Introduction to Cloud Computing: Concepts, Models, Characteristics & Benefits

Cloud Services are the services and solutions that are consumed and delivered in real-time over the internet. For an introduction to cloud computing, you should probably start with an example: when you store your photos online, use webmail or social networking site, you are using a “cloud computing” service.

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Cloud computing is nothing but a delivery model of computing services that are done over the internet. It unlocks various features, such as real-time deployment, development, and delivery of solutions and services.

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Here are the various services from Cloud Computing

• Colocation/Remote Services – In this type of service, the servers are located across multiple locations worldwide, and remote devices can access the server services.
• Backup/DR – Cloud offers support for Backup and Disaster Recovery.
• Virtual Desktop/Applications – Cloud Computing provides support for Virtual Desktop and Application.
• Web/App Hosting – This is a hosting service for Web and Applications.

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Cloud Concepts include

•   Cloud Services
•   Cloud Delivery Models

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Cloud Service Models

There are various cloud service models, such as IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, DaaS, CaaS, XaaS, BPaaS. The three major service models are listed below,

IaaS – Infrastructure as a Service, the objective of IaaS is the provisioning of Infrastructure resources (example Virtual Machines) to the clients; network Architects work at this layer of Cloud computing. Generally, IaaS is the base for the Cloud Service models.

PaaS – Platform as the Service, this cloud service model consists of the service that contains IaaS + PaaS layer will also contain Operating System, the Application Developers work at this layer to create or test their applications.

SaaS – Software as the Service, this cloud service model will consist of IaaS as the base layer; additionally, it will also contain the applications used by End-users (Clients).

Cloud Deployment Models

Private Cloud

•  Private Cloud is the first type of deployment model in cloud computing.
•  A private cloud is a cloud infrastructure that is operated just in a single organization. It can be managed internally or by third-party providers.
•  Private cloud needs physical presence, space allocation, hardware, and environmental controls. These factors involve capital expenditures.
•  It can be deployed by using Microsoft System Center, Vmware Vcloud, Openstack, Eucalyptus.

Public Cloud

• In Public Cloud, the infrastructure and services are provisioned for open use by the general public.
• It may be owned, managed, by a business or a government agency. The devices exist on-premises of a cloud service provider.
• Public cloud features are:

1. Hosted at the service provider site.
2. Utilizes the shared infrastructure.
3. Supports connectivity over the internet.
4. It is cheaper than an enterprise private cloud.
5. If you use an email client connected to Gmail, Outlook.com, or Yahoo, you are using a public cloud application.
6. Various service providers for public cloud are AWS (Amazon Web Services), Microsoft Azure, Google Compute Engine, IBM SoftLayer, HP Helion Public Cloud

Read: Cloud Computing Ultimate Guide

Community Cloud

• The third type of cloud deployment model is Community Cloud.
• A community cloud is a shared environment in which several companies, or even individuals, gain the benefits of a public cloud by using private cloud-like controls and security.
• This kind of cloud infrastructure is provisioned for use by a particular consumer network (for instance, Insurance, Banks, Airlines). It may be owned, managed by one or more organizations inside the community. It may exist on or off-premises.

Hybrid Cloud

• The fourth deployment model is the Hybrid Cloud.
• This cloud infrastructure is a composition of two or more cloud infrastructure (public + private).
• It is utilized to set up proprietary or standardized technology that empowers application and data portability.

What is Object Storage?

As an introduction to cloud computing, try to get this, just like we move photos from devices to a PC, – Simplify management and usage – Organize, protect and share photos, IT Cloud industry uses Object stores for similar reasons – To consolidate, organize and protect user data – To manage data and faster search.

Traditional Storage used concepts of SAN (Storage Area Network) and NAS (Network Attached Storage). Object storage eases storage administrators from tiresome tasks like creating and managing the logical storage volumes, formatting, and managing RAID levels in case of any unfortunate event of storage device failure.

Characteristics of Object Storage

• Linear Scalability – The storage can scale up to support billions of objects.
• Support for large files – in the object storage terminology, the supported single object sizes are in TBs (Terabytes).
• Web Friendly – Objects can be stored and retrieved using the Web User interface, HTTP-based, and RESTful API (Representational State Transfer, Application Programming Interface).
• Metadata and extensibility – Object storage adds metadata to the object, as controlled by the interface in use when it creates or rewrites it as an object.
• Geo Scale – Objects can be geographically replicated and distributed.
• No Locking – Objects can be edited, as there is no locking on write or create operations.

Also Read: Top Cloud Computing Models Explained

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Cloud Benefits

•  Reduce the Costs for IT Maintenance- Servers under Virtualization can mean a diminishing in the number of servers you need in a significant organization, liberating space in data centers, and permitting them to set aside huge amounts of cash on power, cooling, and infrastructure.
• Easy Upgrading of the infrastructure and Lower Cost of Ownership -It is very much expressed that the normal expenses can be viewed as operating expenses (OPEX) instead of capital expenditures (CapEx), giving an association’s monetary adaptability. Due to the usage of the cloud, the Ownership cost reduces.
• Off-site data storage– Cloud Computing offers the added benefits like Disaster assistance from the vendor and “Off-site data storage,” ensuring that organization data is always available.

Conclusion

Cloud has a component in which services are “Consistently UP and running.” It guarantees Productivity for end clients to get to the applications on any devices going from Workstations to Smartphones.

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