What is the cloud? | Everything need to know
What is the cloud?
"The cloud" refers to servers that are accessed over the Internet, and the software and databases that run on those servers. Cloud servers are located in data centers all over the world. By using cloud computing, users and companies do not have to manage physical servers themselves or run software applications on their own machines.
For businesses, switching to cloud computing removes some IT costs and overhead: for instance, they no longer need to update and maintain their own servers, as the cloud vendor they are using will do that. This especially makes an impact for small businesses that may not have been able to afford their own internal infrastructure but can outsource their infrastructure needs affordably via the cloud. The cloud can also make it easier for companies to operate internationally, because employees and customers can access the same files and applications from any location.
What is cloud computing?
Cloud computing is the delivery of computing services over the internet. Computing services include common IT infrastructure such as virtual machines, storage, databases, and networking. Cloud services also expand the traditional IT offerings to include things like Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning (ML), and artificial intelligence (AI).
Because cloud computing uses the internet to deliver these services, it doesn’t have to be constrained by physical infrastructure the same way that a traditional datacenter is. That means if you need to increase your IT infrastructure rapidly, you don’t have to wait to build a new datacenter—you can use the cloud to rapidly expand your IT footprint.
How does cloud computing work?
Cloud computing works by enabling client devices to access data and cloud applications over the internet from remote physical servers, databases and computers.
An internet network connection links the front end, which includes the accessing client device, browser, network and cloud software applications, with the back end, which consists of databases, servers and computers. The back end functions as a repository, storing data that is accessed by the front end.
Communications between the front and back ends are managed by a central server. The central server relies on protocols to facilitate the exchange of data. The central server uses both software and middleware to manage connectivity between different client devices and cloud servers. Typically, there is a dedicated server for each individual application or workload.
Cloud computing relies heavily on virtualization and automation technologies. Virtualization enables the easy abstraction and provisioning of services and underlying cloud systems into logical entities that users can request and utilize. Automation and accompanying orchestration capabilities provide users with a high degree of self-service to provision resources, connect services and deploy workloads without direct intervention from the cloud provider's IT staff.
What are the different types of cloud computing services?
IaaS:
IaaS providers, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), supply a virtual server instance and storage, as well as application programming interfaces (APIs) that let users migrate workloads to a virtual machine (VM). Users have an allocated storage capacity and can start, stop, access and configure the VM and storage as desired. IaaS providers offer small, medium, large, extra-large, and memory- or compute-optimized instances, in addition to enabling customization of instances, for various workload needs. The IaaS cloud model is closest to a remote data center for business users.
PaaS:
In the PaaS model, cloud providers host development tools on their infrastructures. Users access these tools over the internet using APIs, web portals or gateway software. PaaS is used for general software development, and many PaaS providers host the software after it's developed. Common PaaS products include Salesforce's Lightning Platform, AWS Elastic Beanstalk and Google App Engine.
SaaS:
SaaS is a distribution model that delivers software applications over the internet; these applications are often called web services. Users can access SaaS applications and services from any location using a computer or mobile device that has internet access. In the SaaS model, users gain access to application software and databases. One common example of a SaaS application is Microsoft 365 for productivity and email services.
What are Cloud computing deployment models ?
Private cloud services are delivered from a business's data center to internal users. With a private cloud, an organization builds and maintains its own underlying cloud infrastructure. This model offers the versatility and convenience of the cloud, while preserving the management, control and security common to local data centers. Internal users might or might not be billed for services through IT chargeback. Common private cloud technologies and vendors include VMware and OpenStack.
Public cloud :
In the public cloud model, a third-party cloud service provider (CSP) delivers the cloud service over the internet. Public cloud services are sold on demand, typically by the minute or hour, though long-term commitments are available for many services. Customers only pay for the central processing unit cycles, storage or bandwidth they consume. Leading public CSPs include AWS, Microsoft Azure, IBM and Google Cloud Platform (GCP), as well as IBM, Oracle and Tencent.
Hybrid cloud :
A hybrid cloud is a combination of public cloud services and an on-premises private cloud, with orchestration and automation between the two. Companies can run mission-critical workloads or sensitive applications on the private cloud and use the public cloud to handle workload bursts or spikes in demand. The goal of a hybrid cloud is to create a unified, automated, scalable environment that takes advantage of all that a public cloud infrastructure can provide, while still maintaining control over mission-critical data.
In addition, organizations are increasingly embracing a multi-cloud model, or the use of multiple IaaS providers. This enables applications to migrate between different cloud providers or to even operate concurrently across two or more cloud providers.
Organizations adopt multi-cloud for various reasons. For example, they could do so to minimize the risk of a cloud service outage or to take advantage of more competitive pricing from a particular provider. Multi-cloud implementation and application development can be a challenge because of the differences between cloud providers' services and APIs.
Multi-cloud deployments should become easier, however, as providers' services and APIs converge and become more standardized through industry initiatives such as the Open Cloud Computing Interface.
A community cloud, which is shared by several organizations, supports a particular community that shares the same concerns -- e.g., the same mission, policy, security requirements and compliance considerations. A community cloud is either managed by these organizations or a third-party vendor and can be on or off premises.
What about containers? Are containers IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, or FaaS?
Like virtual machines, containers are a cloud virtualization technology. They are part of the PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) cloud model. Virtualization for containers occurs one abstraction layer up from where it occurs for virtual machines, at the operating system level instead of at the kernel level (the kernel is the foundation of the operating system, and it interacts with the computer's hardware). Each virtual machine has its own operating system kernel, but containers on the same machine share the same kernel.
What are Characteristics of cloud computing ?
Cloud computing has been around for several decades now, and today's cloud computing infrastructure demonstrates an array of characteristics that have brought meaningful benefits for businesses of all sizes. Some of the main characteristics of cloud computing are the following:
Self-service provisioning.
End users can spin up compute resources for almost any type of workload on demand. An end user can provision computing capabilities, such as server time and network storage, eliminating the traditional need for IT administrators to provision and manage compute resources.
Multi-tenancy and resource pooling.
Multi-tenancy lets numerous customers share the same physical infrastructures or the same applications yet still retain privacy and security over their own data. With resource pooling, cloud providers service numerous customers from the same physical resources. The resource pools of the cloud providers should be large and flexible enough so they can service the requirements of multiple customers.
Elasticity.
Companies can freely scale up as computing needs increase and scale down again as demands decrease. This eliminates the need for massive investments in local infrastructure, which might or might not remain active.
Pay per use.
Cloud computing provides a pay-as-you-go or consumption-based pricing model. Rather than paying upfront for a pre-defined amount of computing resources or hardware, you can rent hardware and pay for the resources that you actually use. This consumption-based model brings with it many benefits, including:
• No upfront costs
• No need to purchase and manage costly infrastructure that you may not use to its fullest
• The ability to pay for additional resources only when they are needed
• The ability to stop paying for resources that are no longer needed
Renting infrastructure also allows for better cost prediction.
Measured service
Measuring cloud service usage is useful for both a cloud provider and its customers. The provider and the customer monitor and report on the use of resources and services, such as VMs, storage, processing and bandwidth. That data is used to calculate the customer's consumption of cloud resources and feeds into the pay-per-use model. The cloud provider, meanwhile, can better understand how customers utilize its resources and potentially improve the infrastructure and cloud computing services offered
Workload resilience.
CSPs often implement redundant resources to ensure resilient storage and to keep users' important workloads running -- often across multiple global regions.
Migration flexibility.
Organizations can move certain workloads to or from the cloud -- or to different cloud platforms -- as desired or automatically for better cost savings or to use new services as they emerge.
Broad network access.
A user can access cloud data or upload data to the cloud from anywhere with an internet connection using any device.
Global
Cloud providers have fully redundant datacenters located in various regions all over the globe. This gives you a local presence close to your customers to give them the best response time possible no matter where in the world they are.
You can replicate your services into multiple regions for redundancy and locality, or select a specific region to ensure you meet data-residency and compliance laws for your customers.
Secure
Cloud providers offer a broad set of policies, technologies, controls, and expert technical skills that can provide better security than most organizations can otherwise achieve. The result is strengthened security, which helps to protect data, apps, and infrastructure from potential threats.
These characteristics support a variety of important benefits for modern business, including the following:
Cost management.
Using cloud infrastructure can reduce capital costs, as organizations don't have to spend massive amounts of money buying and maintaining equipment. This reduces their capital expenditure costs -- as they don't have to invest in hardware, facilities, utilities or building large data centers to accommodate their growing businesses. Additionally, companies don't need large IT teams to handle cloud data center operations because they can rely on the expertise of their cloud providers' teams. Cloud computing also cuts costs related to downtime. Since downtime rarely happens in cloud computing, companies don't have to spend time and money to fix any issues that might be related to downtime.
Data and workload mobility.
Storing information in the cloud means that users can access it from anywhere with any device with just an internet connection. That means users don't have to carry around USB drives, an external hard drive or multiple CDs to access their data. Users can access corporate data via smartphones and other mobile devices, enabling remote employees to stay up to date with co-workers and customers. End users can easily process, store, retrieve and recover resources in the cloud. In addition, cloud vendors provide all the upgrades and updates automatically, saving time and effort.
Business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR).
All organizations worry about data loss. Storing data in the cloud guarantees that users can always access their data even if their devices, e.g., laptops or smartphones, are inoperable. With cloud-based services, organizations can quickly recover their data in the event of emergencies, such as natural disasters or power outages. This benefits BCDR and helps ensure that workloads and data are available even if the business suffers damage or disruption.
Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) VS Operation Expenditure (OPEX)...
These two approaches to investment are referred to as capital expenditure and operational expenditure
Capital Expenditure (CapEx):
CapEx is the spending of money on physical infrastructure up front, and then deducting that expense from your tax bill over time. CapEx is an upfront cost, which has a value that reduces over time.
Operational Expenditure (OpEx):
OpEx is spending money on services or products now and being billed for them now. You can deduct this expense from your tax bill in the same year. There’s no upfront cost. You pay for a service or product as you use it.
What are the advantages of cloud computing?
Cost Savings
Cost saving is one of the biggest Cloud Computing benefits. It helps you to save substantial capital cost as it does not need any physical hardware investments. Also, you do not need trained personnel to maintain the hardware. The buying and managing of equipment is done by the cloud service provider.
Back-up and restore data
Once the data is stored in a Cloud, it is easier to get the back-up and recovery of that, which is otherwise very time taking process on-premise.
Automatic Software Integration
In the cloud, software integration is something that occurs automatically. Therefore, you don’t need to take additional efforts to customize and integrate your applications as per your preferences.
Reliability
Reliability is one of the biggest benefits of Cloud hosting. You can always get instantly updated about the changes.
Mobility
Employees who are working on the premises or at the remote locations can easily access all the could services. All they need is an Internet connectivity.
Unlimited storage capacity
The cloud offers almost limitless storage capacity. At any time you can quickly expand your storage capacity with very nominal monthly fees.
Collaboration
The cloud computing platform helps employees who are located in different geographies to collaborate in a highly convenient and secure manner.
Quick Deployment
Last but not least, cloud computing gives you the advantage of rapid deployment. So, when you decide to use the cloud, your entire system can be fully functional in very few minutes. Although, the amount of time taken depends on what kind of technologies are used in your business.
Other Important Benefits of Cloud Computing
Apart from the above, some other Cloud Computing advantages are:
On-Demand Self-service
Multi-tenancy
Offers Resilient Computing
Fast and effective virtualization
Provide you low-cost software
Offers advanced online security
Location and Device Independence
Always available, and scales automatically to adjust to the increase in demand
Allows pay-per-use
Web-based control & interfaces
API Access available.
What are the disadvantages of cloud computing?
Despite the clear upsides to relying on cloud services, cloud computing carries its own challenges for IT professionals:
Cloud security.
Security is often considered the greatest challenge facing cloud computing. When relying on the cloud, organizations risk data breaches, hacking of APIs and interfaces, compromised credentials and authentication issues. Furthermore, there is a lack of transparency regarding how and where sensitive information entrusted to the cloud provider is handled. Security demands careful attention to cloud configurations and business policy and practice.
Cost unpredictability.
Pay-as-you-go subscription plans for cloud use, along with scaling resources to accommodate fluctuating workload demands, can make it tough to define and predict final costs. Cloud costs are also frequently interdependent, with one cloud service often utilizing one or more other cloud services -- all of which appear in the recurring monthly bill. This can create additional unplanned cloud costs.
Lack of capability and expertise. With cloud-supporting technologies rapidly advancing, organizations are struggling to keep up with the growing demand for tools and employees with the proper skill sets and knowledge needed to architect, deploy, and manage workloads and data in a cloud.
IT governance.
The emphasis on do-it-yourself capability in cloud computing can make IT governance difficult, as there is no control over provisioning, deprovisioning and management of infrastructure operations. This can make it challenging to properly manage risks and security, IT compliance and data quality.
Compliance with industry laws.
When transferring data from on-premises local storage into cloud storage, it can be difficult to manage compliance with industry regulations through a third party. It's important to know where data and workloads are actually hosted in order to maintain regulatory compliance and proper business governance.
Management of multiple clouds.
Every cloud is different, so multi-cloud deployments can disjoint efforts to address more general cloud computing challenges.
Cloud performance.
Performance -- such as latency -- is largely beyond the control of the organization contracting cloud services with a provider. Network and provider outages can interfere with productivity and disrupt business processes if organizations are not prepared with contingency plans.
Building a private cloud.
Architecting, building and managing private clouds -- whether for its own purpose or for a hybrid cloud goal -- can be a daunting task for IT departments and staff.
Cloud migration.
The process of moving applications and other data to the cloud often causes complications. Migration projects frequently take longer than anticipated and go over budget. The issue of workload and data repatriation -- moving from the cloud back to a local data center -- is often overlooked until unforeseen cost or performance problems arise.
Vendor lock-in.
Often, switching between cloud providers can cause significant issues. This includes technical incompatibilities, legal and regulatory limitations and substantial costs incurred from sizable data migrations.
Cloud computing examples and use cases ....
Cloud computing has evolved and diversified into a wide array of offerings and capabilities designed to suit almost any conceivable business need. Examples of cloud computing capabilities and diversity include the following:
Google Docs, Microsoft 365.
Users can access Google Docs and Microsoft 365 through the internet. Users can be more productive because they can access work presentations and spreadsheets stored in the cloud at anytime from anywhere on any device.
Email, Calendar, Skype, WhatsApp.
Emails, calendars, Skype and WhatsApp take advantage of the cloud's ability to provide users with access to data remotely so they can access their personal data on any device, whenever and wherever they want.
Zoom.
Zoom is a cloud-based software platform for video and audio conferencing that records meetings and saves them to the cloud, enabling users to access them anywhere and at any time. Another common communication and collaboration platform is Microsoft Teams.
How is the cloud actually used?
The myriad services and capabilities found in modern public clouds have been applied across countless use cases, such as the following:
Testing and development.
Ready-made, tailored environments can expedite timelines and milestones.
Production workload hosting.
Organizations are using the public cloud to host live production workloads. This requires careful design and architecture of cloud resources and services needed to create an adequate operational environment for the workload and its required level of resilience.
Big data analytics.
Remote data centers through cloud storage are flexible and scalable and can provide valuable data-driven insights. Major cloud providers offer services tailored to big data projects, such as Amazon EMR and Google Cloud Dataproc.
IaaS.
IaaS enables companies to host IT infrastructures and access compute, storage and network capabilities in a scalable manner. Pay-as-you-go subscription models can help companies save on upfront IT costs.
PaaS.
PaaS can help companies develop, run and manage applications in an easier and more flexible way, at a lower cost than maintaining a platform on premises. PaaS services can also increase development speed for applications and enables higher-level programming.
Hybrid cloud.
Organizations have the option to use the appropriate cloud -- private or public -- for different workloads and applications to optimize cost and efficiency according to the circumstance.
Multi-cloud.
Using multiple different cloud services from separate cloud providers can help subscribers find the best cloud service fit for diverse workloads with specific requirements.
Storage.
Large amounts of data can be stored remotely and accessed easily. Clients only have to pay for storage that they actually use.
DR.
Cloud offers faster recovery than traditional on-premises DR. Furthermore, it is offered at lower costs.
Data backup.
Cloud backup solutions are generally easier to use. Users do not have to worry about availability and capacity, and the cloud provider manages data security.
Cloud computing service providers...
The cloud service market has no shortage of providers. The three largest public CSPs that have established themselves as dominant fixtures in the industry are the following:
AWS
GCP
Microsoft Azure
Other major CSPs include the following:
Apple
Citrix
IBM
Salesforce
Alibaba
Oracle
VMware
SAP
Joyent
Rackspace
When considering a cloud service vendor, certain considerations should be taken. First, the actual suite of services can vary between providers, and business users must select a provider that offers services -- such as big data analytics or artificial intelligence (AI) services -- that support the intended use case.
Though cloud services typically rely on a pay-per-use model, different providers often have variations in their pricing plans to consider. Furthermore, if the cloud provider will be storing sensitive data, physical location of the provider's servers should also be considered.
Naturally, reliability and security should be top priorities. A provider's service-level agreement should specify a level of service uptime that is satisfactory to client business needs. When considering different cloud vendors, close attention should be given to what technologies and configuration settings are used to secure sensitive information.
What Is Microsoft Azure? How to Use Azure Cloud Computing
Azure is a cloud computing platform that allows businesses to carry out a wide range of functions remotely. Still a little confused about Microsoft Azure? Let’s break it down a bit more. Although the definition of “cloud computing” changes from provider to provider, think of it this way: cloud computing is any program or action that runs on a remote server.
An entirely online platform, Azure is optimal for today’s workplace landscape. Increasingly, people are working remotely or settling into hybrid work environments; since you can access Azure from anywhere, it pairs well with this new approach to work.
But accessibility is just one of the platform’s pros. It’s also extremely convenient. Besides coming with some standard built-in features, Azure also allows you to add your own automation as needed. Moreover, since Microsoft hosts Azure you and your company don’t need to worry about maintaining any servers; if you lose power or internet service at the office, Azure continues to work.
How to Use Microsoft Azure
If you’re interested in using Azure for your business, there are a few things you should consider first. Who will be using the platform and what will they use it for? Will users need any training? And, first and foremost, how much does Azure cost?
How to Get Started With Azure
To start, figure out the goals you have when it comes to using Microsoft Azure. Do you need data storage, machine learning or virtual machine access — or maybe all of the above? It’s also important to discuss your needs and wants with the coworker who’ll be overseeing your company’s Azure account as well as those colleagues who’ll be using the platform most often.
Azure Free Account : How to Create Azure Free Account
Key Points:
* You should have a Credit Card, an email address, and phone number.
* If you don’t have a Credit Card, you can register here using a valid student college email id.
Azure Free Services
Azure Free Services is designed to reduce the cost of cloud computing infrastructure for small and medium-sized businesses. It offers customers free tier services in order to test new applications and evaluate benefits of cloud computing.
When you start using Azure with a free account, you get $2001 credit to spend in the first 30 days after you sign up. In addition, you get free monthly amounts of two groups of services: popular services, which are free for 12 months, and more than 40 other services that are free always.
You will be provided with:
€170 or $200 free credit for the duration of the first month. When your first month ends, the credit expires and you will be asked to choose one of the available subscriptions. We will talk about them soon.
12 months of popular services for free.
25 services independently for free. Offer might differ in different regions.
Limited Time Free Azure Account
Limited Time Free Azure Account is an awesome offer to try the Microsoft cloud services solution. Get popular services free for 12 month then continue to use it at 50% discount with Azure credit. Starting with USD200* Azure credit, you can build, deploy and scale your applications across different platforms including web apps, mobile back-ends and big data solutions.
Free for 12 months is a limited time offer that you can use to try paid Azure services without having to pay. With this offer, you can use any of the 40+ Azure services free for 12 months at no charge and receive USD200* on your first invoice.
4. Sign-in/Sign-up for a Microsoft account using an email address and password.
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