If you know the first thing about IT infrastructures, you should also have heard about cloud computing. It has become an indispensable part of digitalisation and has taken over the world by storm since its introduction. I hope this article helps you know a little bit more about cloud computing than just its name.

What is Cloud Computing?

You can either host your IT infrastructure on your premise or on the cloud (The internet) with the help of a third-party vendor. The difference would be that, inside your premises, every operation from developing a computing infrastructure to setting up a platform and a team will be done on your own whereas a vendor will provide the services in various packages that deem fit.

Before getting into the details of the vendor computing services, here are the major differences between on premise and cloud computing services.

• Cloud computing uses the pay-for-what-you-use model, whereas on premises you pay for everything that you set up.
• On premise offer very less scalability while it is comparatively high in the case of cloud computing.
• A huge server space is required for on premise operations.
• A firm’s own hardware and software experts are required to maintain the on-premise IT infrastructure while it is not so in the case of cloud computing.
• The probability of data-theft is higher on premise.
• The data recovery chances are comparatively less on premise.
• Cloud computing offers higher flexibility and team collaboration.
• Cloud Computing ecosystems are up-to-date and software updates are automatic.
• On premise data access cannot be done from remote locations and the implementations take a longer time.

Types of Cloud Computing.

Cloud computing can be categorised into two wide models.

• Deployment model.
• Service model.

Deployment Model

Under the deployment model of cloud computing, it can further be divided in to three categories namely

• Public cloud.
• Private cloud.
• Hybrid cloud.

Public Cloud

In this model of deployment, the firm rents up space in a third-party vendors server and pays for the services as they use them. The server and services are also used by other end-customers and firms.

Private Cloud

In this model, the cloud is entirely rented by a single organisation that exploits it use completely. The servers and the associated services are fully dedicated and the processes and data are highly secure. The pay is higher as compared to public cloud.

Hybrid Cloud

As you can tell from the name, this cloud makes use of the advantages of both the public and the private cloud. These advantages can be alternatively exploited based on the sensitivity of the data handled.

Service Model

The service model of the cloud can be further categorised as

• infrastructure as a service.
• platform as a service.
• software as a service.

Infrastructure as a Service

If all that you want is a virtual machine and if you think that your firm as the ability to install the software on top of it and put them to use, then infrastructure as a service can be considered. In this case, the third party just provides the required computing infrastructure. The people that are most interested in using the IAAS model are the IT administrators.

Platform as a Service

If you need an interface to program or an interface to upload a program and make it run on a platform, then PAAS can be considered. Your software developers can develop, test and manage the applications on the platform provided for a pay.

Software as a Service

If all you are interested in is an end-product for an easy use and access to even the end-customers, then you might opt for the software as a service model where the software is hosted and managed by the third-party vendor. All the software and hardware are maintained by the vendor and you pay as you use.

To sum up, In IAAS, applications, Data, Runtime, Middleware and O/S are managed by the firm whereas virtualization, servers, Storage and Networking are handles by the vendor. In PAAS, everything except application and data is handled by the vendor whereas in SAAS, all of the above is handled by the vendor.

Let us complete the article with a mention of the major players in cloud computing.

Major players in Cloud Computing

• AWS (Amazon Web Services).
• Microsoft Azure.
• IBM Cloud
• VM Ware
• Google Cloud platform
• Digital Ocean.