Cloud computing briefly explained

Cloud computing has many dimensions – cloud storage, a server, a platform for development. It gives a huge potential to the consumer or the business. It provides resources of powerful computers, in a scalable way and most commonly on a subscription base. Clients can choose the suitable plan for them and easily upgrade if they need more resources in the future.

The core idea behind cloud computing is to provide flexibility, scalability, and cost-efficiency by allowing users to pay for only the resources they actually use rather than investing in and maintaining their own hardware and software. This model has transformed the way businesses and individuals approach IT infrastructure and services.

Growth in SaaS (Software as a Service) and better internet

This should be no surprise to you. We are already using many cloud applications like MS Office 365 or Google Docs. The business is trusting more on this kind of services thanks to the improvement of the internet. It is getting a lot faster and reliable thanks to the optic fibers, 4G, and the new 5G network. A long time has passed since the dial-up super slow internet. Today, you can find good internet connections easily.

Multi-Cloud Strategy: Embracing Diversity for Resilience

One of the most significant trends in cloud computing is the adoption of multi-cloud strategies. Rather than relying on a single cloud provider, organizations are using the strengths of multiple providers to create a more resilient and flexible infrastructure. This approach minimizes the risk of downtime due to a single provider’s outage and allows businesses to take advantage of specialized services from different providers. With a multi-cloud strategy, companies can optimize costs, performance, and data redundancy, improving their overall cloud experience.

Security breaks are growing concerns

We have talked at least a few times about the growing number of DDoS attacks. Currently, no one is entirely safe. Big brands like BBC, Blizzard, Netflix, and Amazon are frequently attacked. They can go down for hours until the traffic waves stop.

Another security concerns are Meltdown and Spectre. These two processors’ exploits can “kidnap” your computer and ask you for a ransom. Imagine if they block all of your computers and you can’t reach your data! The chip makers are trying to patch the current generation of processors and produce newer, better protected, but the hackers are improving too. It is highly likely that we will see more variations of such exploits soon.

Increased investment in Cloud Security

As cloud computing becomes a crucial part of business operations, the importance of security and resiliency has grown significantly. Organizations are now investing more resources than ever in securing their cloud environments against cyber threats, data breaches, and downtime. “In today’s interconnected world, the value of robust cloud security cannot be overstated. It’s not just about protecting data; it’s about safeguarding the very lifelines of businesses,” says Luke Iggleden, CEO of Amaze, a transformative cloud infrastructure and backup company in Australia. Some of the security measures include implementing advanced threat detection and prevention mechanisms, employing encryption for stored and transferred data, and building robust disaster recovery plans. The focus on increasing cloud security aims to safeguard sensitive data and maintain uninterrupted operations by also earning the trust of customers and partners.

AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning)

AI is getting very popular right now. You can see it on many mobile phones, cars, servers with such a label these days. AI uses machine learning, with specially developed processors and graphics cards to accelerate calculation many times. The servers which support AI, need to be taught first, and then they can produce excellent results.

AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning) are becoming fundamental components of cloud computing. Cloud platforms provide the necessary resources for training and deploying AI models. This integration lets companies make data-driven decisions, automate processes, and enhance customer experiences.

Faster storage and increased capacity

The competition inside the cloud industry is staggering. Every player on the market tries to lure new clients with astonishing deals, higher capacity, and faster speed thanks to modern SSD drives. This moves the development of faster solutions. The deals are getting so compelling that many businesses sign in for a cloud and never look back at the traditional way.

Low-code and no-code cloud services

Another transformative trend in cloud computing is the rise of low-code and no-code platforms. These platforms allow individuals with different technical expertise to create applications, solutions and automate processes without deep coding knowledge. Low-code platforms provide visual interfaces and pre-built components to simplify application development. On the other hand, no-code platforms take it a step further by allowing users to create solutions through intuitive drag-and-drop interfaces. These services improve the development process and overcome the gap between IT and non-technical departments.

Edge Computing: bringing the cloud closer to the user

As cloud computing evolves, edge computing is gaining momentum as a way to enhance performance by bringing data processing closer to the user. Edge computing reduces the need for data to travel long distances to centralized cloud servers, which minimizes latency and speeds up response times. This trend is particularly beneficial for industries relying on IoT devices, autonomous vehicles, and real-time analytics. By processing data locally, edge computing enables faster decision-making, reduces bandwidth usage, and offers more reliable services, ultimately improving customer experiences and operational efficiency.

Conclusion

The world of cloud computing is exciting and still in its early stages. We are yet to experience a completely cloud-based working environment where we use just client devices with little to no power, but fantastic battery life and all the processing is done remotely. This will create more agile companies, which can expand quickly and don’t need to worry about frequent hardware updates. The cloud technology will become safer and easier to use, and it will power the economy of the future.

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Amazon S3

Amazon S3 is an excellent backup product. With 99.99% durability, and the ability to retrieve data from various sources like web sites, mobile applications and more. It also provides data analysis tools, a high level of security and integration with third-party tools.

AWS Data Transfer

It has more than a few data transfer services like Kinesis, AWS Snowball and AWS Direct Connect. Kinesis is a real-time streaming data analysis tool. It is flexible, and it can work with audio, video, clicks and more. The AWS Snowball is for a large data transfers at low cost. The transfers are protected with encryption. The last of this group is the AWS Direct Connect is to connect your data center with the AWS and use the whole ecosystem of Amazon.

Amazon EC2

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud is a scalable computing cloud. The users can choose how much power they need and how much storage. If the user needs more computing power, he or she can easily upgrade.

Amazon SNS

Amazin Simple Notification Service is a managed pub/sub messaging and notification service. It serves well for delivering a large number of notifications to subscribers. It provides APIs for easy integration.

Amazon KMS

Key Management Service is for security. Users can create encryption keys and encrypt data. It is straightforward to integrate with the rest of the services of AWS.

Amazon Lambda

Lambda is a fast way to run codes. If you have mistaken and the code doesn’t run, you don’t pay. You can run various applications. The code that you upload can be triggered by one of the rest of the services of AWS which is great.

Route 53

Amazon’s Route 53 is a DNS service. It is a good service, but it can be hard to calculate for the average user because it is not based on one monthly payment, but a pay-what-you-use model.

Pros and cons of AWS

+Easy to scale and manage capacities. You can add more computing power when you need it.

+Cheap storage in comparison with some of the competitor.

+Global reach. You can expand your business internationally with AWS.

+AWS ecosystem. The services inside are made to work well with each other.

+API support that lets you use the services with other software.

-Depending on your need, it can be actually more expensive in comparison with the competition.

-Confusing billing. It might be very hard to understand what exactly are you paying.

-AWS is complicated. It takes time to learn how to use it and integrate it with your business needs.

-It is not 100% bulletproof. Even a service that big, has been down due to attacks more than several times.

AWS is a behemoth in the cloud scene, no doubt about it. Is it suitable for your business needs? It is hard to tell. If you want to learn more, we recommend you to read our comparison between AWS vs Microsoft Azure vs Google Cloud.

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Let’s introduce them to you.

Amazon Web Services – AWS

Amazon Web Services, as you guessed already, is a part of Amazon. It was launched in 2006. Amazon has far more time as the other two. It is already a well-developed platform that has plenty of services.

AWS showed their profit for the first time in 2015. They had 1.57 billion dollars of sales and 265 million operating income. Impressive results. The numbers are continually growing, and the revenues for 2017 were 17.46 billion dollars.

Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure was the response from Microsoft. The giant tech company introduced Azure in 2010, a few years after Amazon. Azure has growth to provide SaaS, IaaS and PaaS with more than 600 services! It bets that people are familiar with Microsoft ecosystem and it offers excellent integration with their software.

Google Cloud Platform – GCP

Strangely, Google was behind Amazon too. It stated in 2008. Google has been around with their cloud services for consumers, but with Google Cloud Platform, they want to get the businesses too. Just like the rest, they want to create a robust ecosystem with their Android, Chrome OS and APIs for machine learning.

Tables of services AWS vs Azure vs Google

Compute

The main computing service of Amazon is EC2. It provides easy scaling within minutes. You can control it through APIs and auto scale depending on your needs. It works with both Linux and Windows.

Microsoft’s computing is simply known as Virtual Machine. Just like the AWS, it has a long list of instances for fast scaling like GPU, high-performance computing options and AI. It also supports Windows and Linux.

Google’s answer to the competition is Compute Engine. It is a newer service in comparison with the rest, and it has fewer sub-services. It has Windows and Linux support too.

Storage

Database

Content Delivery

Management and Monitoring

Security

Pros and cons of AWS

+ Easy to scale and manage capacities depending on the needs of the users.

+ Relatively cheap storage in comparison with the competition.

+ Global reach. Perfect for international business.

+ AWS ecosystem. The services inside AWS are well connected to each other.

+ API support for easy integration.

– For some purposes, it can be more expensive in comparison with the competition.

– Confusing billing. It is hard to understand the bills.

– AWS is complicated. The learning curve is steep.

– It is a target to strong attacks. You can expect some downtime.

Pros and cons of Azure

+ Low downtime thanks to the extensive network of servers around the world

+ Security proven with many compliance certificates.

+ Easy scalability

+ Pay-as-you-go model for better IT budget management

– High data transfer rates. There are separate fees for incoming and for outgoing data. Watch out!

– IT Expertise. You or your team will need particular knowledge to be able to manage the ecosystem of Microsoft.

– Support. We don’t say it is bad, but it is hard to explain a cloud problem over an email. The communication is slow. You will probably need IT professionals for managing the services.

– Bet on just one company. Many prefer to use just a single provider, but this can be dangerous. The company might change the prices or bankrupt, and this can lead to many problems for your business.

Pros and cons of GCP

+ Fastest I/O

+ The sustained use option of Google doesn’t require an upfront payment and is not limited to the utilization of a particular instance like Amazon’s Reserved Instances (RI)

+ Google is good at the data analytics and storage

+ Good integration with other Google services.

+ Browser based ssh console

– The actual control over the VMs is limited because of Google’s propriety technologies.

– Less programming languages in comparison with AWS and Azure.

– Hard exit if you want to leave the platform.

AWS vs Azure vs Google, conclusion

There is no clear answer. It depends a lot on how big is your company and what type of cloud services do you need. If you have a huge business and you need as much power as you can get, AWS can be your solution. If you are very attached to the Microsoft ecosystem, then Azure can be your choice. For small startups, Google Cloud can be a good solution because of its more attractive price.

You should think about your business needs first. You could find attractive offers from other companies too, especially if you have a very particular market in mind. It is convenient.

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