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)
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, big data analytics, and customer-facing web applications. 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.
Benefits of Cloud Computing
Agility
Elasticity
Deploy in minutes
Cost Effective
Types of Cloud Computing
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): IaaS contains the basic building blocks for cloud IT. It typically provides access to networking features, computers (virtual or on dedicated hardware), and data storage space. IaaS gives you the highest level of flexibility and management control over your IT resources. It is most similar to the existing IT resources with which most of us are familiar.
Platform as a Service (PaaS): PaaS removes the need for you to manage the underlying infrastructure (usually hardware and operating systems) and allows you to focus on the deployment and management of your applications. This helps you be more efficient as you don’t need to worry about resource procurement, capacity planning, software maintenance, patching, or any of the other undifferentiated heavy lifting involved in running your application.
Software as a Serice (SaaS): SaaS provides you with a complete product that is run and managed by the service provider. In most cases, people referring to SaaS are referring to end-user applications (such as web-based email). With a SaaS offering, you don’t have to think about how the service is maintained or how the underlying infrastructure is managed. You only need to think about how you will use that particular software.
What are cloud services?
Cloud services are IT resources managed by AWS and delivered on demand over the internet. Traditionally, organizations had to purchase and configure everything from server hardware and storage systems to networking and security technologies before launching any digital system. Provisioning and managing IT infrastructure is expensive, complicated; and takes time away from innovation.
Cloud services allow anyone to access the IT infrastructure needed to build and maintain digital systems, abstracting complex infrastructure so anyone can build sophisticated applications quickly and scale globally. Running your applications on a cloud server is just the start. You can use cloud services to add artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML), real-time data analytics, and many other capabilities to your applications.
What is Azure
Azure is a leading provider in Cloud services and is a popular choice in the industry. AWS provides servers, storage, networking, remote computing, email, mobile development, and security services to customers around the world.
Locations of AWS data servers:
Image Credit: Freepik, AWS
An Article By: Pradip Timilsina (@sinapradip)