How Cloud Computing is making your work faster and easier

Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider believed to have invented the idea of cloud computing around the 1960s with his work on ARPANET. The phrase “cloud computing” was coined around late 1996. Inside the offices of Compaq Computer, a small group of technology executives was plotting the future of the Internet business and called it “Cloud Computing”, according to a report by MIT Technology Review. Presently, the benefits of cloud computing have helped many businesses to grow exponentially. 

Earlier client/server architecture used to be popular. It is a computing model in which the server hosts, delivers and manages the resources and services. These resources and services eventually end up being utilized by the client. With the introduction of the concept of the Internet, a large number of computers got interconnected, and it enabled in the pool of storage which can be accessed by any client based on the permission granted.

What exactly is cloud computing?

Cloud computing can be described as the practice of using a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store, manage, and process data instead of a local server or a personal computer. Amazon web service, a subsidiary of Amazon in 2006, was one of the organizations which initially helped in popularizing cloud computing through the launch of their product Elastic Compute Cloud.

It would be much easier to understand what cloud computing is if it is explained with the help of a real-life example. Majority of us use cloud computing in our day to day life. But most of us are not aware of that. Suppose you want to know which is the best web designing company in India, what you would do is type a query in Google, and you would be getting several search results within seconds. From where do you get these results? The moment you type your query, Google’s clustered PCs will dig out your results and will send it back to you. Your computer doesn’t play any role in finding out the results for you. The real work will be done by some computer located in some random parts of the world.

How does cloud computing works?

Cloud computing architecture has front-end platforms called Clients. These clients can be mobile devices, tablets, PC, servers, and so on. These clients will be interacting with cloud storage through a medium which can be an application or a web browser. Digital Data will be stored as pools in cloud storage. These storages span multiple servers which might be located in various locations. There are a number of cloud storage providers who are responsible for storing data, making this data accessible and also to protect the physical environment where this storage is located.
 

Cloud computing is of 3 types. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS).

Infrastructure as a Service – Users are given access to computing resources such as servers, storage and networking. The organization can use their platforms and application on a service provider’s infrastructure.

Software as a Service – Application will be located on a remote cloud network, and the user can make use of this software instead of installing it in their system.

Platform as a Service- Provides an environment where an organization can develop, manage and deliver their applications. Users can use a set of prebuilt tools to create, customize and deliver their applications.

Why should you switch to the cloud?

Benefits of cloud computing to your business is very huge. If you haven’t started using cloud services yet for your business, it is the biggest mistake that you are committing right now. Benefits of cloud computing are: 

1. Cost – Cloud computing can save your money. It is a hectic task to manage your own servers, hire technicians, purchase the right equipment for your needs. Your expense of buying hardware, software and setting up a running data centre will be very high. Cloud follows the model of the pay-per-use model, thereby helps you save money, time and resources.
2. Security – With lots of hackers and spammers waiting to breach into your system, it is a tedious task to keep your data protected. By making use of cloud, you can rest assured that your data will be protected by the service providers.
3. Performance – The biggest cloud computing services run on a worldwide network of secure data centres, which are upgraded to the latest generation of fast and powerful computing hardware.
4. No need to worry about a backup plan– Handling all the data by yourself leads to the need of having a backup plan since trouble can happen anytime and can lead to data loss. By making use of cloud services, the security of the data is ensured by service providers.
5. Flexibility– The cloud offers more flexibility to your business compared to hosting on your local server. Suppose if you need to upgrade anything, imagine you need some extra bandwidth. You need to undergo a sophisticated upgrade to your IT infrastructure if you need to achieve your target. But on the other hand, the cloud provides this facility instantly without any difficulty. By using the cloud, you can entirely focus on your business rather than getting worried about the infrastructure.
6. Large storage capacity– Cloud provides you with a large amount of storage space like 2000gb or even more according to your need. Also, you need not have to worry about the difficulties in handling these storage facilities.
7. Increased Collaboration – Making all the employees of a company work on the cloud can help you increase collaboration among them.
8. Competitive Edge – Companies that use cloud services have a competitive edge as compared to those who don’t. Since Cloud offers the latest technology, you won’t feel outdated in this fast-growing world. Using the latest technology will give a competitive edge for you compared to your competitors.

Does cloud computing have any impact on SEO?

Everyone is aware of the fact that making your company website more SEO friendly can fetch you more traffic. Cloud computing has some important role to play as far as SEO is considered.

Search engines like Google give importance to site speed and have included this in their algorithm. Google, as well as other search engines, prefer those sites which offer a pleasant user experience. It is to be noted that 1-second delay in website loading can lead to 20% customer dissatisfaction. A website having long loading time will eventually affect your SEO ranking. Cloud hosting improves the performance of your website and thereby helps to improve the loading speed, which is good for SEO. 

To know more about Free SEO Tools, visit: Free SEO Tools (2019 Updated)

Comparing some of the cloud computing giants

According to a report by Gartner, Amazon web service, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure can be considered as the leaders in Cloud Infrastructure as a Service.

AWS – Amazon Web Service, a subsidiary of amazon in 2006 introduced its product Elastic Compute Cloud. AWS provides on-demand cloud computing platforms on a pay-per-use basis. Amazon provides security for the user’s systems as well. AWS includes computer, database, networking, storage, application services, mobile, deployment, analytics, management, developer tools and tools for the Internet of Things (IoT). AWS has a leading market share compared to other service providers. With its vast toolset, Amazon’s capabilities are truly incredible.

Microsoft Azure– Microsoft Azure was late to enter the cloud market when compared with AWS. But Microsoft was successful in converting its software such as Windows Server, Office, SQL Server, Sharepoint, Dynamics Active Directory, .Net, and others for the cloud. Most of the companies were already using Microsoft products. As a result, they felt it would be good to start using Azure which helped Azure to become a success and become a tight competition for AWS.

Google Cloud – Google Cloud can be considered as a newcomer when compared with Azure and AWS. Google, at present, is not offering many services as compared to AWS and Azure and have less data centre among the three. 

To get a detailed comparison of AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google cloud visit, AWS vs Azure vs Google: Cloud Comparison.

Selecting the service providers entirely depends on what your needs are. But one important thing everyone should consider before choosing a service provider is that,
Can your cloud provider adjust its services with your growing business needs?
Your business is growing each day and will continue to grow. Along with the growth of your business, your needs will also keep on increasing. As a result, your service provider should also be able to expand their services with your growing business needs.