In some articles back, we spoke about Cloud Computing, but we will be redefining Cloud Computing. Cloud Computing is defined as when personnel, business owner or organization decides to run their workloads remotely over the internet through a commercial provider’s data centre; this is becoming the other of the day. With the continuous expansion of business and the demand for the development of large computational power and massive data storage systems, Cloud Computing comes to the rescue.
Cloud Computing helps organizations expand and ensure their data is safely transferred from physical locations to the ‘cloud’ making it accessible from anywhere in the world. Due to the flexibility that Cloud Computing offers, with the set of tools and techniques used, has accelerated its deployment in many industries.
Types of Cloud Computing
There are three types of Cloud computing
1. Public Cloud Definition: The public cloud allows the customers to gain new capabilities without bothering on getting new hardware or software. Instead, the customers just pay their cloud provider a subscription fee or pay for the exact amount of resources they will be using.
2. Private cloud definition: Private cloud allows organizations to enjoy some of the advantages of the public cloud but without the concerns about giving up total control of its data and services because it is kept behind the corporate firewall. Companies can control exactly where their data is kept and can build their infrastructure the way they want largely while being security conscious.
3. Hybrid cloud definition: A hybrid cloud is where everyone is in reality: a bit of public cloud and a bit of private cloud. Some data are stored in the public cloud, while projects are been done in a private cloud, with multiple vendors and different levels of cloud usage.
Characteristics of Cloud Computing
There are numerous characteristics of Cloud Computing that makes it one of the fastest-growing industries at present. Below are 10 major characteristics of Cloud computing,
1. Resources Pooling: this is when a cloud service provider shares resources with several clients, giving everyone a different set of services depending on their requirements. Resource Pooling is a strategy used for multiple clients applied to the storage of data and bandwidth services. Allocation of resources does not affect the client’s experience.
2. On-Demand Self-Service: enables the client to constantly monitor the server; its uptime, abilities and the allotted network storage. A client can control the computing abilities depending on the client’s needs.
3. Easy Maintenance: the servers require little effort to maintain. The downtime is very low and sometimes it is zero. The resources used in Cloud computing is placed on several updates frequently to maximize the servers’ capabilities and potentials. The updates are viable to the devices unlike previous versions and they perform better, thus making it one of the best characteristics of Cloud Computing.
4. Scalability and Rapid Elasticity: one important benefit and characteristic of cloud computing is rapid scalability. This characteristic enables a cost-effective running of workloads that will require a large number of servers but only for a short time. Many clients have this kind of workload that requires cost-effectiveness, that’s where Cloud Computing comes to play.
5. Economical: Cloud computing helps to reduce an organization’s expenditure. Clients pay the administration for the space they use in the cloud. Often, when the space has been used, the administration can allocate some space for free.
6. Measured and Reporting Service: with Cloud Computing, both the clients and the provider can track the usage of the resources ensuring they are used optimally. This gives space for transparency. It is helpful to both the provider and the client(s). It also helps in monitoring your bill concerning your usage.
7. Data Security: with cloud computing, you can be assured that your data won’t be lost either on the ground, cloud or in transit. Cloud services has a copy of every data stored on them. Once a server is compromised, there is always a backup on another server. This feature comes in handy in situations when a file, folder or data gets corrupted, you can recover it. Data Security is ensured.
8. Automation: one characteristic of cloud computing is Automation; meaning the ability of cloud computing to be able to install, configure and do maintenance automatically. It reduces manual effort while making the most use of technology. Achieving automation in Cloud Computing is not easy, this requires virtual machines, servers, and large storage to be installed. Once this is completely installed, constant maintenance is the next Job.
9. Resilience: Resilience is the ability a material or thing has to recover itself after being stretched beyond its limit. In cloud computing, this is the ability for a server to quickly recover itself after any form of disruption. This is measured by how fast a cloud’s network system, server, and databases can restart and recover themselves after any damage or harm.
10. Availability: since the server is mostly assessed remotely, meaning there is no geographical restriction or limit when it comes to its usage; it must be readily available for usage.
11. Large Network Access: one beautiful thing about cloud computing is its ubiquity. This means the cloud data can be assessed from anywhere in the world and data can be transferred from anywhere with a device and internet connection. Cloud providers can monitor the usage of the cloud’s resources by clients; latency, access time, data throughput etc.
Conclusion
The various feature of cloud computing helps both the provider and the clients likewise. A provider has a lot of advantages.
Lately, most organizations require the greater need of data storage. These characteristics make cloud computing the best choice for these organizations.
