Understanding Cloud Computing Environments and Services

If you’ve followed closely on our recent articles on cloud computing, I believe that you now have a better understanding of what it entails. We’ve touched on how it works and highlighted top-tier brands that are reaping the benefits of investing in this tech solution.

In the last piece, we talked about how cloud services could help businesses reduce the cost of owning data centers and hiring IT experts. However, it is important to note that some cloud environments might still require businesses to own their servers, employ IT experts, and self-maintain.

Below is a list of different types of cloud environments and their benefits;

Public Cloud

A public cloud is owned by a third-party cloud service provider. On the public cloud, third-party service providers like Amazon, Microsoft, or Google can offer computing resources like servers and storage to customers over the internet. Through these services, businesses can get access to virtual machines, applications, and storage while working remotely. Public cloud services can be free or sold on-demand.

In this case, the cloud service provider is responsible for the management and maintenance of the system.

Benefits:

No need for on-premises IT resources.
Reduced service cost as businesses only pay for the consumed bandwidth.
It’s easier to set up compared to on-premises infrastructure.
Infinite scalability. i.e. as long as you can pay for the bandwidth you intend to consume, the service provider’s network can cater to your needs.

Private Cloud

This is a model where cloud computing resources are used exclusively by one business. I bet you can already tell from the name. In most cases, private clouds are usually hosted on the company’s on-site premises. However, businesses can still pay third parties to host their private cloud. The top benefit of a private cloud is the level of security and privacy it allows. When hosted internally, businesses can ensure that operations and sensitive data are not accessible to third-party providers. The only downside? It requires the same staffing, management, and maintenance expenses as owning your own data center.

Benefits:

Custom-made solutions for the user.
High level of security
Support for upscale

Hybrid Cloud

Like everything else that’s a hybrid, this combines two things together. It combines both the private and public cloud systems held together by technology that allows data and applications to be shared between them. A hybrid cloud strategy provides businesses with greater flexibility by moving workloads between cloud solutions, as needs and costs fluctuate.

Benefits:

Improved security and risk management
Improved business continuity and reduced potential downtime and resulting costs.

In these different environments, you can use the different cloud computing services, depending on your needs. They include;

1. Software as a service (SaaS):

One of the most popular cloud services. It delivers on-demand software applications over the internet on a subscription basis. More like Netflix.

2. Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas):

Reportedly the most basic cloud service. It allows you to rent IT infrastructures like servers, storage, and virtual machines among others on a pay-as-you-go basis.

3. Platform as a Service (PaaS):

Used mostly by developers. It supplies an on-demand environment for developing, testing, delivering, and managing software applications.

4. Serverless:

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