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Cloud Computing Categories, Types and Benefits
People are constantly trying to find new ways to store and access their data as safely and quickly as possible. While some use external hard drives to keep copies of their data, businesses have much greater needs, so they'll often utilize the safe and affordable services which are provided by cloud computing companies to store dozens, and sometimes even hundreds of terabytes of data.
Cloud computing may refer to a network of computer servers which exist in a data center and can be accessed over the Internet to store and retrieve data. Additionally, some cloud computing services providers may sell packages which offer extra features, including access to dedicated software, database creation and maintenance, and so on.
Key Article Points
- Public clouds allow anyone to store and access data
- Private clouds are owned exclusively by organizations
- Hybrid clouds use a mixture of public and private clouds
While there is a wide variety of cloud computing categories, most industry experts use two main ways to differentiate them.
1) Based on deployment, there are:
- Public clouds, which allow people to store and access data over the Internet. With public clouds, any person who has the proper credentials can access the desired data and/or applications. People who have a Yahoo or Gmail account use public cloud email services, for example. Additionally, several companies such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon offer public cloud services to developers, who can create and deploy various web-based applications.
- Private clouds are owned exclusively by organizations, or these services may be rented from cloud service providers. The main difference is data privacy; only the devices that are clients of a private network will have access to the company data. With private clouds, companies can be sure that their confidential information will never be exposed to other parties.
- Hybrid cloud services are created for people and businesses which need to use a mixture of public and private clouds. Those who choose these solutions have some data that can (and should) be made available to the public, while keeping some data private.
2) Based on the provided services, the cloud services offer includes:
- Infrastructure as a Services (IaaS), which allows people to rent infrastructure such as servers, networks, and so on, and then use it to create various IT projects. Since subscriptions utilize the pay-as-you-go model, anyone can afford services such as Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud.
- Platform as a Services (PaaS) offers one or more pre-built virtual servers which allow developers to deploy their projects. This helps people save time, allowing them to focus their efforts on developing software, rather than wasting time patching servers, applications, and so on.
- Software as a Service (SaaS) gives individuals and companies access to software that can be rented by paying a weekly, monthly or yearly subscription. According to the license agreement, the client has full access to the cloud-based application, but he or she doesn't own it.
With cloud computing, individuals and companies have access to platforms that provide several important benefits. Businesses used to build their own servers in the past, and the costs of supporting them were quite high. Cloud providers offer improved performance and servers that are always up to date, while minimizing maintenance costs.
Not only that, but cloud-based services are always easily scalable. Organizations which rely on seasonal sales, such as travel agencies, will appreciate the convenience which arises from paying a much lower hosting bill when the season has ended.
Cloud computing companies take data security seriously. While your IT guy may forget (or may be too lazy) to keep the servers patched at all times, cloud service providers use "improved security" as one of their key selling points to attract new clients.
Most organizations have already moved their data to the cloud, or they are preparing for the move. Better data storage and reliability, easy resource scalability and a great variety of additional services are just a few of the advantages that arise from using cloud-based technologies for business.