Public Cloud

Public Cloud Computing

A public cloud is a platform that uses the standard cloud computing model to make resources -- such as virtual machines, applications or storage -- available to users remotely. Public cloud services may be free or offered through a variety of subscription or on-demand pricing schemes, including a pay-per-usage model.

The main benefits of the public cloud are as follows:

·        a reduced need for organizations to invest in and maintain their own on-premises IT resources;

·        scalability to meet workload and user demands; and

·        fewer wasted resources because customers only pay for what they use.

How does the public cloud work?

Public cloud is an alternative application development approach to traditional on-premises IT architectures. In the basic public cloud computing model, a third-party provider hosts scalable, on-demand IT resources and delivers them to users over a network connection, either over the public internet or a dedicated network.

The public cloud model encompasses many different technologies, capabilities and features. At its core, however, a public cloud consists of the following key characteristics::

·        on-demand computing and self-service provisioning;

·        resource pooling;

·        scalability and rapid elasticity;

·        pay-per use pricing;

·        measured service;

·        resiliency and availability;

·        security; and

·        broad network access.

The public cloud provider supplies the infrastructure needed to host and deploy workloads in the cloud. It also offers tools and services to help customers manage cloud applications, such as data storage, security and monitoring.

When selecting a provider, organizations can opt for a large, general-use provider. General cloud providers offer broad availability and integration options and are desirable for multipurpose cloud needs. Niche providers offer more customization.

Migration

Myriad factors drive businesses to migrate from on-premises facilities to the public cloud. For example, some organizations require support for more diverse workload types that data centers can't provide. Cost considerations, less overhead maintenance and redundancy are other common reasons.

After choosing a provider, the IT team must select a cloud migration method to move data into the provider's cloud. Offline migration requires IT teams to copy local data onto a portable device and physically transfer that hardware to the cloud provider. Online data migration occurs via network connection over the public internet or a cloud provider's networking service.

When the amount of data to transfer is significant, offline migration is typically faster and less expensive. Online migration is a good fit for organizations that won't move high volumes of data.

Organizations also onboard existing on-premises applications into the cloud, and there are a few approaches to consider. A lift-and-shift method moves the application to the cloud as is, without any redesign. This approach is fast, but is prone to complications -- the application may not perform properly within cloud architecture and may cost more than if it remained on premises. Alternatively, IT teams can refactor on-premises applications ahead of the migration. Refactoring takes more time and planning, but this method ensures that the application will function effectively in the cloud. Another option is to rebuild entirely as a cloud-native application.

Whichever strategy you choose, there are a range of cloud-native and third-party migration tools to help you manage the move to the public cloud.

Public cloud architecture

A public cloud is a fully virtualized environment that relies on high-bandwidth network connectivity to transmit data. Providers have a multi-tenant architecture that enables users -- or tenants -- to run workloads on shared infrastructure and use the same computing resources. A tenant's data in the public cloud is logically separated and remains isolated from the data of other tenants.

Providers operate cloud services in logically isolated locations within public cloud regions. These locations, called availability zones, typically consist of two or more connected, highly available physical data centers. Cloud resources can be replicated across multiple availability zones for redundancy and protection against outages.

Public cloud architecture can be further categorized by service model. These are the three most common service models:

·        Infrastructure as a service (IaaS), in which a third-party provider hosts infrastructure components, such as servers and storage, as well as a virtualization layer. The IaaS provider offers virtualized computing resources, such as VMs, over the internet or through dedicated connections.

       Article: ( https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/infrastructure-service-iaas-james-mwangi)

·        Platform as a service (PaaS), in which a third-party provider delivers hardware and software tools -- usually those needed for application development, including operating systems -- to its users as a service.

 Article: (https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/platform-as-a-service-paas-james-mwangi/ )

·        Software as a service (SaaS), in which a third-party provider hosts applications and makes them available to customers over the internet.

The service model determines how much control the user has over certain aspects of the cloud. For example, in IaaS deployments, cloud customers create virtual machines, install operating systems and manage cloud networking configurations. But in PaaS and SaaS models, the cloud networking architecture is fully managed by the provider.

In addition to the three main service models, a Function as a Service (FaaS) model further abstracts cloud infrastructure and resources. This is particularly useful for customers that create microservices. It is based on servelesss computing, a mechanism that breaks workloads into small, event-driven resource components, and runs the code without the need to deliberately create and manage virtual machines. This enables organizations to execute code-based tasks on demand when trigged; the components exist only for as long as the assigned task runs. In this model, the provider handles the underlying server maintenance.

Organizations can also opt for a storage as a service provider (details to be shared on my Linked articles) in the public cloud. The provider delivers a storage platform with offerings such bare-metal storage capacity, storage object and storage applications, such as backup and archiving.

Benefits and challenges of public cloud computing

Benefits

The cloud has many advantages over on-premises IT:

·        Access to new technologies. Organizations that use large cloud providers get early and instant access to the IT industry's latest technologies, ranging from automatically updated applications to machine learning and AI. Many cloud customers lack the resources to obtain such access on their own.

·        Virtually unlimited scalability. Cloud capacity and resources rapidly expand to meet user demands and traffic spikes. Public cloud users also achieve greater redundancy and high availability due to the providers' various, logically separated cloud locations. In addition to redundancy and availability, public cloud users receive faster connectivity between cloud services and end-users via their provider's network interfaces -- though bandwidth and latency issues are still common.

• Flexibility. The flexible and scalable nature of public cloud storage enables users to store high volumes of data and access them easily. Many organizations rely on the cloud for disaster recovery (Article https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/disaster-recovery-cloud-james-mwangi ), to back up data and applications in case of emergency or outage. It's tempting to store all data indefinitely, but users should set up a data retention policy that regularly deletes old data from storage to avoid long-term storage costs and to maintain privacy.
• Analytics. Organizations should gather useful metrics on the data they store and resources they use. Doing so presents another benefit -- cloud data analytics

Article: ( https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/cloud-analytics-james-mwangi ). Public cloud services can perform analytics on high volumes and accommodate a variety of data types to present business insights.

Other public cloud benefits include access to the provider's reliable infrastructure and the abstraction of overhead management tasks. These enable IT staff to focus on tasks that are more important to the business, such as writing code for applications.

For more details on Public Cloud Computing write to [email protected]

#Committed to People. Committed to the Future ........ www.angani.co