Cloud services let businesses delegate the management of infrastructure to third-party service providers so that they can concentrate on their business applications and use the data to fuel innovation. A company can replace, for instance, costly server centers with high-speed Internet connections that allow employees to access files and applications online. The provider is responsible for the hardware middleware, application software and security, while clients can use the service on demand to complete their work. This is especially beneficial for applications that are commonplace, such as social media management or email.
Cloud providers provide a wide range of services designed for large-scale enterprise systems. These include infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as A Service (SaaS). IaaS provides the greatest control of IT resources. PaaS is geared towards developers. SaaS gives the least control to users. These three models allow users to pay as they go, reducing the cost of maintenance.
Cloud computing offers real benefits to businesses, even if some are still skeptics. For instance the use of a cloud service such as Dropbox means that you don’t need to worry about uploading files and saving cloud data services it to your computer because the cloud storage is actually an actual piece of hardware located in a variety of thousands of locations around the globe.
In addition, cloud services are incredibly flexible and can work with different kinds of environments without restricting users to one provider for all their work. This flexibility has led to the rise of multi-clouds, a technique in which businesses choose to mix and match cloud capabilities from multiple providers.
