Cloud-based corporate services help solve a variety of tasks. For example, to build a virtual IT infrastructure, deploy backup data storage, run your own applications, and much more. To select the optimal cloud-based solutions, it is necessary to understand what products are currently offered on this market. Let’s consider them in detail.
- Types of cloud services
- The benefits of cloud services
- What you need to do before you start using cloud services
- To conclude
Types of cloud services
Virtual server
Access to computing resources, disk space, and operating system. The most common type. By taking advantage of this service, you avoid the cost of buying and maintaining physical servers. That is, you rent virtually any amount of cloud computing resources for any amount of time.
Private Cloud for Business
By renting a server, you can get started with a control panel on a machine with the specifications and operating system you want. In fact, this virtual server runs on the physical hardware of the cloud provider, along with many others. If you need to increase computing power, it can be done in a few minutes.
You can deploy dev-test servers quickly, which will save a lot of time running applications. If you have been processing data on your own servers before, when you move it to the cloud, the cost of working with it will be much lower. Additionally, backups will become much cheaper.
If you do big data analytics, you should also consider a cloud server. Using a virtual infrastructure will greatly reduce the financial cost of this task.
Cloud storage
You get access to a storage system that will allow you to upload, delete and sort files of any format. To simplify, it’s your personal network folder that you can do the same things with as you do with the folders on your computer. If you run out of space, you can quickly increase it to the space you need. In addition, these resources can be used to store backups. You decide how often backups will be comfortable for you. In case of problems, you can restore everything from the cloud copy.
Software Development Environment
Another type of cloud service is platform services. They can include out-of-the-box databases and database management systems, development tools, load balancers, containerized application launch environments, business intelligence tools, and more. They enable you to fully develop, test, and deploy your application and then keep it up to date.
High availability, multi-user support, and scalable platform services increase development efficiency. In addition, you won’t have problems with licenses for the necessary software when you use it. All these issues are already solved by the cloud provider and your work is completely legal. Development tools will reduce the time it takes to launch new applications because many components are already built into the platform. Some providers can give you a development environment for more than one platform, such as mobile and browser. Thus, the process of creating new applications will become even more convenient and faster.
Applications in the cloud
These are full-fledged software designed to work together without being tied to location or hardware. Users connect to them via the Internet, usually with a browser. The entire infrastructure resides in the provider’s data center. The stable operation of web applications is its area of responsibility.
The use of these applications also increases mobility, because these products are available from virtually anywhere. The only condition is a permanent Internet connection. This is a good technical basis for creating an efficiently working distributed team.
Thus, working with these applications will be much cheaper than buying licenses for each machine separately.
The benefits of cloud services
By using cloud solutions, you get the following benefits for your work.
No need to think about maintenance
Creating and maintaining the IT infrastructure, its security, reliability, and operability is the task of the cloud provider. If for some reason you want to deploy the cloud yourself, remember that it requires serious resources. You need to make backups, monitor the physical state of the servers, configure them, and so on.
Reduced costs
You can pay only for the amount of resources used, which you can quickly increase or decrease.
What you need to do before you start using cloud services
- You need to decide exactly what tasks you will solve with the help of the cloud. Maybe for some of them, it is more rational to use your own servers.
- Decide on a particular cloud provider. When selecting one, you must take into account its experience, the set of solutions offered, and its reputation.
- Particular attention should be paid to the geographic proximity of the servers to you and the customers of the future cloud. The physical distance to the server has a direct impact on speed.
To conclude
Trying to implement a cloud service that’s not really right for your company can take a lot of time and stress. A few simple recommendations in this article will help minimize this risk.
