As cloud computing and cloud resources have become mainstream, with more businesses opting for mobile data storage solutions, it is common for companies to miss the mark with the exact form of the best cybersecurity software that would benefit their company. Hence, it is essential to differentiate cloud resources by deployment type, as discussed below.
What Are Cloud Resources?
Maintaining and managing on-site computing resources was an enormous financial burden on businesses. Only large enterprises were able to afford and benefit from such services. As cloud resources technology has improved, cloud resources have become more available to a broader audience.
Cloud resources include the following features:
- Storage
- Processing power
- Databases
- Networking
- Analytics
- Artificial Intelligence
- Software applications.
Businesses can maintain these functions without investing in on-premise infrastructure, providing flexible solutions for smaller businesses.
The cloud resources industry also agrees that there are three different classes of cloud computing: public, private, and hybrid. They all share the same basic features -- the differences are in who is allowed access to the different cloud resources.
Public Clouds
Public cloud resources are the most widely adopted class and thoroughly understood -- it's often considered the standard cloud computing model. In public cloud resources, a service provider makes IT resources, such as collaboration, CRM or payroll applications, storage capacity, or server compute cycles, available to customers using their cloud resources via the Internet.
A few public cloud resources have already become an ingrained part of the business community, such as Salesforce Sales Cloud. Many of their users need to be made aware that they're accessing applications in a cloud environment.
Salesforce.com isn't the only significant cloud resources vendor to jump in with a public cloud offering. They are joined by Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Google Apps, and Microsoft Azure.
The benefits of cloud resources are compelling. In a public cloud, IT services are easy to set up via browser-based UIs, inexpensive with zero hardware and software costs, and can scale up or down depending on your needed capacity. However, for many enterprise organizations, these benefits come with certain risks: no control over the cloud resources, the security of confidential data, network performance issues, and interoperability.
Private Clouds
Private cloud resources mitigate these concerns with the security of an internal network. Because the customer owns all of the hardware and software security powering the cloud environment (often an extensive data center), the customer has complete control over the IT cloud resources and the data and is responsible for securing it.
In a private cloud, enterprise IT resources are consolidated and pooled so users across the company can have self-service access and increased scalability. Also, like public cloud resources, a private cloud makes provisioning an automated service request rather than a manual task processed by IT.
Unlike public cloud resources, setting up shop in a private cloud requires expertise with network integration, sophisticated virtualization, and cloud platform technologies; you'll have to run your hardware, storage, networking, hypervisor, and cloud software.
Many names familiar to the enterprise now offer cloud platforms for building a private cloud, including Cisco and EMC, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and VMware, as well as services to help manage it. It's a crowded market with smaller names like Cloud.com, Platform Computing, and Enomaly.
Public clouds may be the standard, but private clouds take hold in enterprises with surprising speed. Research firm IDC reported that personal cloud spending would soon dominate the sales of servers, with $12.4 billion in sales going towards creating cloud computing environments. The same report states that $718 million in server sales will be used for public clouds by the same year.
Hybrid Cloud Resources
Hybrid cloud resources use a combination of internal resources, which stay under the control of the customer, and external resources delivered by a cloud resources service provider. Like the private model, a hybrid cloud lets an organization use its existing data center equipment and secure sensitive data on its network. And like the public cloud resources, a hybrid model enables an organization to take advantage of a cloud's almost unlimited scalability. It's a way to solve some of the trust issues of the public cloud resources while getting the public cloud's benefits.
Amazon's Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) is one of the leading examples of hybrid cloud resources. Still in beta, VPC lets an organization securely connect its existing data center Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) to an isolated set of cloud resources within Amazon Web Services (AWS). With VPC, a company can also extend its security measures, such as firewalls and intrusion detection systems, to its AWS resources in the cloud.
Benefits of Cloud Computing
Reduced Costs
Cloud resources allow businesses to cut operational costs by outsourcing the management of cloud resources. Buying equipment or managing the infrastructure required to maintain cloud resources is unnecessary.
Scalability
Your cloud resources can grow alongside your businesses with scalable plans with different vendors. Some vendors also feature auto-scaling functions that automatically grow and shrink based on business demand.
Performance
Cloud resources ensure that the end-user gets the best resources from the vendor. Since this is already a competitive market, cloud resources vendors continuously upgrade their infrastructure to provide their customers with the best cloud resources.
Faster Execution
Teams that use cloud resources can execute plans faster by validating new ideas and automating a project's testing and deployment stages. With better accessibility, cloud resources provide teams with the right tools to collaborate effectively.
Better Security
Maintenance of cloud resources' security is usually the service provider's responsibility. This means you no longer must worry about the safety of your cloud resources. Role-based access and multifactor authentication are typically used to assure cloud safety.
Product Integrations
Cloud resources can easily be integrated with other business solutions, such as CRM and ERP, to streamline your business's operations. Cloud resources can help you monitor your business more efficiently with these product integrations.
Compare the best cybersecurity solutions to fit your company's cloud resources infrastructure with our cloud networking page.
