What is Cloud Computing, How To Works and Its Advantages?

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Last Updated: Monday, 29 December 2014 22:37
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What is Cloud Computing? | How To Work Cloud Computing? | Advantage | Iaas, Paas, Saas

What is Cloud Computing? -

Cloud Computing in its simplest terms is “remotely running applications in a web browser instead of locally on your computer”. You’ve probably used it before but don’t realise you have, if you’ve ever used Google Mail, Hotmail, Linked-In, Facebook or Salesforce for example, they are all Cloud based applications.

Cloud computing has actually been around for a long time but has really gathered momentum over the past few years as Internet Reliability, Speed and Cloud Technologies have improved. It’s now considered the de-facto standard for the roll-out of
certain types of applications as it’s much more efficient than running the application locally:-

  1. Business eMail (inc. Microsoft Exchange & Outlook, Google Apps for Business)

  2. CRM Systems (Salesforce for example)

  3. Database Applications

  4. Internal Intranets

  5. Web Hosting

Advantage of Cloud Computing -Reduced Costs and Productivity Improvements

Moving to cloud based applications makes them more efficient, reliable and portable and therefore increases your staff’s productivity whilst keeping costs low and being tax efficient. The main reason cloud computing has really taken off its cost effectiveness and increasing reliability and efficiency:

1.   You don’t have to buy, upgrade or maintain hardware (Reduced Capital & Revenue, Tax Efficient)

2.   You don’t have to employ specialists to maintain the above (Reduced Revenue)

3.   You don’t have to buy, upgrade or maintain software (Reduced Capital & Revenue, Tax Efficient)

4.   You don’t have to buy, upgrade or maintain backup equipment (Reduce Capital & Revenue, Increased Efficiency)

5.   You don’t have to worry about hardware or software availability (Increased Productivity)

6.   You don’t have to worry about IT disaster recovery (Reduced Revenue, Increased Efficiency)

7.   You don’t have to worry about data security (Increased Efficiency & Security)

8.   You can access your application from a browser on any internet connected computer (Increased Productivity and Efficiency)

9.   You can access your application from Windows, Mac, Linux & Mobile platforms (Increased Portability and Productivity)

Private and Public Clouds -

Cloud computing comes in two varieties, Public and Private. Public Clouds are Internet based, Private Clouds are Intranet based. Neither of these really have an impact on security (Banks allow access to your account on the Internet for example!), the decision
whether to run your application on a private or public cloud really depends on several factors: -

  1. Where the majority of your users are based?

  2. Do you want to employ the expertise internally?

  3. What other systems does the application have to link to?

From these basic questions the best approach for your business can be assessed. Neither of these approaches is wrong, but one will be more efficient than the other.

Layers of Cloud Computing -

Cloud computing consists of 3 layers in the hierarchy and these are as follows:-

  1. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provides cloud infrastructure in terms of hardware like memory, processor speed etc.

  2. Platform as a Service (PaaS) provides cloud application platform for the developers.

  3. Software as a Service (SaaS) provides cloud applications which are used by the user directly without installing anything on the system. The application remains on the cloud and it can be saved and edited in there only.