as well. Some tech analysts draw
a distinction here and use the IaaS+ moniker for these other options. What
users gain with IaaS is infrastructure on top of which they can install any
required platform. Users are responsible for updating these if new versions are
released.
IaaS Examples: Amazon Web Services
(AWS), Cisco Metapod, Microsoft Azure, Google Compute Engine (GCE), Joyent
Common IaaS Use-Case: Extends current data center infrastructure for temporary workloads (e.g. increased Christmas holiday site traffic)
Technology Analyst Examples: Kyle Hilgendorf (Gartner), Drue Reeves (Gartner), Lydia Leong (Gartner), Doug Toombs (Gartner), Gregor Petri (Gartner EU), Tiny Haynes (Gartner EU), Jeffery Hammond (Forrester), James Staten (Forrester)
Common IaaS Use-Case: Extends current data center infrastructure for temporary workloads (e.g. increased Christmas holiday site traffic)
Technology Analyst Examples: Kyle Hilgendorf (Gartner), Drue Reeves (Gartner), Lydia Leong (Gartner), Doug Toombs (Gartner), Gregor Petri (Gartner EU), Tiny Haynes (Gartner EU), Jeffery Hammond (Forrester), James Staten (Forrester)
Very nice explainaton...keep posting such a helpful article...
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