Key Takeaways for Azure Cloud Fundamentals — Cloud Models
Let’s understand the key concepts of Azure cloud computing.
What to expect in this blog?
Nearly all applications you use for professional or personal purposes use services from cloud providers e.g. Azure, Amazon etc. Anyone involved with IT applications needs to be aware of the basic concepts of the cloud and its components. In this blog, you’ll explore the different cloud models.
What is cloud computing?
Cloud computing means that either or both of the computational infrastructure and the deployed applications are accessible over the internet. There are cloud providers who offer cloud services. These providers take some responsibility for managing the cloud resources. Since you only need to pay as per your usage, the overall cost is reduced to a great extent because you don’t need to pay for maintaining the infrastructure, network, human resources etc.
Shared Responsibility Model
When you move to a cloud-based solution, the responsibility is shared between you and the cloud provider. This concept is called the Shared responsibility model. The responsibility borne by the provider can vary based on the type of cloud service you are using.
There are many factors you need to consider when moving to the cloud.
- For example, there may be existing legacy resources which cannot be moved to the cloud.
- Or there can be regulations or security reasons which prevent the movement of certain resources to the cloud.
There can be many other criteria which vary from organisation to organisation.
Three different cloud models can be followed based on your requirements
- The public cloud
- The private cloud
- The hybrid cloud.
Public Cloud
This is the most common cloud model. In this model, you use shared infrastructure which is available on a public network for other users. The infrastructure components (like network, storage, and virtual machines that are used by your application) are provided by a cloud provider and these are shared between all consumers of the public cloud.
- The public cloud is preferred if you need to move to the cloud quickly as the provider already has the infrastructure in place.
- Another advantage is that you only pay for the resources you are using and for the duration you are using.
The public cloud is also referred to as a multitenant environment.
Private Cloud
In this model, you receive the benefits of the cloud in a private environment that is dedicated to a single organisation. A private cloud can be hosted in an on-premise environment. It can also be hosted on a cloud provided by a third party or the same cloud provider. The key aspect is that the environment is dedicated and not accessible to public users.
- The primary reason for choosing a private cloud is due to privacy and regulatory concerns.
The private cloud is also referred to as a singletenant environment.
Hybrid Cloud
The hybrid cloud model mixes parts of the public and private clouds. There can be numerous scenarios. For example, you may have an application and resources located on a private cloud however you need to use services that are in the public cloud. Or you may have an application in the public cloud which needs to access information on a private cloud.
- Large organisations generally move to a hybrid model first because they have legacy resources. Gradually the legacy resources are moved to the public cloud with careful transition plans.
The hybrid cloud model has its own set of challenges.
- The data shared between the public and private cloud needs to be compatible.
- It can cause slowness due to the geographical distance between the locations of the hosted application and the data the application uses.
- Networking between private and public cloud resources is complex.
To make the hybrid cloud easier to manage, cloud providers may provide specialist tools or software. Azure provides Azure Stack which enables you to run Azure services on-premise/owned infrastructure. This way, it becomes easy to transfer the application to the cloud later, with minimal work.
Conclusion
In this blog, I hope you got some idea about below -
- Shared responsibility model
- The public cloud
- The private cloud
- The hybrid cloud
In my next blog, I’ll explain more cloud concepts.
If you have any questions related to this article, please feel free to post your comments.
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