Cloud Computing 101

Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage and computing power, without direct active management by the user.
The term is generally used to describe data centres available to many users over the Internet.
Large clouds, predominant today, often have functions distributed over multiple locations from central servers.
If the connection to the user is relatively close, it may be designated an edge server.
Clouds may be limited to a single organization (enterprise clouds), or be available to multiple organizations (public cloud).

Cloud computing relies on sharing of resources to achieve coherence and economies of scale.

Advocates of public and hybrid clouds note that cloud computing allows companies to avoid or minimize up-front IT infrastructure costs.
Proponents also claim that cloud computing allows enterprises to get their applications up and running faster, with improved manageability and less maintenance, and that it enables IT, teams, to more rapidly adjust resources to meet fluctuating and unpredictable demand, providing the burst computing capability: high computing power at certain periods of peak demand.

Cloud providers typically use a “pay-as-you-go” model, which can lead to unexpected operating expenses if administrators are not familiarized with cloud-pricing models.

The availability of high-capacity networks, low-cost computers, and storage devices as well as the widespread adoption of hardware virtualization, service-oriented architecture, and autonomic and utility computing has led to growth in cloud computing.

Types of service models

Though service-oriented architecture advocates “Everything as a service”, cloud-computing providers offer their “services” according to different models, of which the three standard models per NIST are Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS).
These models offer increasing abstraction; they are thus often portrayed as layers in a stack: infrastructure-, platform- and software-as-a-service, but these need not be related.
For example, one can provide SaaS implemented on physical machines (bare metal), without using underlying PaaS or IaaS layers, and conversely, one can run a program on IaaS and access it directly, without wrapping it as SaaS.

Software as a service
In the software as a service (SaaS) model, users gain access to application software and databases. Cloud providers manage the infrastructure and platforms that run the applications.
SaaS is sometimes referred to as “on-demand software” and is usually priced on a pay-per-use basis or using a subscription fee.
In the SaaS model, cloud providers install and operate application software in the cloud and cloud users access the software from cloud clients

Platform as a service
PaaS vendors offer a development environment to application developers. The provider typically develops a toolkit and standards for development and channels for distribution and payment.
In the PaaS models, cloud providers deliver a computing platform, typically including an operating system, programming-language execution environment, database, and web server.
Application developers will develop and run their software on a cloud platform instead of directly buying and managing the underlying hardware and software layers.
With some PaaS, the underlying computer and storage resources scale automatically to match application demand so that the cloud user does not have to allocate resources manually.

Infrastructure as a service
Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) refers to online services that provide high-level APIs used to abstract various low-level details of underlying network infrastructure like physical computing resources, location, data partitioning, scaling, security, backup, etc.
A hypervisor runs the virtual machines as guests. Pools of hypervisors within the cloud operational system can support large numbers of virtual machines and the ability to scale services up and down according to customers’ varying requirements.

Deployment models

Private cloud
A private cloud is a cloud infrastructure operated solely for a single organization, whether managed internally or by a third party and hosted either internally or externally. Undertaking a private cloud project requires significant engagement to virtualize the business environment, and requires the organization to reevaluate decisions about existing resources.

Public cloud
Cloud services are considered “public” when they are delivered over the public Internet, and they may be offered as a paid subscription, or free of charge. Architecturally, there are few differences between public- and private cloud services, but security concerns increase substantially when services (applications, storage, and other resources) are shared by multiple customers.

Hybrid cloud
A hybrid cloud is a composition of a public cloud and a private environment, such as a private cloud or on-premises resources, that remain distinct entities but are bound together, offering the benefits of multiple deployment models. Hybrid cloud can also mean the ability to connect collocation, managed, and/or dedicated services with cloud resources. Gartner defines a hybrid cloud service as a cloud computing service that is composed of a combination of private, public, and community cloud services, from different service providers. A hybrid cloud service crosses isolation and provider boundaries so that it can’t be simply put in one category of private, public, or community cloud service. It allows one to extend either the capacity or the capability of a cloud service, by aggregation, integration, or customization with another cloud service.

Conclusion
Cloud computing can speed up your business performance, data management and set you on a path to success. If you’re looking to rent a space online, you should consider either IaaS or PaaS for your storage, server and network needs. For software development or, if you simply need a cloud for specific software (CRM, Games), consider renting a SaaS service.

Do your research to find out which deployment service and model service fits your need’s the best.

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