Cloud Computing Models, How & Where to Use Each Model to Enhance Your Business Productivity?

Cloud computing has acquired far and wide use in the course of the most recent couple of years.

As the name indicates, cloud computing is a combination of configurable framework assets and state-of-the-art services that can be conveyed rapidly utilizing the internet. Lower power expenses, zero capital cost, zero redundancy, lower employee costs, enhanced collaboration, etc. are the benefits of cloud computing. Whereas, traditional computing is completely opposite to cloud computing. Physical data centres are required for data storage and networking systems which are quite expensive. In traditional computing, data, storage, or software accessibility is limited. Users can only access data in which the data is stored. It delivers various services on the local server.

Quite recently, the majority of an organization’s IT frameworks were on-premises and clouds were simply white feathery things overhead. Presently, everybody can use cloud-based technology for practically the entirety of their frameworks and work cycles.

Cloud can be dedicated (the storage you buy would be your own for a lifetime) or shareable (a person can temporarily purchase and then leave the storage after the defined time period).

3 Types of Cloud Computing Service Models

SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS present three current yet various ways of portraying how you can involve the cloud in your business.

IaaS

IaaS, infrastructure-as-a-service is the way that works with the principle of the pay-as-you-go. In this type of cloud computing service, on-demand computing, storage, networking, and virtualization are offered. The thing that matters is that the cloud service provider oversees, and keeps up with the equipment and registering assets in its own server. IaaS clients utilize the hardware tools by means of internet connectivity and pay for that utilization on membership or use pay-as-you-go. IaaS facilitates customers by eliminating the expenses of purchasing and maintaining their own data centres.

Every major cloud service provider started by offering services that resemble IaaS.

The characteristics of IaaS include cost-effectiveness, multiple users accessibility, higher flexibility, and high scalability.

IaaS cloud servers are offered to businesses via dashboard or APIs over the internet. The cloud servers of IaaS have complete control over the computing infrastructure.

IaaS Advantage

IaaS advantages are numerous but we highlight a few here;

• Maintenance of on-premise IT infrastructure is quite complicated and expensive as it requires cost for deployment and also requires a noteworthy initial investment.
• The flexibility and scalability of IaaS allow you to replace whenever you want and you will never lose your money on your initial investment.
• Another advantage is that you can access your IaaS product whenever you wish to see it as you have proper control over your product and you do not need to rely on external IT resources.
• IaaS plays role in the improved responsiveness to quickly test new ideas and introduce new ideas to the users.

When to use IaaS

Ecommerce websites can utilize IaaS to enhance security and high-quality services, especially for the 24/7 retail industry in this modern world. Adobe commerce (Magento) is an example of IaaS e-commerce and can be used as IaaS or on-premise according to how the merchant chooses to use it.

IoT, AI, and event processing can also use IaaS to set up and scale up data storage and computing resources as these applications work with huge amounts of data.

Start-ups can also avail the IaaS platforms because of accessibility to enterprise-class data centre capabilities.

IaaS fits into most of the industry’s budget due to its pay-as-you-use model.

PaaS

• PaaS, platform-as-a-service is also termed cloud platform services. Developers can access different tools, software, and frameworks from PaaS as per their requirements to develop apps and software through internet connectivity.
• Clients gain access to PaaS through a graphical UI (GUI), where the collaboration of developers or DevOps teams focuses on their work across the whole application lifecycle including coding, integration, testing, deployment, and feedback.
• PaaS is accessible for multiple users, highly scalable, and developed on virtualization technology, without immense system administration knowledge you can run PaaS.

PaaS Advantages

Developers who develop apps and software primarily use PaaS. They can save time and money as they do not need to start development from scratch. In this way, they do not need to get involved in complex code writing. PaaS is the go-to choice for developers to create dynamic and customizable software.

When to Use PaaS

Built-in frameworks of PaaS facilitate data sharing and functionality between apps and make it easier for teams to develop, run, manage and secure APIs

PaaS upholds tools, a diverse range of programming languages (Java, Python, Swift, and many more), and the application environment utilized for IoT application improvement and ongoing handling of real-time information from IoT gadgets.

DevOps toolchain is almost covered by the PaaS solution.

The platform remains the same but the app/software you develop in that is distinctive.

SaaS

SaaS, software-as-a-service is the common type of ready-to-use cloud solution. There is a monthly fee for the subscription of the SaaS to users over the internet. On paying the fee, the software is available to use and usually, there is no hard and fast rule to install or download the software for use. Users can access software from web browsers as SaaS is a ready-to-use software solution. The SaaS solution is managed by the providers for upgrades. Availability, security, and performance standards are all maintained by SaaS solution providers.

Availability over the internet is the key feature. Accessibility to the SaaS solution is possible through any web browser from anywhere just upon the availability of an internet connection. The IT costs for reviewing get eliminated and streamlining of business processes becomes easier as a result of utilizing SaaS.

SaaS Advantage

• As long as there is internet connectivity, you can access your files from anywhere that you already stored on the SaaS platform.
• Every single employee will have access to the SaaS software. There is no need to engage IT experts and download software individually on their computers. The personalized credentials for every employee make it feasible to access the software up to their access level. The hassle of keeping up-to-date software on every computer is hence eliminated.
• Third-party provides hosted remote server which makes it easier to work. SMBs and start-ups can benefit from the SaaS solutions as they do not need to develop their own expensive software solutions. This is a highly scalable model for different types of businesses i.e. small, medium, and enterprise-level organizations. Maintenance comes under the monthly subscription package of the SaaS. The monthly subscription package is free from hidden charges.

When to use SaaS

When you want to use an application smoothly with minimum input, SaaS is the best choice. Any employee or individual application related to productivity is based on SaaS. The use cases are vast and cover a broad area. Most of the time if any organization finds the SaaS software with their respective functioning features then they will get comparatively more benefits than the on-site software.

Business Advantages

Cost-effective

Do you want to move to a cloud server but are concerned about the expenses? The initial investment that comes to switching on cloud computing technology is what other 20% of organizations also had to face.

The goal of any business is to get profit and get a Return On Investment (ROI).

Some of the business owners of SMBs are worried about paying for the features that they don’t have to use for their business. The good news is most of the cloud services are pay-as-you-use i.e. you only have to pay for what you’re using and you don’t need to waste money on the features you’re not using.

The pay-as-you-use system also implies data storage space and you only have to pay for the space you require. There is no need to pay for the space that is not required. Eventually, the pay-as-you-use model helps businesses in cost-saving and as a result higher Return On Investment (ROI) is achieved.

According to one more study, small and medium-sized businesses, on average, find it 40% more cost-effective to use cloud services rather than on-premise system maintenance.

Security

When it comes to adopting cloud computing, organizations have security concerns. Many businesses are worried that if they can remotely access their data on a cloud server then that will be also accessible to hackers, so their concern is valid. But cloud service providers are responsible for providing highly secure services and if any threat arises, they can act accordingly. In terms of security, the cloud server gives more efficient services than the on-premise traditional system, where an association should split its endeavors between a heap of IT worries, with security being only one of them.

Here the fact is, most organizations are at the risk of data theft internally than breaching a cloud server from the outside hacking threat. At the point when this is the situation, it can really be a lot more secure to keep sensitive information of your organization offsite. Obviously, this is all extremely unique, so we should think about a few strong measurements. The key to ensuring security is to use data encryption so the data can be secured from transferring over the network and storage on other databases. Encryption makes it suitable for less accessibility of the data and also prevents hacking of internal information.

Some solid statistics revealed that cloud computing is secure enough for your organization’s internal data. According to a RapidScale, 94% of businesses say that after moving to cloud solutions, their data security is improved.

While 20% of cloud users claim disaster recovery in four hours or less, only 9% of non-cloud users could claim the same. In a recent survey, 43% of IT executives said they plan to invest in or improve cloud-based disaster recovery solutions.

Mobility & Increased Collaboration

Data access through mobile is easier as the number of mobile users is increasing worldwide. According to a survey, over 2.6 billion people use smartphones globally. These statistics ensure that all people are in the loop. The employees who have to live away from the office or who have busy schedules can access their clients and co-workers effortlessly.

The accessibility to the information is convenient for your traveling staff, freelance employees, and remote employees, and hence cloud usage makes a better work-life balance for your employees.

Therefore, organizations that make employee satisfaction a top priority are 24% more likely to increase their cloud usage.

Cloud computing makes it easier for you to increase collaboration among your employees as it is feasible to share and view information through a cloud-based platform.

According to research, companies that invest in collaboration technologies can increase their productivity by as much as 400%.

Automatic Software Updates

If you have a lot of tasks in the queue then it is difficult to wait for system updates to be installed for prolonged hours. By using cloud-based apps, you can eliminate the waiting hours as these applications automatically get updated and save the time of manual updates.

This saves time for IT staff or also if you have to hire external IT resources for the update, then the automatic updates save you money and time both.

According to PCWorld, 50% of organizations that migrated to cloud servers say that they required fewer IT internal resources after moving to the cloud.

Competitive Edge

In the modern era of technology, there are still some people who want to keep their data in the local space. We can say that it’s their own choice but if they do so, they cannot take competitive advantage of the cloud solution.

The companies who use cloud solutions can take competitive benefits from the solution. If you integrate cloud solutions in your company processes before your competitors get into the game, then you will be further at the learning edge before they switch to the cloud-based solution.

A study showed that 77% of cloud-based solutions give a competitive edge to businesses.

Conclusion

For understanding IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS and the overall benefits of cloud-based solutions, the above information gives clear pictures. The popularity of cloud-based solutions has eliminated/diminished the need for the on-premise server. As businesses and innovations are merging, moving to the cloud platform becomes central for associations, hoping to stay on the front line.

In simple words, the cloud-based servers can give the users more flexibility and versatile features that on-premise hosts cannot provide.

If you are looking to migrate to a cloud-based platform, talk to our experts to discuss which strategy is optimal for your platform.