Cloud Computing - What and Why?

Today, data is predominantly stored in hard drives of computers and servers. These hard drives and servers can process, store, and retrieve a considerable amount of data quickly and conveniently.

However, both hard drives and servers come with their limitations, and with the rate at which today’s businesses and industries are growing, the need for storage that can store and process increasingly more significant amounts of data has become a priority. This is where Cloud Computing has come to the rescue!

Before the start of Cloud Computing platforms, businesses predominantly relied on servers, databases, hardware, software, and other peripherals to take their businesses online.

What is Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of IT resources over the Internet with pay-as-you-go pricing. Instead of buying, owning, and maintaining physical data centers and servers, you can access technology services, such as computing power, storage, and databases, on an as-needed basis from a cloud provider like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google and Azure.

Benefits of Cloud Computing

Cloud platforms offer some significant benefits today, which are driving businesses to adopt Cloud Computing. Those major benefits include:

• Accessibility
• Better Security
• Speed
• Cost
• Scalability

A cloud can be private or public. A public cloud sells services to anyone on the internet. A private cloud is a proprietary network or a data center that supplies hosted services to a limited number of people, with certain access and permissions settings. Private or public, the goal of cloud computing is to provide easy, scalable access to computing resources and IT services.

Cloud Categories Based on Service Models

1. IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)

This category consists of IT infrastructure that you can rent from a cloud provider on a pay-as-you-go basis, including servers, networks, and others. The best part about this service is that you have access to the services you provisioned, and some grant you root-level access as well. 

2. PaaS (Platform as a Service)

In this model, you are supplied with a pre-built platform from the cloud providers, where you can deploy your codes and applications. You only need to manage the codes and the applications, not the infrastructure.

3. SaaS (Software as a Service)

Here, the cloud providers offer you the end product, which could be an application or software that you can buy directly on a subscription. As a part of this service, the client maintains control of the software environment but does not maintain any equipment. 

Who is using cloud computing

Organizations of every type, size, and industry are using the cloud for a wide variety of use cases, such as data backup, disaster recovery, email, virtual desktops, software development and testing. For example, healthcare companies are using the cloud to develop more personalized treatments for patients. Financial services companies are using the cloud to power real-time fraud detection and prevention. And video game makers are using the cloud to deliver online games to millions of players around the world.