Cloud computing, a term that's been buzzing around the tech world for some time now. But what exactly is it? Let's delve into the realm of virtual storage, exploring its intricacies, benefits, and why it's revolutionizing the way we handle data.
Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is on-demand access, via the internet, to computing resources-applications, servers, data storage, development tools, networking capabilities, and more-hosted at a remote data center managed by a cloud services provider (or CSP).
- Compared to traditional on-premises IT, cloud computing helps do the following
- Lower IT costs
- Improve agility and time-to-value
- Scale more easily and cost-effectively
- Provide elasticity
IaaS
Provides on-demand access to fundamental computing resources over the internet on a pay-as-you-go basis
- Enables users to scale and shrink resources as needed
- Lowest level control of computing resources in the cloud
- SaaS and PaaS are growing at a much faster rate
Public cloud
A type of cloud computing in which a cloud service provider makes computing resources-anything from SaaS applications, to individual virtual machines (VMs), to bare metal computing hardware, to complete enterprise-grade infrastructures and development platforms-available to users over the public internet.
- The global market for public cloud computing has grown rapidly over the past few years, and analysts forecast that worldwide public cloud revenues will exceed USD 330 billion by the end of 2022
Cloud security
52% of companies experience better security in the cloud than on-premises
- Shared responsibility for security: Cloud provider secures infrastructure, customer protects data
- Data encryption: Encryption while at rest, in transit, and in use
- User identity and access management: Customer and IT teams need full understanding of and visibility into network, device, application, and data access
- Collaborative management: Proper communication and clear, understandable processes between IT, operations, and security teams will ensure seamless cloud integrations that are secure and sustainable
- Security and compliance monitoring: This begins with understanding all regulatory compliance standards applicable to your industry and setting up active monitoring of all connected systems and cloud-based services
Software-as-a-Service
SaaS is application software that’s hosted in the cloud and that you access and use via a web browser, a dedicated desktop client, or an API that integrates with your desktop or mobile operating system
- Users pay a monthly or annual subscription fee; some may offer ‘pay- as-you-go’ pricing based on usage
- Automatic upgrades
- Protection from data loss
Cloud use cases
Disaster recovery and business continuity
- Anything that involves storing and processing huge volumes of data at high speeds and requires more storage and computing capacity than most organizations can or want to purchase and deploy on-premises
- Examples include: Big data analytics, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial intelligence-particularly machine learning and deep learning applications
Platform-as-a-Service
PaaS provides software developers with on-demand platform-hardware, complete software stack, infrastructure, and development tools-for running, developing, and managing applications without the cost, complexity, and inflexibility of maintaining a platform on-premises
Hybrid multicloud
This is the use of two or more public clouds together with a private cloud environment.
- It avoids vendor lock-in, has more services to choose from, and brings access to more innovation. The more clouds, the more difficult it can be to manage your environment.
IBM Cloud
The most open and secure public cloud platform for business
- A next-generation hybrid multicloud platform, with advanced data and AI capabilities
- Offers flexibility and portability for both applications and data
- IBM Cloud solutions can help your organization with the following: Modernize existing applications, build and scale cloud native applications, migrate existing on-premises workloads to the cloud, speed software and services delivery with DevOps, Integrate applications/data across multiple clouds, Accelerate your journey to artificial intelligence, Leverage 5G and edge computing
Sai Vennam is a Developer Advocate at IBM with expertise in Kubernetes, OpenShift, and managed cloud offerings.
Connecting developers with technology that allows them to be successful
Serverless computing
This is a cloud computing model that offloads all backend infrastructure management tasks to the cloud provider, freeing developers to focus on code and business logic specific to their applications.
- Runs application code on a per-request basis only and scales the supporting infrastructure up and down automatically in response to the number of requests.
Private cloud
A cloud environment in which all cloud infrastructure and computing resources are dedicated to, and accessible by, one customer only.
- Typically hosted on-premises in the customer’s data center, but can also be hosted on an independent cloud provider’s infrastructure or built on rented infrastructure housed in an offsite data center.
Hybrid cloud
A combination of public and private cloud environments
- Connect private cloud services and public clouds into a single, flexible infrastructure for running the organization’s applications and workloads
- The goal is to establish a mix of both private and public cloud resources that gives flexibility to choose the optimal cloud for each application or workload
- Allows the organization to meet technical and business objectives more effectively and cost-efficiently
