Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is a general term for the delivery of hosted services over the internet. Cloud computing enables companies to consume a compute resource, such as a virtual machine (VM), storage or an application, as a utility -- just like electricity -- rather than having to build and maintain computing infrastructures in house.Cloud computing services can be private, public or hybrid. Private cloud services are delivered from a business's data center to internal users. This model offers the versatility and convenience of the cloud, while preserving the management, control and security common to local data centers. Internal users may or may not be billed for services through IT chargeback .

Common private cloud technologies and vendors include VMware and OpenStack. In the public cloud model, a third-party cloud service provider delivers the cloud service over the internet. Public cloud services are sold on demand, typically by the minute or hour, though long-term commitments are available for many services. Customers only pay for the CPU cycles, storage or bandwidth they consume

Leading public cloud service providers include Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, IBM and Google Cloud Platform. A hybrid cloud is a combination of public cloud services and an on-premises private cloud, with orchestration and automation between the two. Companies can run mission-critical workloads or sensitive applications on the private cloud and use the public cloud to handle workload bursts or spikes in demand. The goal of a hybrid cloud is to create a unified, automated, scalable environment that takes advantage of all that a public cloud infrastructure can provide, while still maintaining control over mission-critical data.