Types Of Clouds In Cloud Computing
What are the types of clouds in cloud computing? Cloud computing is a bit of an esoteric term, full of complications to those unfamiliar with emerging technology, and has even been accused of simply serving a buzzword synonymous with the Internet itself. Its name derives from the symbol typically used in computer networking diagrams to abstract away from all of the gritty details that take place between one computer on the network and another; however, as we’ll see, types of clouds in cloud computing actually have much less to do with those gritty networking details, and much more to do with how abstracting away from them can allow business to offer diverse new services.
A further source of confusion comes from the fact that many of the types of clouds in cloud computing overlap with one another, so defining them within the context of one another can prove more insightful than trying to define them individually. The specific cloud covered in this article can also be a public cloud, meaning its services can be employed by the public at large. It may also serve as a a private cloud, meaning they it is used solely within one organization. It can even be a community cloud, meaning it can be and is used by a community of organizations. Finally, it can also be defined as a hybrid of one of the aforementioned models of types of clouds in clouds computing. So, to summarize so far, types of clouds in cloud computing can include public, private, community, or hybrid clouds.
IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) is the cloud nearest the ground, so to speak. Types of clouds in cloud computing such as IaaS provide a number of useful benefits. Consider the following: by offering infrastructure as a service, businesses can use physical resources as a service to their potential clients. One example of this is remote storage, e.g. YouTube or Flickr, both of which allow their users to store videos or images remotely, without having to worry about the volatility of the storage medium. In other words, the users do not have to concern themselves over whether or not the hard disk on which the given media is stored will crash and said media will be permanently lost. Another important example in this field includes remote servers, such as those offered by Rackspace. In this case, clients can develop websites and applications without having to bother themselves with the maintenance of the physical machines.
In the first example (remote storage), the cloud service that a user receives is actually SaaS, or ‘Software as a Service.’ A user on YouTube or Flickr is using a remote piece of software to manage their videos or images; however, those sites themselves have to ensure that their users’ videos and images will not be lost, and rather than concerning themselves with this potential problem, they might abstract it away through employing the services of another company whose function is to ensure that data will be stored redundantly. The purpose of this is that in event one hard disk fails, the data will still be stored on another hard disk, and as such, this type of failure does not affect the end user experience.
The amount of information on types of clouds in cloud computing can be daunting, though hopefully for the less technologically-inclined, this article has offered a better understanding of cloud computing and how it functions.
