What is a cloud service?
The term “cloud service” refers to a wide range of on-demand services offered to businesses and customers over the Internet. These services are designed to provide easy and affordable access to applications and resources without the need for internal infrastructure or hardware. From checking email to collaborating on documents, most employees, whether they know it or not, use cloud services throughout their working hours.
How do cloud services work?
Cloud services are fully managed by cloud computing vendors and service providers. They’re made available to customers from the providers’ servers, so there’s no need for a company to host the applications on its own on-premises servers.
What are the benefits of cloud services?
Key advantages of using cloud services include:
The ability to scale
Because the cloud service provider supplies all necessary infrastructure and software, there’s no need for a company to invest in its own resources or allocate extra IT staff to manage the service. This, in turn, makes it easy for the business to scale the solution as user needs change—whether that means increasing the number of licenses to accommodate a growing workforce or expanding and enhancing the applications themselves.
Lowered costs
Many cloud services are provided on a monthly or annual subscription basis, eliminating the need to pay for on-premises software licenses. This allows organizations to access software, storage, and other services without having to invest in the underlying infrastructure or handle maintenance and upgrades.
Increased flexibility
With cloud services, companies can procure services on an on-demand, as-needed basis. When a particular application or platform is no longer needed, the company can easily cancel the subscription or shut down the service.
What types of cloud services are there?
In general, there are three basic types of cloud services.
Software as a Service (SaaS)
The most common type of cloud service is known as Software as a Service or SaaS. This broad category includes a variety of services, including: B. File storage and backup, web-based email and project management tools. Examples of
SaaS cloud service providers include Dropbox, G Suite, Microsoft Office 365, Slack, and Citrix Content Collaboration. Each of these applications allows users to access, share, store, and back up information in the “cloud.”
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
provides the infrastructure that many cloud service providers need to manage SaaS tools, but maintaining itself I don’t want it. It acts as a complete data center framework, eliminating the need for resource-intensive on-premises installations. Examples of
IaaS are Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Compute Engine. These providers maintain all storage servers and network hardware, and may also provide load balancing, application firewalls, and more. Many well-known SaaS providers run on the IaaS platform.
Platform as a Service (PaaS) The cloud service model, called
Platform as a Service or PaaS, acts as a web-based environment where developers can build cloud apps. PaaS provides a database, operating system, and programming language that organizations can use to develop cloud-based software without maintaining the underlying elements.
Many IaaS providers, including the example above, also offer PaaS capabilities.
How are cloud services delivered?
When deciding how to use cloud services, organizations also need to determine the type of environment that works best for their business (public cloud, private cloud, or both).
Public Cloud Services The services that
providers provide to a large number of customers over the Internet are called public cloud services. All of the SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS examples above provide public cloud-based services. The biggest advantage of using public cloud services is the ability to share resources on a large scale. This allows organizations to offer their employees more opportunities than they can.
Private Cloud Services
services that providers do not generally offer to enterprise users or subscribers are called private cloud services. In the private cloud service model, apps and data are delivered through the company’s internal infrastructure. The platform and software serve only one company and are not available to external users. Highly sensitive data companies such as healthcare and banks often use private clouds to take advantage of advanced security protocols and resources as needed in virtualized environments: Expand In a
hybrid cloud environment, private cloud solutions are combined with public cloud services. This deployment is often used when an enterprise needs to store sensitive data in a private cloud but wants employees to have access to public cloud apps and resources for day-to-day communication and collaboration. Proprietary software is often used to enable communication between cloud services via a single IT management console.
What’s the future of cloud services?
As cloud service availability continues to grow, so will those applications in the enterprise world. Whether your organization decides to extend the deployment of existing on-premises software or move to the 100% cloud, these services further deliver mission-critical applications and data to employees. Simplify. From content collaboration and employee access control to app delivery management and virtual desktop solutions for IT, and a variety of options in between, cloud services are transforming the way people and businesses work.