Different Types of Cloud Service Models
Oleksandr Andrieiev
Digital Health | CEO & Сo-founder at Jelvix | Powering Business Growth through Technology | My content presents the resolution to your business challenges
Cloud services have been among the most popular platforms lately, with companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Google leading the way for technology growth. Instead of relying on their servers, companies prefer outsourcing their storage to trusted providers, passing over the responsibility for supporting the infrastructure and assuring security.
Let’s take a brief look at the statistics of the cloud computing market to see its latest trends:
The trust of the number of businesses in cloud service is rapidly increasing. We are looking at the future where the majority of companies will be using cloud providers regularly. If you are considering switching over to cloud infrastructure instead of maintaining the local network, this guide is for you.
We’ll talk about the benefits of using cloud, types of services, choice criteria, and examine the best cloud service providers.
What is cloud computing?
The definition of cloud computing is the system of computer resources, infrastructure, computing power, and data storage that are available on-demand without user involvement. The technical aspects of the service are fully managed by the provider. The data is made accessible to multiple users via an online service. To access the information, a user needs to log in to a personal account.
Why consider cloud computing?
Over the years, business owners received tangible proof of cloud multiple benefits — and the statistics serve excellent evidence. Let’s see what these advantages that managed to attract millions of users all over the world are and how they apply to your business.
Types of cloud computing
Cloud computing offers three distinct types of deployment based on the availability of the data centers and the way these deployments relate to enterprise business needs.
What is a public cloud?
The provider of cloud computing enables users to access the infrastructure via an online service with no privacy constraints. Users are not responsible for providing servers, infrastructure, and bandwidth – this is entirely the scope of the provider.
Users pay only for used features and can change their subscription plans at any given moment. Public cloud computing services are easy to use and navigate; they are highly scalable and accessible.
However, business owners don’t sign SLA agreements with the provider but have to rely on general service guidelines and Terms of Use. If you store? sensitive information, it’s impossible to negotiate the implementation of extra security levels or receive a personalized offer.
What is a private cloud?
A private cloud is created and managed by the enterprise for secure data storage and management. The company acquires several remote data centers all over the world, connects them to devices, and is fully responsible for data encryption and server maintenance.
In this scenario, the company doesn’t need to give data away to a third-party provider. An in-house team can manage asset security, increase operations speed, add new functionality, and scale according to the organization’s needs.
However, a private cloud requires a lot of initial investments: the company needs to acquire server space, hardware, employ a team of experienced cloud developers and testers and, and ensure data security. The main advantage of the method is that confidential data is stored within the company with no intermediaries.
What is a hybrid cloud?
As the name suggests, this type is the combination of private and public solutions. Businesses use a public cloud to store data for everyday operations, high-volume tasks like software development or maintenance. A private cloud is kept for confidential data and backups, which allows you to use less in-house storage space and use the small team for its maintenance.
Companies can benefit from the expertise of the third-party provider while still keeping control over crucial data. However, the business still needs to invest in in-house infrastructure, since private cloud, even if it’s less scaled, has to be supported with local resources.
How to pick a cloud service model?
Cloud computing is a general term used to identify online delivery of data storage, processing, analytics, and other services, online without being dependent on local hardware. The businesses connect to the provider and use third-party services to enable their computing operations.
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Further, cloud services can be distinguished based on their business model, functionality, and billing systems. Let’s take a look at the main types of cloud-based services and examine their features and differences.
Software as a Service
Software as a Service, also known as SaaS, is essentially a web platform that provides users access to cloud computing on a subscription basis. Instead of purchasing the solution one time, as if it would be a product, the software is delivered continuously — like a service.
SaaS services provide companies with data storage and management features. Often, these are services for process automation, marketing, collaboration, and data organization. Development environments can also be done as SaaS — software developers receive access to the platform where they can build, test, and deploy a product, configure its functionality and interface with built-in tools and templates.
Examples of SaaS:
Infrastructure as a service
IaaS provides businesses with ready-to-use IT infrastructure: development environment, private networks, secure data storage, instruments for software development and testing, functionality monitoring, etc. The enterprises don’t need to build and secure their own IT infrastructure — they fully power the development process with third-party servers and cloud backup storage.
Examples of IaaS:
Platform as a Service
Platform as a Service is software that provides access to development tools, APIs, and deployment instruments. Users receive access to virtual development environments and Cloud storage, where they can build, test, and run applications.
In PaaS, users are billed only for the platforms that they use for the time when the services were used. There is no need to pay for excessive functionality, like in desktop solutions.
Examples of PaaS:
Functions as a service
In FaaS, developers can break down the functionality of their software into individual features and edit them one by one. This additional abstraction level facilitates app development and maintenance.
Software engineers can isolate an individual feature and make changes without affecting the rest of the functionality. Narrowing the work scope down to functional code block makes development easier and faster, especially for complex projects.
With FaaS, developers are only responsible for the code. The provider will enable access to app container, language runtime, operating system, and hardware, providing a universal virtual development environment.
Examples of FaaS:
Criteria for choosing the best cloud service provider
The first step in switching to cloud computing is determining what kind of cloud services you could be interested in — we already reviewed the most common types and considered the most prominent real-life examples. As you can see, many services offer similar functionality, so choosing a single one can be overwhelming.
If you want to know the criteria for choosing the best cloud service provider, check out the full article on the Jelvix blog.
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