What is Cloud Computing?

Introduction

Have you ever wished you could run your business from your laptop while lying on the beach? Or access all of your files, photos, and music from any device, anywhere in the world? With cloud computing, you can! Cloud computing is a way to use technology to store and access information over the internet. It’s perfect for businesses that want to cut costs or for people who need access to their files from anywhere. Ready to learn more? Keep reading!

What is cloud computing?

Cloud computing has revolutionized the way businesses operate. It is a term used to describe a variety of different computing services that are provided over the internet. Cloud computing services can be divided into three broad categories:

• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS),
• Platform as a Service (PaaS), and
• Software as a Service (SaaS).

IaaS providers offer customers access to physical and virtual resources, such as servers, storage, and networking. PaaS providers give customers access to a variety of tools and services that can be used to develop and deploy applications. SaaS providers offer customers access to software applications that can be used for a variety of tasks, such as email, office productivity, and customer relationship management. Cloud computing has become increasingly popular in recent years due to its ability to provide on-demand resources at a lower cost than traditional data center operations. Each type of cloud service has its own advantages and disadvantages, so it’s important to choose the one that best meets your needs.

Benefits and risk when using cloud services

The cloud provides a way to store data and applications remotely, making it accessible from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. This can be a great benefit for businesses that need to provide employees with access to files and applications from multiple locations. Cloud computing can also help reduce IT costs, since the business doesn’t need to own and maintain their own servers.

However, there are also some risks associated with cloud computing. For instance, if a business’s cloud provider goes out of business or suffers a data breach, the business could lose access to its data. Additionally, cloud providers may have different levels of security than a business’s IT department, which could lead to data breaches if proper precautions are not taken.

Overall, cloud computing can be a great tool for businesses, but it is important to weigh the risks and benefits and decide carefully which cloud service provider to use.

Biggest Cloud service providers

The 4 biggest players that offer cloud services nowadays are:

• Amazon Web Services: the cloud computing service of Amazon.com, is the largest cloud service provider globally. From its data centres, the business provides over 200 fully featured services, including computing, storage, and database.
• Microsoft Azure: Microsoft Corporation’s Intelligent Cloud segment contains Azure, the second largest cloud service provider globally. Through Microsoft Azure, the company delivers a consistent hybrid cloud experience, developer productivity, artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, and security & compliance.
• Google Cloud Platform: Google Cloud Platform (GCP), part of Alphabet Inc, is the third largest cloud service provider globally, providing enterprise-ready cloud services. GCP enables developers to build, test, and deploy applications on its distributed and scalable infrastructure while utilizing the service’s security, data management, analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities.
• Alibaba Cloud: Alibaba Group’s cloud computing unit, known as Alibaba Cloud, is the fourth largest cloud service provider globally, the primary cloud vendor in Asia Pacific, and the largest cloud service provider in China. Through Alibaba Cloud, the business offers cloud services, including elastic computing, database, storage, network virtualization, large-scale computing, security, management & application services, big data analytics, and machine learning.

Conclusion

Cloud computing is a great way to increase efficiency and collaboration in your workplace, but it’s important to be aware of the risks involved when using cloud services. Make sure you do your research before selecting a provider, and know what will work best for your specific needs. Thanks for reading!