What is Cloud Computing?

The term Cloud Computing means storing and accessing data and programs over the Internet instead of your computer’s hard drive. The name Cloud Computing is taken from the cloud symbol that is used to represent the Internet. In Cloud computing , the information being accessed is found remotely in the cloud or a virtual space.

Deployment Models

There are various types of clouds-

Public clouds – provide their services over the Internet for a fee. These are operated by third-party companies. Clients access services through accounts that can be accessed by just about anyone.

Private clouds – provide services to a certain number of people(a business or an organisation). Some enterprises choose to keep their data and applications in a private cloud  either for security reasons, or, in order to comply with various regulations.

Hybrid cloud – combines elements of both the public and private services. It provides more flexibility as the companies can run sensitive applications on the private cloud and use the public cloud to handle workload bursts during times of peak use.

Types of Cloud Computing –

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

When an enterprises or company wants the IT infrastructure management overhead to be handled by cloud vendor , IaaS is the most preferred choice. IT infrastructure Computer infrastructure resources , such as servers, storage and networking is delivered as a service. Further, IaaS is also sometimes seen as a cost savings by paying only for the computing resources they use. Some of major IaaS vendors are – Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, IBM and Google Cloud.

Software as a Service (SaaS)

SaaS is a software delivery method that provides access to software and its functions remotely as a Web-based service.  SaaS customers have a great benefit where they pay a recurring (monthly or annual) fee to subscribe to the service Instead of paying a very high fee for purchase of hardware or software. Some well-known providers of SaaS include Salesforce.com, Microsoft Office 365, Google G Suite, Dropbox and Adobe.

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

PaaS is a computing platform delivered as a service where, the platform is on coud in place of a company purchasing and managing its own hardware and software layers. Most of times, PaaS setup is designed for developers with to simplify the process of creating and deploying software. The leading PaaS vendors include Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, IBM and Google Cloud Platform.

Cloud computing has emerged popular option for people and businesses for a number of reasons like cost savings, increased productivity, speed and efficiency, performance, and security.

Also refer Grid Computing vs Cloud Computing