In my earlier post, I explained about cloud? Now I am going to explain about different types of cloud computing and layers of cloud computing.
Based on organization’s business, economy and technical need, we divide Cloud in different category.
Cloud computing is define in three major technology layers. These are SAAS (Software As A service), PAAS (Platform As A Service) and IASS (Infrastructure As A Service).
1. SAAS (Software As A Service) – This is the top technology layer of Cloud Computing and oldest among these three. Under this layer organization gets fully functional applications on-demand to provide specific services such as email management, CRM, ERP, web conferencing and an increasingly wide range of other applications. These software licenses are managed by Cloud computing company.
2. PAAS (Platform As A Service) – Second layer of cloud computing is PAAS (Platform As A Service). In this layer organization gets mostly an operating environment to develop application, to run application or to deploy application. PAAS provides operating environment like Java, J2EE, .Net, Window, Linux etc.
3. IAAS (Infrastructure AS A Service) – This layer provides all basic, physical and virtual resources used in application for any organization. This includes virtual platform (space on server) on which required operating environment and application are deployed. It also includes storage and datacenter.
In other dimension, there are 4 types of cloud computing service available. These are Public, Private, Community and Hybrid computing.
1. Public cloud (External Cloud) – Public cloud is offering service by third party vendor over internet. If any vendor provides infrastructure, data center, search or other service to any organization, then it comes in public cloud type. This type of cloud shares some benefit like efficiency, High availability, elastic capacity, Low upfront cost, less or no hardware setup and less or no system management. This type of cloud computing service is provided by Amazon EC2, Microsoft Azure, Sun Microsystem cloud, Salesforce etc.
2. Private cloud (Internal cloud) – Private cloud is set up and managed by an enterprise’s own IT department and run inside the organization firewall. If any organization has large number of user and resources, then organization hosts cloud computing within their own firewall. This type of cloud computing is dedicated to that organization. It does not share any resource outside their organization. Any big organization like AT&T, Verizon or Bank of America open their infrastructure or data center near to low cost area and makes the service available through their own cloud, then it called as private Cloud computing. It shares some benefit like efficiency, High availability, elastic capacity, Lower cost over time, full access and flexibility, direct control over quality, service and security.
3. Community cloud (Semi-private cloud) – Community cloud is offering service for similar type of business company. This type of cloud is public cloud but it focuses on same vertical domain companies. Like if any cloud dedicated to government or banking organization and it is serving only those types of organization, then it come as community cloud. It shares some benefit like efficiency, High availability, elastic capacity, expertise in domain knowledge, less cost over time compare to public cloud.
4. Hybrid cloud (Integrated cloud) – Hybrid cloud is combination of any or all of the other types of cloud. This type of cloud is gaining lot of popularity among organizations. This type of cloud computing give organization more flexibility to manage and share resource between private and public cloud. Like if any organization host their application in public cloud and during peak sales time they need more server and space to handle this request, they can go for public cloud. In this type of cloud computing Model Company keeps all sensitive data (transaction or credit card data) in private cloud and less sensitive data in public cloud. It shares benefits like efficiency, High availability, elastic capacity, more control over quality, service and security, less cost over time compare to public and community cloud.
Rajnish Kumar is CTO of Vanrish Technology with Over 25 years experience in different industries and technology. He is very passionate about innovation and latest technology like APIs, IOT (Internet Of Things), Artificial Intelligence (AI) ecosystem and Cybersecurity. He present his idea in different platforms and help customer to their digital transformation journey.