What is Cloud?
In the simplest terms, cloud computing means storing and accessing data and programs over the Internet instead of your computer’s hard drive. The cloud is just a metaphor for the Internet. What cloud computing is not about is your hard drive. When you store data on or run programs from the hard drive, that’s called local storage. Everything you need is physically close to you, which means accessing your data is fast and easy, for that one computer, or others on the local network. Working off your hard drive is how the computer industry functioned for decades; some would argue it’s still superior to cloud computing, for reasons I’ll explain shortly and why industry is moving towards cloud computing.
Traditional Approach –
Every company business growth is totally dependent on the Applications which their users are accessing while day to day operations and to host any applications IT Team required certain things to manage or host that particular application like-: Dedicated Server, OS, Platform, Licences, Manage Manpower (IT Guy), Physical security, Data Centre environment (Rack, Power, Space) and other lots of things. To get above things company has to invest it means incur huge COST and still not able to meet the desired standards which a professional Data Centre company can provide them as a services. Another big challenge is scalability of the resources means whenever any IT guy plan/design/anticipate to host any application he will have to design the solution considering future requirement. Let’s suppose at starting expected no of users would be 1000 and down the line next 5 years users would be expected to rise by 5 times in that case IT Guy will have to design the solution considering 5000 users because he cannot replace the whole design/solution every year. If you talk about costing Management have to bear the COST of 5000 users’ right from scratch when current users are 1000. Next point let suppose your business peak period is not more than 4 months in starting of the year when you required more resources to cater users requirement and last 4 months of the year is lean period where you required less resources to maintain input cost to make company profitable all the time. This is the major challenge that IT guy always have to design the solution considering peak requirement where costing always be on higher side.
Cloud Technology Understanding –
Cloud basically is a group of servers placed in a particular place forming cluster means clubbing/aggregating of all the resources. On top of it some Virtualized platform will run to create instance for every single requirement. Let Suppose each Server have 1 GB RAM and 10 GB of hard disk space and there 100 of servers so total/aggregated size is 100 GB RAM and 1000 GB Hard drive space. Now if any customer want 4 GB RAM and 25 GB Hard drive space to host xyz application through virtualization cloud can allocate that much amount of space as virtualized environment where customer can install their independent OS and host their xyz application. Best part is that all the servers are resides in Data center where RACK, Power, Space is also adequate with considering all the industries standards.
New Approach –
So to host any application that is for sure that you required Servers and platform to install and run that particular application. Instead of putting dedicated resources or build infra and put capex best is to opt cloud services. Whatever configuration is required to host any application block that amount of resources and pay what you use and if you talk about scalability you can change your configuration as when required accordingly to business need.
The public cloud allows systems and services to be easily accessible to the general public. Public cloud may be less secure because of its openness.
The private cloud allows systems and services to be accessible within an organization. It is more secured because of its private nature.
The community cloud allows systems and services to be accessible by a group of organizations.
The hybrid cloud is a mixture of public and private cloud, in which the critical activities are performed using private cloud while the non-critical activities are performed using public cloud.
Cloud Services Model.
IaaS provides access to fundamental resources such as physical machines, virtual machines, virtual storage, etc.
PaaS provides the runtime environment for applications, development and deployment tools, etc.
SaaS model allows to use software applications as a service to end-users.
SaaS model allows to use security applications as a service to end-users instead of putting dedicated appliance to perform the same function.