Software and Services that run on the Internet rather than on your computer are referred to as cloud. Your computer connects with a network of servers when you use the cloud. Some servers are dedicated to storage, while others make use of their processing capacity to run applications. Now that your films, photographs, emails, documents, games, and other software are stored in the cloud, you may access them from any device with an Internet connection. Knowingly or unknowingly, you've already made extensive use of the cloud.
| After going through these 7 common cloud purposes, you'll realize "you've been using cloud even before you knew what it was". |
Software Development and Testing
If you've ever produced an in-house application or software, you know how time-consuming, costly, and expensive the process can be. It necessitates the installation and deployment of sophisticated gear and software, as well as ongoing training for all personnel involved. This simply means that even a basic project can take months to execute, putting you at a competitive disadvantage in today's market. Many solutions for continuous integration and continuous delivery are available through cloud computing companies, making development and testing faster, easier, and less expensive.
Organize Your Data
There are numerous alternatives for storing and accessing your data. There's your laptop's hard drive, an external hard drive you use for data backup and transfer, network file shares, USB devices, and more. What makes cloud storage different from other storage options?
The fact that files can be viewed and modified with ease is the fundamental reason why cloud storage is desirable. You may access your files from any device, anywhere, as long as you have an internet connection. This form of storage is not only safe but also inexpensive. This is why most organizations choose cloud when their data comes in from different geographical locations and needs secure processing and storing.
Cloud in Need - Recovery from a Disaster
Do you know how much it would cost you if you didn't have a business continuity plan in place? Businesses that experience a crisis and do not have a disaster recovery plan in place collapse within three years of the incident. Building a disaster recovery site and evaluating your business continuity strategy has traditionally been a costly and time-consuming process. However, you can easily create a disaster recovery system in the cloud using cloud computing. In this strategy, you make a copy of your production site and replicate data and configuration settings on a regular basis. In the event of a disaster at your production site, launching your applications and data services in the cloud is quick and painless, allowing you to get your business back up and running in no time. For many organizations with data-sensitive services, this will also help you with compliance standards.
Using Cloud for Big Data Analytics
If your company does not capture big data now, it will be at a tremendous disadvantage. This information could include information on your clients, market trends, sales performance, and so on. Big data collection and analysis, on the other hand, isn't easy. It necessitates the employment of massive computing resources, which come at a high cost.
If you buy the resources you'll need for computing, you could have to cut budgets for other important services like marketing. If you use cloud computing, you won't have to worry about this as it provides you with significant benefits using the cloud's lesser costs.
Backups and Archiving of Data
This is one of the purposes that accrued demand naturally owing to increasing cybercrimes. There isn't a day that goes by without big data breaches, which can be disastrous for a number of firms. Traditional data backup solutions have proven to be effective in storing data for a long period. Despite this, they are susceptible to infections, and because of their portable nature, they can become lost, posing a threat to modern organizations.
These issues can be addressed using cloud-based backup and archiving. It's simple to set up and ensures optimum data security. You can backup or archive your sensitive files to cloud-based storage systems using this method. This gives you peace of mind that your data will be safe even if your live data is compromised. View more details on secure cloud storage.
IaaS and PaaS (Infrastructure as a Service and Platform as a Service)
This is old news to existing cloud users but physical servers and virtualization infrastructure to host your virtual machines necessitate significant IT infrastructure acquisition and management costs. Businesses are turning to cloud computing to save money on this since its pay-per-use pricing plan achieves the ideal balance of quality and affordability. You can get rid of your huge hardware costs you use to host your virtual servers using Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).
This is because IaaS allows you to create virtual machines in the cloud, commonly known as "instances," without having to maintain any of the underlying hardware or hosting software. But what if you don't want to manage the instances or the operating system software that runs them? This is where PaaS (Platform as a Service) comes into play. When you use the PaaS computing model, all you have to do is upload your code to the cloud provider, and everything else is taken care of for you in terms of launching and managing your cloud application. Know more for a tailored solution in PaaS and IaaS.
Finally, Cloud for Social Networking
Social networking is maybe one of the most underappreciated uses of cloud computing. The Software as a Service (SaaS) cloud computing approach is exemplified by platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Social media platforms are designed to assist you in finding individuals you already know – or connecting with people you don't. They also provide you with a variety of options for exchanging data and information. Ever wondered how all this was made possible? The answer is simple 'someone somewhere realized the potential of cloud in its early stage and put it to good use'. So, how do you think the cloud would help you? Test it and know for yourself.
