Cloud Computing

Nowadays, Cloud computing is adopted by every company, whether it is a MNC or a startup and
many are still migrating towards it because of the cost-cutting, lesser maintenance, and the
increased capacity of the data with the help of servers maintained by the cloud providers. One
more reason for this drastic change from the On-premises servers of the companies to the Cloud
providers is the ‘Pay as you go’ service provided by them i.e., you only have to pay for the
service which you are using. The disadvantage On-premises server holds is that if the server is
not in use the company still has to pay for it.

What is Cloud Computing ?

Cloud computing means storing and accessing the data and programs on remote servers that are
hosted on the internet instead of the computer’s hard drive or local server. Cloud computing is
also referred to as Internet-based computing, it is a technology where the resource is provided as
a service through the Internet to the user. The data which is stored can be es, images,
documents, or any other storable document.

Some operations which can be performed with cloud computing are –

● Storage, backup, and recovery of data

● Delivery of software on demand

● Development of new applications and services

● Streaming videos and audio

Cloud Computing Architecture:

Cloud computing architecture refers to the components and sub-components required for cloud
computing. These components typically refer to:

● Front end(fat client, thin client)

● Back-end platforms(servers, storage)

● Cloud-based delivery and a network(Internet, Intranet, Intercloud)

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Why Cloud Computing?

Here are the top reasons why to switch to Cloud Computing instead of owning a database server.

1. Reduces cost :

The cost-cutting ability of businesses that utilize cloud computing over time is one of the main
advantages of this technology. On average 15% of the total cost can be saved by companies if
they migrate to the cloud. By the use of cloud servers businesses will save and reduce costs with
no need to employ a staf of technical support personnel to address server issues. There are many
great business modules regarding the cost-cutting benefts of cloud servers such as the Coca-Cola
and Pinterest case studies.

2. More storage :
For software and applications to execute as quickly and efciently as possible, it provides more
servers, storage space, and computing power. Many tools are available for cloud storage such as
Dropbox, Onedrive, Google Drive, iCloud Drive, etc.

3. Employees using cloud computing have better work-life balance :

Direct connections between cloud computing benefts, and the work and personal lives of an
enterprise’s workers can both improve because of cloud computing. Even on holidays, the
employees have to work with the server for its security, maintenance, and proper functionality.
But with cloud storage the thing is not the same, employees get ample of time for their personal
life and the workload is even less comparatively.

What is Cloud Hosting

There are three layers in cloud computing. Companies use these layers based on the service they
provide.

● Infrastructure

● Platform

● Application

● Cloud-Computing-Diagram

Three layers of Cloud Computing

At the bottom is the foundation, the Infrastructure where the people start and begin to build. This
is the layer where the cloud hosting lives.

Now, let’s have a look at hosting: Let’s say you have a company and a website and the website
has a lot of communications that are exchanged between members. You start with a few members
talking with each other and then gradually the number of members increases. As time passes, as
the number of members increases, there would be more trafc on the network and your server will
get slow down. This would cause a problem. A few years ago, the websites are put on the server
somewhere, in this way you have to run around or buy and set the number of servers. It costs a
lot of money and takes a lot of time. You pay for these servers when you are using them and as
well as when you are not using them. This is called hosting. This problem is overcome by cloud
hosting. With Cloud Computing, you have access to computing power when you needed. Now,
your website is put in the cloud server as you put it on a dedicated server. People start visiting
your website and if you suddenly need more computing power, you would scale up according to
the need.
 Characteristics of Cloud Computing

● Scalability: With Cloud hosting, it is easy to grow and shrink the number and size of
servers based on the need. This is done by either increasing or decreasing the resources in
the cloud. This ability to alter plans due to uctuations in business size and needs is a
superb bene t of cloud computing, especially when experiencing a sudden growth in
demand.

● Instant: Whatever you want is instantly available in the cloud.

● Save Money: An advantage of cloud computing is the reduction in hardware costs.

Instead of purchasing in-house equipment, hardware needs are left to the vendor. For
companies that are growing rapidly, new hardware can be large, expensive, and
inconvenient. Cloud computing alleviates these issues because resources can be acquired
quickly and easily. Even better, the cost of repairing or replacing equipment is passed to
the vendors. Along with purchase costs, of-site hardware cuts internal power costs and
saves space. Large data centers can take up precious ofce space and produce a large
amount of heat. Moving to cloud applications or storage can help maximize space and
signifcantly cut energy expenditures.

● Reliability: Rather than being hosted on one single instance of a physical server, hosting
is delivered on a virtual partition that draws its resource, such as disk
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space, from an extensive network of underlying physical servers. If one server goes o ne it will
have no efect on availability, as the virtual servers will continue to pull resources from the
remaining network of servers.

● Physical Security: The underlying physical servers are still housed within data centers and
so beneft from the security measures that those facilities implement to prevent people
from accessing or disrupting them on-site.

● Outsource Management: When you are managing the business, Someone else manages
your computing infrastructure. You do not need to worry about management as well as
degradation.

Cloud Computing referred as the accessing and storing of data and provide services related to
computing over the internet. It simply referred as it remote services on the internet manage and
access data online rather than any local drives. The data can be anything like images, videos,
audios, documents, es etc.

Cloud Computing Service Provider’s :

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Cloud computing is in huge demand so, big organization providing the service like Amazon
AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Alibaba cloud etc. are some Cloud Computing service
Provider.

History of Cloud Computing :

In this, we will discuss the history of Cloud computing. And also cover the history of client
server computing, distributed computing, and cloud computing.

Before Computing was come into existence, client Server Architecture was used where all the
data and control of client resides in Server side. If a single user want to access some data, frstly
user need to connect to the server and after that user will get appropriate access. But it has many
disadvantages. So, After Client Server computing, Distributed Computing was come into
existence, in this type of computing all computers are networked together with the help of this,
user can share their resources when needed. It also has certain limitations. So in order to remove
limitations faced in distributed system, cloud computing was emerged.

During 1961, John MacCharty delivered his speech at MIT that “Computing Can be sold as a
Utility, like Water and Electricity.” According to John McCharty it was a brilliant idea. But
people at that time don’t want to adopt this technology. They thought the technology they are
using efcient enough for them. So, this concept of computing was not appreciated much so and
very less will research on it. But as the time feet the technology caught the idea after few years
this idea is implemented. So, this is implemented by Salesforce.com in 1999.
This company started delivering an enterprise application over the internet and this way the
boom of Cloud Computing was started.

In 2002, Amazon started Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon will provide storage,
computation over the internet. In 2006 Amazon will launch Elastic Compute Cloud Commercial
Service which is open for Everybody to use.

After that in 2009, Google Play also started providing Cloud Computing Enterprise Application
as other companies will see the emergence of cloud Computing they also started providing their
cloud services. Thus, in 2009, Microsoft launch Microsoft Azure and after that other companies
like Alibaba, IBM, Oracle, HP also introduces their Cloud Services. In today the Cloud
Computing become very popular and important skill.

Advantages :

● It is easier to get backup in cloud.

● It allows us easy and quick access stored information anywhere and anytime.

● It allows us to access data via mobile.

● It reduces both hardware ad Software cost, and it is easily maintainable.

● One of the biggest advantage of Cloud Computing is Database Security.

Disadvantages :

● It requires good internet connection.

● User have limited control on the data.

Evolution of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is all about renting computing services. This idea frst came in the 1950s. In
making cloud computing what it is today, fve technologies played a vital role. These are
distributed systems and its peripherals, virtualization, web 2.0, service orientation, and utility
computing.
Distributed Systems:

It is a composition of multiple independent systems but all of them are depicted as a single entity
to the users. The purpose of distributed systems is to share resources and also use them efectively
and efciently. Distributed systems possess characteristics such as scalability, concurrency,
continuous availability, heterogeneity, and independence in failures. But the main problem with
this system was that all the systems were required to be present at the same geographical
location. Thus to solve this problem, distributed computing led to three more types of computing
and they were-Mainframe computing, cluster computing, and grid computing.

Mainframe computing:

Mainframes which frst came into existence in 1951 are highly powerful and reliable computing
machines. These are responsible for handling large data such as massive input-output operations.
Even today these are used for bulk processing tasks such as online transactions etc. These
systems have almost no downtime with high fault tolerance. After distributed computing, these
increased the processing capabilities of the system. But these were very expensive. To reduce
this cost, cluster computing came as an alternative to mainframe technology.
Cluster computing:

In 1980s, cluster computing came as an alternative to mainframe computing. Each machine in

the cluster was connected to each other by a network with high bandwidth. These were way
cheaper than those mainframe systems. These were equally capable of high computations. Also,
new nodes could easily be added to the cluster if it was required. Thus, the problem of the cost
was solved to some extent but the problem related to geographical restrictions still pertained. To
solve this, the concept of grid computing was introduced.

Grid computing:

In 1990s, the concept of grid computing was introduced. It means that different systems were
placed at entirely different geographical locations and these all were connected via the internet.
These systems belonged to different organizations and thus the grid consisted of heterogeneous
nodes. Although it solved some problems but new problems emerged as the distance between the
nodes increased. The main problem which was encountered was the low availability of high
bandwidth connectivity and with it other network associated issues. Thus. cloud computing is
often referred to as “Successor of grid computing”.

Virtualization:

It was introduced nearly 40 years back. It refers to the process of creating a virtual layer over the
hardware which allows the user to run multiple instances simultaneously on the hardware. It is a
key technology used in cloud computing. It is the base on which major cloud computing services
such as Amazon EC2, VMware vCloud, etc work on. Hardware virtualization is still one of the
most common types of virtualization.

Web 2.0:

It is the interface through which the cloud computing services interact with the clients. It is
because of Web 2.0 that we have interactive and dynamic web pages. It also increases fexibility
among web pages. Popular examples of web 2.0 include Google Maps, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Needless to say, social media is possible because of this technology only. It gained major
popularity in 2004.

Service orientation:

It acts as a reference model for cloud computing. It supports low-cost, fexible, and evolvable
applications. Two important concepts were introduced in this computing
model. These were Quality of Service (QoS) which also includes the SLA (Service Level
Agreement) and Software as a Service (SaaS).

Utility computing:

It is a computing model that defnes service provisioning techniques for services such as compute
services along with other major services such as storage, infrastructure, etc which are
provisioned on a pay-per-use basis.

Thus, the above technologies contributed to the making of cloud computing.

Cloud computing at a glance

The notion of computing in the "cloud" goes back to the beginnings of utility computing, a term
suggested publicly in 1961 by computer scientist John McCarthy: “If computers of the kind I
have advocated become the computers of the future, then computing may someday be organized
as a public utility just as the telephone system is a public utility. The computer utility could
become the basis of a new and important industry.” The chief scientist of the Advanced
Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET),Leonard Kleinrock, said in 1969:
“as of now, computer networks are still in their infancy, but as they grow up and become
sophisticated, we will probably see the spread of ‘computer utilities’ which, like present electric
and telephone utilities, will service individual homes and of ces across the country.”
This vision of the computing utility takes form with the cloud computing industry in the 21st
century. The delivery of computing services is easily available on demand just like other utilities
services such as water, electricity, telephone and gas in today's society are available. Likewise,
users (consumers) only have to pay service providers if they have access to computing resources.
Instead of maintaining their own computing systems or data centers, customers can lease access
from cloud service providers to applications and storage. The advantage of using cloud
computing services is that organizations can avoid the upfront cost and dif culty of running and
managing their own IT infrastructure and pay for it when they use it. Cloud providers can bene t
from large economies of scale by offering the same services to a wide variety of customers.
In the case, consumers can access the services according to their requirement with the knowing
where all their services are hosted. These model can called as utility computing as cloud
computing. As cloud computing called as utility computing because users can access the
infrastructure as a “cloud” as application as services from anywhere part in the world. Hence
Cloud computing can be de ned as a new dynamic provisioning model of computing services
that improves the use of physical resources and data centers is growing uses virtualization and
convergence to support multiple different systems that operate on server platforms
simultaneously. The output achieved with different placement schemes of virtual machines will
differ a lot. .
By observing advancement in several technologies , we can track of cloud computing that is
(virtualization, multi-core chips), especially in hardware; Internet (Web services, service-oriented
architectures, Web 2.0), Distributed computing (clusters, grids), and autonomous Computing,
automation of the data center). The convergence of Figure 1.1 reveals the areas of technology
that have evolved and led to the advent Cloud computing. Any of these technologies were
considered speculation at an early stage of development; however, they received considerable
attention later Academia and big business companies have been prohibited. Therefore, a Process
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 of speci cation and standardization followed which resulted in maturity and wide adoption. . The
rise of cloud computing is closely associated with the maturity of these technologies.

FIGURE 1.1. Convergence of various advances leading to the advent of cloud computing

1.2.1 The vision of cloud computing

The virtual provision of cloud computing is hardware, runtime environment and resources for a
user by paying money. As of these items can be used as long as the User, no upfront commitment
requirement. The whole computer device collection is turned into a Utilities set that can be
supplied and composed in hours rather than days together, to deploy devices without Costs for
maintenance. A cloud computer's long-term vision is that IT services are traded without
technology and as utilities on an open market as barriers to the rules.
We can hope in the near future that it can be identi ed the solution that clearly satis es our needs
entering our application on a global digital market services for cloud computing. This market
will make it possible to automate the process of discovery and integration with its existing
software systems. A digital cloud trading platform is available services will also enable service
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 providers to boost their revenue. A cloud service may also be a competitor's customer service to
meet its consumer commitments.
Company and personal data is accessible in structured formats everywhere, which helps us to
access and communicate easily on an even larger level. Cloud computing's security and stability
will continue to improve, making it even safer with a wide variety of techniques. Instead of
concentrating on what services and applications they allow, we do not consider "cloud" to be the
most relevant technology. The combination of the wearable and the bringing your own device
(BYOD) with cloud technology with the Internet of Things ( IOT) would become a common
necessity in person and working life such that cloud technology is overlooked as an enabler.

The cloud computing reference model

Fig: The Cloud Computing Reference Model.

A model that characterizes and standardizes the functions of a cloud computing environment, is
the cloud reference model. This is a basic benchmark for cloud computing development. The
growing popularity of cloud computing has expanded the de nitions of different cloud
computing architectures. The cloud environment has a wide range of vendors and multiple offer
de nitions which make the evaluation of their services very hard. The way the cloud functions
and interacts with other technology can be a little confusing with such complexity in its
implementation.

A standard cloud reference model for architects, software engineers, security experts and
businesses is required to achieve the potential of cloud computing. This cloud landscape is
controlled by the Cloud Reference Model. Figure 1.6 displays various cloud providers and their
innovations in the cloud services models available on the market.
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Characteristics and bene ts
As both commercially and technologically mature cloud computing services, companies will be
easier to maximize their potential bene ts. However, it is equally important to know what cloud
computing is and what it does.

FIGURE: Features of Cloud Computing Following are the characteristics of Cloud

Computing:
1. Resources Pooling
This means that the Cloud provider used a multi-leaner model to deliver the computing resources
to various customers. There are various allocated and reassigned physical and virtual resources,
which rely on customer demand. In general, the customer has no control or information about the
location of the resources provided, but can choose location on a higher level of abstraction.
2. On-Demand Self-Service
This is one of the main and useful advantages of Cloud Computing as the user can track server
uptimes, capability and network storage on an ongoing basis. The user can also monitor
computing functionalities with this feature.
3. Easy Maintenance
The servers are managed easily and the downtime is small and there are no downtime except in
some cases. Cloud Computing offers an update every time that increasingly enhances it. The
updates are more system friendly and operate with patched bugs faster than the older ones.
4. Large Network Access
The user may use a device and an Internet connection to access the cloud data or upload it to the
cloud from anywhere. Such capabilities can be accessed across the network and through the
internet.
5. Availability
The cloud capabilities can be changed and expanded according to the usage. This review helps
the consumer to buy additional cloud storage for a very small price, if necessary.
6. Automatic System
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 Cloud computing analyzes the data required automatically and supports a certain service level of
measuring capabilities. It is possible to track, manage and report the usage. It provides both the
host and the customer with accountability.
7. Economical
It is a one-off investment since the company (host) is required to buy the storage, which can be
made available to many companies, which save the host from monthly or annual costs. Only the
amount spent on the basic maintenance and some additional costs are much smaller.
8. Security
Cloud Security is one of cloud computing's best features. It provides a snapshot of the data stored
so that even if one of the servers is damaged, the data cannot get lost. The information is stored
on the storage devices, which no other person can hack or use. The service of storage is fast and
reliable.
9. Pay as you go
Users only have to pay for the service or the space in cloud computing. No hidden or additional
charge to be paid is liable to pay. The service is economical and space is often allocated free of
charge.
10. Measured Service
Cloud Computing resources that the company uses to monitor and record. This use of resources
is analyzed by charge-per-use capabilities. This means that resource use can be measured and
reported by the service provider, either on the virtual server instances running through the cloud.
You will receive a models pay depending on the manufacturing company's actual consumption.

Challenges ahead
All has advantages and challenges. We saw many Cloud features and it’s time to identify the
Cloud computing challenges with tips and techniques you can identify all your own. Let's
therefore start to explore cloud computing risk and challenges. Nearly all companies are using
cloud computing because companies need to store the data. The companies generate and store a
tremendous amount of data. Thus, they face many security issues. Companies would include
establishments to streamline and optimize the process and to improve cloud computing
management.
This is a list of all cloud computing threats and challenges:
1. Security & Privacy
2. Interoperability & Portability
3. Reliable and exible
4. Cost
5. Downtime
6. Lack of resources
7. Dealing with Multi-Cloud Environments
8. Cloud Migration
9. Vendor Lock-In
10. Privacy and Legal issues

1. Security and Privacy of Cloud

The cloud data store must be secure and con dential. The clients are so dependent on the cloud
provider. In other words, the cloud provider must take security measures necessary to secure
customer data. Securities are also the customer's liability because they must have a good
password, don't share the password with others, and update our password on a regular basis. If
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 the data are outside of the rewall, certain problems may occur that the cloud provider can
eliminate. Hacking and malware are also one of the biggest problems because they can affect
many customers. Data loss can result; the encrypted le system and several other issues can be
disrupted.
2. Interoperability and Portability
Migration services into and out of the cloud shall be provided to the Customer. No bond period
should be allowed, as the customers can be hampered. The cloud will be capable of supplying
premises facilities. Remote access is one of the cloud obstacles, removing the ability for the
cloud provider to access the cloud from anywhere.
3. Reliable and Flexible
Reliability and exibility are indeed a dif cult task for cloud customers, which can eliminate
leakage of the data provided to the cloud and provide customer trustworthiness. To overcome this
challenge, third-party services should be monitored and the performance, robustness, and
dependence of companies supervised.
4. Cost
Cloud computing is affordable, but it can be sometimes expensive to change the cloud to
customer demand. In addition, it can hinder the small business by altering the cloud as demand
can sometimes cost more. Furthermore, it is sometimes costly to transfer data from the Cloud to
the premises.
5. Downtime
Downtime is the most popular cloud computing challenge as a platform free from downtime is
guaranteed by no cloud provider. Internet connection also plays an important role, as it can be a
problem if a company has a nontrustworthy internet connection, because it faces downtime.
6. Lack of resources
The cloud industry also faces a lack of resources and expertise, with many businesses hoping to
overcome it by hiring new, more experienced employees. These employees will not only help
solve the challenges of the business but will also train existing employees to bene t the
company. Currently, many IT employees work to enhance cloud computing skills and it is
dif cult for the chief executive because the employees are little quali ed. It claims that
employees with exposure of the latest innovations and associated technology would be more
important in businesses.
7. Dealing with Multi-Cloud Environments
Today not even a single cloud is operating with full businesses. According to the RightScale
report revelation, almost 84 percent of enterprises adopt a multi-cloud approach and 58 percent
have their hybrid cloud approaches mixed with the public and private clouds. In addition, ve
different public and private clouds are used by organizations.
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 FIGURE 1. 8 RightScale 2019 report revelation
The teams of the IT infrastructure have more dif culty with a long-term prediction about the
future of cloud computing technology. Professionals have also suggested top strategies to address
this problem, such as rethinking processes, training personnel, tools, active vendor relations
management, and the studies.
8. Cloud Migration
While it is very simple to release a new app in the cloud, transferring an existing app to a cloud
computing environment is harder. 62% said their cloud migration projects are harder than they
expected, according to the report. In addition, 64% of migration projects took longer than
expected and 55% surpassed their budgets. In particular, organizations that migrate their
applications to the cloud reported migration downtime (37%), data before cutbacks
synchronization issues (40%), migration tooling problems that work well (40%), slow migration
of data (44%), security con guration issues (40%), and time-consuming troubleshooting (47%).
And to solve these problems, close to 42% of the IT experts said that they wanted to see their
budget increases and that around 45% of them wanted to work at an in-house professional, 50%
wanted to set the project longer, 56% wanted more pre-migration tests.
9. Vendor lock-in
The problem with vendor lock-in cloud computing includes clients being reliant (i.e. locked in)
on the implementation of a single Cloud provider and not switching to another vendor without
any signi cant costs, regulatory restrictions or technological incompatibilities in the future. The
lock-up situation can be seen in apps for speci c cloud platforms, such as Amazon EC2,
Microsoft Azure, that are not easily transferred to any other cloud platform and that users are
vulnerable to changes made by their providers to further con rm the lenses of a software
developer. In fact, the issue of lock-in arises when, for example, a company decide to modify
cloud providers (or perhaps integrate services from different providers), but cannot move
applications or data across different cloud services, as the semantics of cloud providers' resources
and services do not correspond. This heterogeneity of cloud semantics and APIs creates
technological incompatibility which in turn leads to challenge interoperability and portability.
This makes it very complicated and dif cult to interoperate, cooperate, portability, handle and
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maintain data and services. For these reasons, from the point of view of the company it is
important to maintain exibility in changing providers according to business needs or even to
maintain in-house certain components which are less critical to safety due to risks. The issue of
supplier lock-in will prevent interoperability and portability between cloud providers. It is the
way for cloud providers and clients to become more competitive.

10. Privacy and Legal issues:

Apparently, the main problem regarding cloud privacy/data
security is 'data breach.' Infringement of data can be generically de ned as loss of
electronically encrypted personal information. An infringement of the information could
lead to a multitude of losses both for the provider and for the customer; identity theft,
debit/credit card fraud for the customer, loss of credibility, future prosecutions and so on.
In the event of data infringement, American law requires noti cation of data
infringements by affected persons. Nearly every State in the USA now needs to report
data breaches to the affected persons. Problems arise when data are subject to several
jurisdictions, and the laws on data privacy differ. For example, the Data Privacy Directive
of the European Union explicitly states that 'data can only leave the EU if it goes to a
'additional level of security' country.' This rule, while simple to implement, limits
movement of data and thus decreases data capacity. The EU's regulations can be
enforced.

What is cloud storage?

Cloud storage is a cloud computing model that enables storing data and les on the internet
through a cloud computing provider that you access either through the public internet or a
dedicated private network connection. The provider securely stores, manages, and maintains the
storage servers, infrastructure, and network to ensure you have access to the data when you need
it at virtually unlimited scale, and with elastic capacity. Cloud storage removes the need to buy
and manage your own data storage infrastructure, giving you agility, scalability, and durability,
with any time, anywhere data access.

Why is cloud storage important?

Cloud storage delivers cost-effective, scalable storage. You no longer need to worry about
running out of capacity, maintaining storage area networks (SANs), replacing failed devices,
adding infrastructure to scale up with demand, or operating underutilized hardware when
demand decreases. Cloud storage is elastic, meaning you scale up and down with demand and
pay only for what you use. It is a way for organizations to save data securely online so that it can
be accessed anytime from any location by those with permission.

Whether you are a small business or a large enterprise, cloud storage can deliver the agility, cost
savings, security, and simplicity to focus on your core business growth. For small businesses,
you no longer have to worry about devoting valuable resources to manage storage yourself, and
cloud storage gives you the ability to scale as the business grows.

For large enterprises with billions of les and petabytes of data, you can rely on the scalability,
durability, and cost savings of cloud storage to create centralized data lakes to make your data
accessible to all who need it.
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 Cost effectiveness
With cloud storage, there is no hardware to purchase, no storage to provision, and no extra
capital being used for business spikes. You can add or remove storage capacity on demand,
quickly change performance and retention characteristics, and only pay for storage that you
actually use. As data becomes infrequently and rarely accessed, you can even automatically
move it to lower-cost storage, thus creating even more cost savings. By moving storage
workloads from on premises to the cloud, you can reduce total cost of ownership by removing
over provisioning and the cost of maintaining storage infrastructure.

Increased agility
With cloud storage, resources are only a click away. You reduce the time to make those resources
available to your organization from weeks to just minutes. This results in a dramatic increase in
agility for your organization. Your staff is largely freed from the tasks of procurement,
installation, administration, and maintenance. And because cloud storage integrates with a wide
range of analytics tools, your staff can now extract more insights from your data to fuel
innovation.

Faster deployment
When development teams are ready to begin, infrastructure should never slow them down. Cloud
storage services allow IT to quickly deliver the exact amount of storage needed, whenever and
wherever it's needed. Your developers can focus on solving complex application problems
instead of having to manage storage systems.

Ef cient data management

By using cloud storage lifecycle management policies, you can perform powerful information
management tasks including automated tiering or locking down data in support of compliance
requirements. You can also use cloud storage to create multi-region or global storage for your
distributed teams by using tools such as replication. You can organize and manage your data in
ways that support speci c use cases, create cost ef ciencies, enforce security, and meet
compliance requirements.

Virtually unlimited scalability

Cloud storage delivers virtually unlimited storage capacity, allowing you to scale up as much and
as quickly as you need. This removes the constraints of on-premises storage capacity. You can
ef ciently scale cloud storage up and down as required for analytics, data lakes, backups, or
cloud native applications. Users can access storage from anywhere, at any time, without
worrying about complex storage allocation processes, or waiting for new hardware.

Business continuity
Cloud storage providers store your data in highly secure data centers, protecting your data and
ensuring business continuity. Cloud storage services are designed to handle concurrent device
failure by quickly detecting and repairing any lost redundancy. You can further protect your data
by using versioning and replication tools to more easily recover from both unintended user
actions or application failures.

With cloud storage services, you can:

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 • Cost-effectively protect data in the cloud without sacri cing performance.
• Scale up your backup resources in minutes as data requirements change.
• Protect backups with a data center and network architecture built for security-sensitive
organizations.

How does cloud storage work?

Cloud storage is delivered by a cloud services provider that owns and operates data storage
capacity by maintaining large data centers in multiple locations around the world. Cloud storage
providers manage capacity, security, and durability to make data accessible to your applications
over the internet in a pay-as-you-go model. Typically, you connect to the storage cloud either
through the internet or through a dedicated private connection, using a web portal, website, or a
mobile app. When customers purchase cloud storage from a service provider, they turn over most
aspects of the data storage to the vendor, including capacity, security, data availability, storage
servers and computing resources, and network data delivery. Your applications access cloud
storage through traditional storage protocols or directly using an application programming
interface (API). The cloud storage provider might also offer services designed to help collect,
manage, secure, and analyze data at a massive scale.

What are the types of cloud storage?

There are three main cloud storage types: object storage, le storage, and block storage. Each
offers its own advantages and has its own use cases.

Object storage
Organizations have to store a massive and growing amount of unstructured data, such as photos,
videos, machine learning (ML), sensor data, audio les, and other types of web content, and
nding scalable, ef cient, and affordable ways to store them can be a challenge. Object storage is
a data storage architecture for large stores of unstructured data. Objects store data in the format it
arrives in and makes it possible to customize metadata in ways that make the data easier to
access and analyze. Instead of being organized in les or folder hierarchies, objects are kept in
secure buckets that deliver virtually unlimited scalability. It is also less costly to store large data
volumes.

Applications developed in the cloud often take advantage of the vast scalability and metadata
characteristics of object storage. Object storage solutions are ideal for building modern
applications from scratch that require scale and exibility, and can also be used to import
existing data stores for analytics, backup, or archive.

File storage
File-based storage or le storage is widely used among applications and stores data in a
hierarchical folder and le format. This type of storage is often known as a network-attached
storage (NAS) server with common le level protocols of Server Message Block (SMB) used in
Windows instances and Network File System (NFS) found in Linux.

Block storage
Enterprise applications like databases or enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems often
require dedicated, low-latency storage for each host. This is analogous to direct-attached storage
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 (DAS) or a storage area network (SAN). In this case, you can use a cloud storage service that
stores data in the form of blocks. Each block has its own unique identi er for quick storage and
retrieval.

What cloud storage requirements should you consider?

Ensuring your company’s critical data is safe, secure, and available when needed is essential.
There are several fundamental requirements when considering storing data in the cloud.

Durability and availability

Cloud storage simpli es and enhances traditional data center practices around data durability and
availability. With cloud storage, data is redundantly stored on multiple devices across one or
more data centers.

Security
With cloud storage, you control where your data is stored, who can access it, and what resources
your organization is consuming at any given moment. Ideally, all data is encrypted, both at rest
and in transit. Permissions and access controls should work just as well in the cloud as they do
for on-premises storage.

CLOUD SERVICE REQUIREMENTS

1. Ef ciency/cost reduction
By using cloud infrastructure, you don’t have to spend huge amounts of money on purchasing
and maintaining equipment.

2. Data security
Cloud offers many advanced security features that guarantee that data is securely stored and
handled. Cloud storage providers implement baseline protections for their platforms and the data
they process, such as authentication, access control, and encryption.

3. Scalability
Different companies have different IT needs — a large enterprise of 1000+ employees won’t
have the same IT requirements as a start-up. Using the cloud is a great solution because it
enables enterprises to ef ciently — and quickly — scale up/down according to business
demands.

4. Mobility
Cloud computing allows mobile access to corporate data via smartphones and devices, which is a
great way to ensure that no one is ever left out of the loop. Staff with busy schedules, or who live
a long way away from the corporate of ce, can use this feature to keep instantly up-to-date with
clients and coworkers.

5. Disaster recovery
Data loss is a major concern for all organizations, along with data security. Storing your data in
the cloud guarantees that data is always available, even if your equipment like laptops or PCs, is
damaged. Cloud-based services provide quick data recovery for all kinds of emergency scenarios
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6. Control
Cloud enables you complete visibility and control over your data. You can easily decide which
users have what level of access to what data.

7. Market reach
Developing in the cloud enables users to get their applications to market quickly.

8. Automatic Software Updates

Cloud-based applications automatically refresh and update themselves.

Cloud and Dynamic Infrastructures

Cloud infrastructure
Cloud infrastructure is a term used to describe the components needed for cloud computing,
which includes hardware, abstracted resources, storage, and network resources. Think of cloud
infrastructure as the tools needed to build a cloud. In order to host services and applications in
the cloud, you need cloud infrastructure.
An abstraction technology or process like virtualization is used to separate resources from
physical hardware and pool them into clouds; automation software and management tools
allocate these resources and provision new environments so users can access what they need
when they need it.
Cloud infrastructure is made up of several components, each integrated with one another into a
single architecture supporting business operations. A typical solution may be composed of
hardware, virtualization, storage, and networking components.
As a term, cloud infrastructure can be used to describe a complete cloud computing system once
all the pieces are put together as well as the individual technologies themselves.

Hardware
Although you probably think of clouds as being virtual, they require hardware as part of the
infrastructure.
A cloud network is made up of a variety of physical hardware that can be located at multiple
geographical locations.
The hardware includes networking equipment, like switches, routers, rewalls, and load
balancers, storage arrays, backup devices, and servers.
Virtualization connects the servers together, dividing and abstracting resources to make them
accessible to users.
Virtualization
Virtualization is technology that separates IT services and functions from hardware.
Software called a hypervisor sits on top of physical hardware and abstracts the machine’s
resources, such as memory, computing power, and storage.
Once these virtual resources are allocated into centralized pools, they’re considered clouds.
With clouds, you get the bene ts of self-service access, automated infrastructure scaling, and
dynamic resource pools.
Storage
Within a single datacenter, data may be stored across many disks in a single storage array.
Storage management ensures data is correctly being backed up, that outdated backups are
removed regularly, and that data is indexed for retrieval in case any storage component fails.
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 Virtualization abstracts storage space from hardware systems so that it can be accessed by users
as cloud storage.
When storage is turned into a cloud resource, you can add or remove drives, repurpose hardware,
and respond to change without manually provisioning separate storage servers for every new
initiative.
Network
The network is composed of physical wires, switches, routers, and other equipment. Virtual
networks are created on top of these physical resources.
A typical cloud network con guration is composed of multiple subnetworks, each with varying
levels of visibility. The cloud permits the creation of virtual local area networks (VLANs) and
assigns static and/or dynamic addresses as needed for all network resources.
The cloud resources are delivered to users over a network, such as the internet or an intranet, so
you can access cloud services or apps remotely on demand.
Dynamic Infrastructure
Dynamic Infrastructure is an information technology concept related to the design of data
centers, whereby the underlying hardware and software can respond dynamically and more
ef ciently to changing levels of demand. In other words, data center assets such as storage and
processing power can be provisioned (made available) to meet surges in user’s needs.
Dynamic infrastructures take advantage of intelligence gained across the network. By design,
every dynamic infrastructure is service-oriented and focused on supporting and enabling the end
users in a highly responsive way. It can utilize alternative sourcing approaches, like cloud
computing to deliver new services with agility and speed.
Global organizations already have the foundation for a dynamic infrastructure that will bring
together the business and IT infrastructure to create new possibilities. For example:
• Transportation companies can optimize their vehicles’ routes leveraging GPS and traf c
information.
• Facilities organizations can secure access to locations and track the movement of assets
by leveraging RFID technology.
• Production environments can monitor and manage presses, valves and assembly
equipment through embedded electronics.
• Technology systems can be optimized for energy ef ciency, managing spikes in demand,
and ensuring disaster recovery readiness.
• Communications companies can better monitor usage by location, user or function, and
optimize routing to enhance user experience.
• Utility companies can reduce energy usage with a “smart grid.”
1. Service management: This type of special facility or a functionality is provided to the
cloud IT services by the cloud service providers. This facility includes visibility,
automation and control to delivering the rst class IT services.
2. Asset-Management: In this the assets or the property which is involved in providing the
cloud services are getting managed.
3. Virtualization and consolidation: Consolidation is an effort to reduce the cost of a
technology by improving its operating ef ciency and effectiveness. It means migrating
from large number of resources to fewer one, which is done by virtualization technology.
4. Information Infrastructure: It helps the business organizations to achieve the
following: Information compliance, availability of resources retention and security
objectives.
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 5. Energy-Ef ciency: Here the IT infrastructure or organization sustainable. It means it is
not likely to damage or effect any other thing.
6. Security: This cloud infrastructure is responsible for the risk management. Risk
management Refers to the risks involved in the services which are being provided by the
cloud-service providers.
7. Resilience: This infrastructure provides the feature of resilience means the services are
resilient. It means the infrastructure is safe from all sides. The IT operations will not be
easily get affected.

What is cloud adoption and how does it works?

What is cloud adoption?
Cloud adoption is the process of using cloud technologies to improve the way you do business. It
can involve moving your entire business to the cloud or simply using cloud-based tools to
supplement your existing infrastructure.
Why adopt the cloud?
There are many reasons to consider adopting cloud technologies. The most common bene ts
include improved ef ciency, exibility and scalability. In addition, the pay-as-you-go model of
many cloud services can save you money on upfront costs and help you better manage your
resources.
How does it work?
There are a few different ways to approach cloud adoption. You can choose to move your entire
infrastructure to the cloud, or use a hybrid approach that combines on-premises and cloud-based
solutions. You can also choose to use only certain types of clouds, such as private, public or
hybrid. The best approach for your business will depend on your speci c needs and goals.
Bene ts of cloud adoption: cost savings, scalability, exibility, security
The cloud has become increasingly popular in recent years as more and more businesses adopt
cloud-based solutions. We have already written about the bene ts of the Cloud, but just to
summarize all, we’ll mention cost savings, scalability, exibility and security.
Bene ts

Cost Savings

With a pay-as-you-go model, you only need to pay for the resources you use, which can save
your business money. In addition, you can avoid the upfront costs associated with traditional on-
premise solutions.
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 Scalability

Cloud solutions are highly scalable, meaning they can easily be scaled up or down to meet your
changing needs. This can be a major advantage over traditional on-premise solutions, which can
often be dif cult and expensive to scale.

Flexibility

Cloud solutions offer a high degree of exibility, allowing you to customize them to meet your
speci c needs. This includes the ability to add or remove features as needed, and to change
providers if necessary.

Security
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 With a well-designed cloud solution, your data will be stored safely off-site and backed up
regularly. In addition, you’ll have access to the latest security features and technologies to help
protect your data from threats.

Who needs cloud adoption and why?

There’s no single answer to the question of who needs cloud adoption. The truth is that nearly
every sector can bene t from making the switch to cloud-based solutions. Here are just a few
examples:
Healthcare: The healthcare industry is under constant pressure to improve patient outcomes
while reducing costs. Cloud adoption can help by providing access to real-time data and
analytics, enabling better decision-making across the organization.
Retail: Retailers should deliver a personalized shopping experience to each and every customer.
Cloud adoption can help by providing a scalable platform for retailers to build and deploy
custom applications quickly and easily.
Banking and nancial services: Banks and other nancial institutions are under constant
pressure to comply with regulations and keep pace with the latest FinTech innovations. Cloud
adoption can help by providing a secure, reliable platform for banks to run their mission-critical
applications.
Manufacturing: Manufacturing companies have to increase ef ciency and reduce costs. Cloud
adoption can help by providing access to advanced analytics and automation capabilities.
The bottom line is that nearly every sector can bene t from cloud adoption. The key is to
carefully consider your speci c needs and requirements in order to select the right solution
for your business. But what about Startups? What bene t do they have from cloud adoption?
In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, cloud adoption has become a critical component of
business success for startups. Cloud adoption can help startups to scale their businesses quickly
and ef ciently. The pay-as-you-go model means that startups only need to pay for the resources
they use, which can be particularly helpful when cash ow is tight.
There are many bene ts of cloud adoption for startups. For example, the rst is that it can help
reduce costs. Startups often have limited budgets and need to be very careful about how they
spend their money. Cloud computing can help them save money on infrastructure and other
costs. Another bene t is that it can help startups scale their business quickly and ef ciently. They
can easily add more users and capacity as needed without having to invest in new hardware or
software. Lastly, cloud computing can give startups a competitive edge. It can help them be more
agile and responsive to market changes. They can quickly launch new products and services and
get them to market faster than their competitors.

How does cloud adoption work?

Cloud adoption is the process of moving data, applications, or other business components from
an on-premises environment to the cloud. The cloud is a network of remote servers that are
accessed over the internet and used to store, manage, and process data. Cloud adoption can be
done through a number of different methods, including public clouds, private clouds, hybrid
clouds, and multiclouds.
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 (Source: AWS Cloud Adoption Framework)

Public clouds are owned and operated by third-party service providers. They offer pay-as-you-
go models that allow businesses to only pay for the resources they use. Private clouds are
owned and operated by a single organization. They offer more control and security than public
clouds but can be more expensive. Hybrid clouds combine both public and private cloud
resources. Multi-clouds utilize two or more different cloud platforms from different providers.
When it comes to the technical aspects of cloud adoption, there are a few key steps
organizations must take in order to move their data and applications to the cloud. The rst step is
to identify which resources need to be moved and how they will interact with existing systems.
Next, a migration plan needs to be created in order to ensure that all components are successfully
moved over. Finally, organizations need to con gure security settings and access control
measures on their new cloud environment in order to properly protect their data.

Dynamic Infrastructure
Dynamic Infrastructure is an information technology concept related to the design of data
centers, whereby the underlying hardware and software can respond dynamically and more
ef ciently to changing levels of demand. In other words, data center assets such as storage and
processing power can be provisioned (made available) to meet surges in user’s needs.

Dynamic infrastructures take advantage of intelligence gained across the network. By design,
every dynamic infrastructure is service-oriented and focused on supporting and enabling the end
users in a highly responsive way. It can utilize alternative sourcing approaches, like cloud
computing to deliver new services with agility and speed.

Global organizations already have the foundation for a dynamic infrastructure that will bring
together the business and IT infrastructure to create new possibilities. For example:
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 • Transportation companies can optimize their vehicles’ routes leveraging GPS and traf c
information.
• Facilities organizations can secure access to locations and track the movement of assets by
leveraging RFID technology.
• Production environments can monitor and manage presses, valves and assembly equipment
through embedded electronics.
• Technology systems can be optimized for energy ef ciency, managing spikes in demand, and
ensuring disaster recovery readiness.
• Communications companies can better monitor usage by location, user or function, and
optimize routing to enhance user experience.
• Utility companies can reduce energy usage with a “smart grid.”

Service management: This type of special facility or a functionality is provided to the cloud IT
services by the cloud service providers. This facility includes visibility, automation and control to
delivering the rst class IT services.

1. Asset-Management: In this the assets or the property which is involved in providing the
cloud services are getting managed.

2. Virtualization and consolidation: Consolidation is an effort to reduce the cost of a technology

by improving its operating ef ciency and effectiveness. It means migrating from large
number of resources to fewer one, which is done by virtualization technology

3. Information Infrastructure: It helps the business organizations to achieve the following:

Information compliance, availability of resources retention and security objectives

4. Energy-Ef ciency: Here the IT infrastructure or organization sustainable. It means it is not

likely to damage or effect any other things

5. Security: This cloud infrastructure is responsible for the risk management. Risk management
Refers to the risks involved in the services which are being provided by the cloud-service
providers

6. Resilience: This infrastructure provides the feature of resilience means the services are
resilient. It means the infrastructure is safe from all sides. The IT operations will not be easily
get affected.

Types of cloud computing

There are four main types of cloud computing: private clouds, public clouds, hybrid clouds, and
multiclouds. There are also three main types of cloud computing services: Infrastructure-as-a-
Service (IaaS), Platforms-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

Choosing a cloud type or cloud service is a unique decision. No two clouds are the same (even if
they’re the same type), and no two cloud services are used to solve the same problem. But by
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 understanding the similarities, you can be more informed about how the caveats of each cloud
computing type and cloud service might impact your business.

What's the same?

Every cloud abstracts, pools, and shares scalable computing resources across a network. Every
cloud type also enables cloud computing, which is the act of running workloads within that
system. And every cloud is created using a unique mix of technologies, which almost always
includes an operating system, some kind of management platform, and application programming
interfaces (APIs). Virtualization and automation software can also be added to every kind of
cloud for additional capabilities or increased ef ciencies.
What's different?
The differences between public clouds, private clouds, hybrid clouds, and multiclouds were once
easily de ned by location and ownership. But it’s just not that simple anymore. So while we
compare the differences below, there are plenty of caveats.

Public clouds

Public clouds are cloud environments typically created from IT infrastructure not owned by the
end user. Some of the largest public cloud providers include Alibaba Cloud, Amazon Web
Services (AWS), Google Cloud, IBM Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.

Traditional public clouds always ran off-premises, but today's public cloud providers have started
offering cloud services on clients’ on-premise data centers. This has made location and
ownership distinctions obsolete.

All clouds become public clouds when the environments are partitioned and redistributed to
multiple tenants. Fee structures aren't necessary characteristics of public clouds anymore, since
some cloud providers (like the Massachusetts Open Cloud) allow tenants to use their clouds for
free. The bare-metal IT infrastructure used by public cloud providers can also be abstracted and
sold as IaaS, or it can be developed into a cloud platform sold as PaaS.

Private clouds

Private clouds are loosely de ned as cloud environments solely dedicated to a single end user or
group, where the environment usually runs behind that user or group's rewall. All clouds
become private clouds when the underlying IT infrastructure is dedicated to a single customer
with completely isolated access.

But private clouds no longer have to be sourced from on-premise IT infrastructure. Organizations
are now building private clouds on rented, vendor-owned data centers located off-premises,
which makes any location and ownership rules obsolete. This has also led to a number of private
cloud subtypes, including:

Managed private clouds

Customers create and use a private cloud that's deployed, con gured, and managed by a third-
party vendor. Managed private clouds are a cloud delivery option that helps enterprises with
understaffed or underskilled IT teams provide better private cloud services and infrastructure.
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Dedicated clouds

A cloud within another cloud. You can have a dedicated cloud on a public cloud (e.g. Red Hat
OpenShift® Dedicated) or on a private cloud. For example, an accounting department could have
its own dedicated cloud within the organization's private cloud.

Hybrid clouds

A hybrid cloud is a seemingly single IT environment created from multiple environments

connected through local area networks (LANs), wide area networks (WANs), virtual private
networks (VPNs), and/or APIs.

The characteristics of hybrid clouds are complex and the requirements can differ, depending on
whom you ask. For example, a hybrid cloud may need to include:
• At least one private cloud and at least one public cloud
• Two or more private clouds
• Two or more public clouds
A bare-metal or virtual environment connected to at least one public cloud or private cloud
But every IT system becomes a hybrid cloud when apps can move in and out of multiple separate
—yet connected—environments. At least a few of those environments need to be sourced from
consolidated IT resources that can scale on demand. And all those environments need to be
managed as a single environment using an integrated management and orchestration platform.

Multiclouds

Multiclouds are a cloud approach made up of more than 1 cloud service, from more than 1 cloud
vendor—public or private. All hybrid clouds are multiclouds, but not all multiclouds are hybrid
clouds. Multiclouds become hybrid clouds when multiple clouds are connected by some form of
integration or orchestration.

A multicloud environment might exist on purpose (to better control sensitive data or as redundant
storage space for improved disaster recovery) or by accident (usually the result of shadow IT).
Either way, having multiple clouds is becoming more common across enterprises that seek to
improve security and performance through an expanded portfolio of environments.
Cloud services
Cloud services are infrastructure, platforms, or software that are hosted by third-party providers
and made available to users through the internet. There are three main types of as-a-Service
solutions: IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS. Each facilitates the ow of user data from front-end clients
through the internet, to the cloud service provider’s systems, and back—but vary by what’s
provided.
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 IaaS
IaaS means a cloud service provider manages
the infrastructure for you—the actual servers,
network, virtualization, and data storage—
through an internet connection. The user has
access through an API or dashboard, and
essentially rents the infrastructure. The user
manages things like the operating system, apps,
and middleware while the provider takes care of
any hardware, networking, hard drives, data
storage, and servers; and has the responsibility
of taking care of outages, repairs, and hardware
issues. This is the typical deployment model of
cloud storage providers.

PaaS

PaaS means the hardware and an application-

software platform are provided and managed by an
outside cloud service provider, but the user
handles the apps running on top of the platform
and the data the app relies on. Primarily for
developers and programmers, PaaS gives users a
shared cloud platform for application development
and management (an important DevOps
component) without having to build and maintain
the infrastructure usually associated with the
process.

SaaS
SaaS is a service that delivers a software
application—which the cloud service provider
manages—to its users. Typically, SaaS apps are
web applications or mobile apps that users can
access via a web browser. Software updates, bug
xes, and other general software maintenance are
taken care of for the user, and they connect to the
cloud applications via a dashboard or API. SaaS
also eliminates the need to have an app installed
locally on each individual user’s computer,
allowing greater methods of group or team access
to the software.
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 Which cloud should I use?
That depends on what you're doing.

• Workloads with high volume or uctuating demands might be better suited for a public
cloud.
• Workloads with predictable use patterns might be better off in a private cloud.
• Hybrid clouds are the catch-all, because any workload can be hosted anywhere.

Which cloud is safest?

That's a loaded question.

• Public clouds tend to have a wider variety of security threats due to multi-tenancy and
numerous access points. Public clouds often split security responsibilities. For instance,
infrastructural security can be the provider’s responsibility while workload security can be
the tenant's responsibility.
• Private clouds are thought to be more secure because workloads usually run behind the user's
rewall, but that all depends on how strong your own security is.
• Hybrid cloud security is made up of the best features of every environment, where users and
admins can minimize data exposure by moving workloads and data across environments
based on compliance, audit, policy, or security requirements.
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