Cloud computing has become the ideal way to deliver enterprise application and the preferred solution for companies. This helps to extend their infrastructure or launching new innovations.
WHAT IS CLOUD COMPUTING?
1. It can be defined as when one runs workloads remotely over the internet in a commercial provider’s data center. It is also known as the “public cloud” model. Popular public cloud offerings like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Salesforce’s CRM system, and Microsoft Azure have shown an example of this familiar notion of cloud computing. Today, most businesses take a multi-cloud approach, i.e. they use more than one public cloud service.
2. This second definition of cloud computing gives a practical approach on how cloud computing works. It is a virtualized pool of resources, from raw compute power to application functionality, which is available on demand. When customers acquire cloud services, the provider fulfils those requests using advanced automation rather than manual provisioning. The key advantage of this is agility: the ability to apply abstracted compute, storage, and network resources to workloads as needed and tap into the abundance of prebuilt services.
Types of Cloud Computing
There are arrays of cloud computing services available, but most fall into one of the following categories.
1. SaaS (Software as a Service)
This type of public cloud computing is delivered via applications over the internet through the browser. The most popular Software as a Service (SaaS) applications for business are found in Google’s G Suite and Microsoft’s Office 365; among other enterprise applications, Salesforce leads, but virtually all enterprise applications, including ERP suites from Oracle and SAP, have embraced the SaaS model. Typically, SaaS applications offers wide configuration options as well as development environments that enable customers to customize their own modifications and additions.
2. IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)
At a simple level, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) public cloud providers offer mostly storage and compute services on a pay-per-use basis. The full collection of services offered by all major public cloud providers is amazing; highly scalable database, virtual private networks, big data analytics, developer tools, machine learning, application monitoring, etc. Amazon Web Services were the first to provide IaaS and they remain the leader, followed by Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and IBM Cloud.
3. PaaS (Platform as a Service)
Platform as a Service (PaaS) provides sets of services and workflows were made majorly for developers so that they can share tools, processes, and APIs so as to aid development, testing, and deployment of tools. Salesforce’s Heroku and Force.com are major public cloud PaaS offerings; Pivotal’s Cloud Foundry and Red Hat’s Open Shift can be deployed on premises or accessed through the major public clouds. For enterprises, PaaS can ensure that developers have ready access to resources, follow certain processes, and use only a specific number of services, while operators maintain the underlying infrastructure.
4. FaaS (Functions as a Service)
Functions as a Service (FaaS), the cloud version of server less computing, adds another layer of abstraction to PaaS, so that developers are completely insulated from everything in the stack below their code. Instead of futzing with virtual servers, containers, and application runtimes, they upload narrowly functional blocks of code, and set them to be triggered by a certain event (such as a form submission or uploaded file). All the major clouds offer FaaS on top of IaaS: AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, Google Cloud Functions, and IBM OpenWhisk. A special benefit of FaaS applications is that they consume no IaaS resources until an event occurs, reducing pay-per-use fees.
5. Public Cloud
The public cloud allows the customers 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. This is done simply by filling in web forms, users can set up accounts and spin up virtual machines or provision new applications. More users or computing resources can be added on the fly—the latter in real time as workloads demand those resources thanks to a feature known as auto scaling.
6. Private cloud
Private cloud allows organizations to enjoy some of the advantages of 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 for IaaS or PaaS projects to give developers access to a pool of computing power that scales on-demand while been security conscious. However, that extra security comes at a price. Still, for companies that need additional security, private cloud may be very useful advantage. It helps them understand cloud services or rebuild internal applications for the cloud, before moving them to the public cloud.
7. Hybrid cloud
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 private cloud, multiple vendors and different levels of cloud usage. According to research by TechRepublic, the main reasons most organizations choose hybrid cloud includes disaster recovery planning and the desire to avoid hardware costs when they want to expand.at is the cloud-native approach?
8. Public APIs (Application programming interfaces)
Just as SaaS delivers applications to users over the internet, public APIs offer developers application functionality that can be accessed programmatically. For example, in building web applications, developers often tap into Google Maps’s API to provide driving directions; to integrate with social media, developers may call upon APIs maintained by Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. Twilio has built a successful business dedicated to delivering telephony and messaging services via public APIs. Ultimately, any business can provision its own public APIs to enable customers to consume data or access application functionality.
9. iPaaS (integration Platform as a Service)
Data integration is a key issue for any sizeable company, but particularly for those that adopt SaaS at scale. iPaaS providers typically offer prebuilt connectors for sharing data among popular SaaS applications and on-premises enterprise applications, though providers may focus more or less on B-to-B and e-commerce integrations, cloud integrations, or traditional SOA-style integrations. iPaaS offerings in the cloud from such providers as Dell Boomi, Informatica, MuleSoft, and SnapLogic also let users implement data mapping, transformations, and workflows as part of the integration-building process.
10. IDaaS (Identity as a Service)
The most difficult security issue related to cloud computing is the management of user identity and its associated rights and permissions across private data centers and pubic cloud sites. IDaaS providers maintain cloud-based user profiles that authenticate users and enable access to resources or applications based on security policies, user groups, and individual privileges. The ability to integrate with various directory services (Active Directory, LDAP, etc.) and provide is essential. Okta is the clear leader in cloud-based IDaaS; CA, Centrify, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and Ping provide both on-premises and cloud solutions.
11. Collaboration platforms
Collaboration solutions such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, and HipChat have become vital messaging platforms that enable groups to communicate and work together effectively. Basically, these solutions are relatively simple SaaS applications that support chat-style messaging along with file sharing and audio or video communication. Most offer APIs to facilitate integrations with other systems and enable third-party developers. This helps to create and share add-ins that augment functionality.
12. Vertical clouds
Key providers in such industries as financial services, health care, retail, life sciences, and manufacturing provide PaaS clouds to enable customers to build vertical applications that tap into industry-specific, API-accessible services. Vertical clouds can dramatically reduce the time to market for vertical applications and accelerate domain-specific B-to-B integrations. Most vertical clouds are built with the intent of nurturing partner ecosystems.
Other cloud computing considerations
The popular definition of cloud computing means you run your workloads on someone else’s servers, but this is not outsourcing. Virtual cloud resources and even SaaS applications must be configured and maintained by the customer. Consider these factors when planning a cloud initiative
Cloud computing security considerations
Objections to the public cloud generally begin with cloud security. However, the major public clouds have proven themselves less susceptible to attack than the average enterprise data center.
Of greater concern is the integration of security policy and identity management between customers and public cloud providers. In addition, government regulation may forbid customers from allowing sensitive data off premises. Other concerns include the risk of outages and the long-term operational costs of public cloud services.
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Benefits of cloud computing
The cloud’s main appeal is to reduce the time to market of applications that need to scale dynamically. Increasingly, developers love the cloud setup because it has abundance of advanced new settings. These new settings can be incorporated in the applications. It ranges from machine learning to Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity.
Although businesses do migrate legacy applications to the cloud to reduce data center resource requirements. The real benefits accrue to new applications that take advantage of cloud services and “cloud native” attributes.
The latter include microservices architecture, Linux containers (for enhancing application portability), and container management solutions. Cloud-native approaches and solutions can be part of either public or private clouds. They help enable highly efficient devops-style workflows.
Cloud computing, is the platform of choice for large applications, particularly the customer-facing ones that change frequently or have to scale dynamically. More significantly, the major public clouds now lead the way in enterprise technology development, debuting new advances before they appear anywhere else. Workload by workload, enterprises are opting for the cloud, where an endless parade of exciting new technologies invite innovative use.
