Cloud Computing Models: Your company’s cloud configuration will depend on many factors related to cost, availability, performance, and expectations, so it’s essential to understand how each of these models works.
Cloud Computing Models
Public Cloud
These are computational resources provided by a third party and available to any person or company that wants to hire them. In this model, the customer is only responsible for what will be sent to the cloud: a backup, an application, or some files. Its attribution is to determine who, when, and under what conditions will have access to the contracted resources.
The cloud provider is concerned with all resources’ maintenance, security, and management. Therefore, the public attribute of this cloud model must be seen about access to the contracting of resources, not to the documents, applications, and systems reserved and used for each client.
The advantage is accessing computational resources quickly, scalable, and at reduced costs without considering acquiring hardware, hiring a maintenance team, or investing in security or physical space.
Private Cloud
In this model, the company maintains the cloud infrastructure in its internal domain and grants restricted access to users it selects, almost always its employees and partners. The downside is the cost of keeping a scalable and elastic environment always available. Its advantages are the greater power of customization in offering resources and security levels.
This cloud is almost always used by organizations that must follow certain regulations and specific data protection and information security rules, as is the case with some financial and government institutions.
Hybrid Cloud
Hybridity is a term that originated in biology and characterized something that is formed by a mix of two other items. In this way, a hybrid cloud is a service that unites the public cloud’s characteristics with the private cloud’s characteristics.
For example, the organization can keep an application running in its private cloud and back up the data in the public cloud. Or you can use the public cloud to enable your Disaster Recovery strategy in case of failures or accidents with the private cloud.
The truth is that, for end users, there is no difference between using these three types of cloud, and the IT team must evaluate the cost-effectiveness when choosing one or another model.
It is possible to observe service contracting prices’ specific needs of the company, among other factors, before opting for a model. Therefore, it is incorrect to say that one is more efficient than the others, as they are indicated for different situations in the business environment.
What Services Can Be Contracted?
Today, the cloud offers a full range of services, tools, and functionalities to cover all the needs of a business. Within that umbrella are three main delivery models, which vary in the scope you expect from the cloud.
Infrastructure As A Service (IaaS)
IaaS stands for Infrastructure as a Service. The company can rent and use infrastructure resources, such as servers and storage, in this service.
The advantage is meeting specific demands, such as sporadic peaks in the use of IT resources, or eliminating expenses with maintenance and allocation of physical devices, without losing control over the installation, management, and configuration of company applications.
Platform As A Service (PaaS)
Platform as a Service, or PaaS, is a complete environment for developing, deploying, and managing applications. The advantage of PaaS is that it includes operating systems, development tools, database management systems, Business Intelligence services, and others, in addition to all the necessary Infrastructure to run or improve an application.
Another benefit is not having to worry about capacity planning, acquiring and maintaining licenses and software, or managing secondary applications for the success of your projects and developments.
Software As A Service (SaaS)
Software as a Service (SaaS) is the third and most common type of cloud service. Here, the company hires the application and is only responsible for using resources. The solution provider is responsible for maintaining the Infrastructure, ensuring security, and supporting the contracted application.
Different systems can also be found, such as inventory control and cash flow, among other purposes, entirely in the cloud, facilitating the routines of managers of establishments and companies from the most diverse branches of activity.
Also Read: How Does Cloud Server Technology Work?
