In 2006, Amazon Web Services(AWS) began offering IT infrastructure services(cloud computing). Ont of the key benefits of cloud computing is the opportunity to replace upfront capital infrastructure expenses with low variable costs that scale with your business. With the cloud, businesses no longer need to plan for and procuure servers and other IT infrastructure weeks or month in advance. Instead, they can instantly spin up hundreads or thousands of servers in minutes and deliver result faster.
Today, AWS procides a highly reliable, scalable, low-cost infrastructure platform in the cloud that powers hundreads of thousands of businesses in 190 countries around the world.
Cloud computing
Cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of compute power, database, storage, applications, and other IT resources through a cloud services platform via the internet with pay-as-you-go pricing. With cloud computing, you don’t need to make large upfront investments in hardware and spend a log of time on the heaby lifting of managing that hardware. Instead, you can provision exactly the right type and size of computinng resources you need to power you newest bright idea or operate you IT department.
Cloud computing provides a simple way to access servers, storage, databases and a broad set of application services over the internet. . A cloud services platform such as Amazon Web Services owns and maintains the network-connected hardware required for these application services, while you provision and use what you need via a web application.
Types of cloud computing
As cloud computing has grown in popularity, several different models and deployment strategies have emerged to help meet specific needs of different users. Each type of cloud service and deployment method provides you with different levels of control, flexibility, and management. Understanding the differences between Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service, and Software as a Service, as well as what deployment strategies you can use, can help you decide what set of services is right for your needs.
Cloud computing models
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Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) IaaS is a step away from on-premises infrastructure. It’s a pay-as-you-go service where a third party provides you with infrastructure services, like storage and virtualization, as you need them, via a cloud, through the internet. As the user, you are responsible for the operating system and any data, applications, middleware, and runtimes, but a provider gives you access to, and management of, the network, servers, virtualization, and storage you need. You don’t have to maintain or update your own on-site datacenter because the provider does it for you. Instead, you access and control the infrastructure via an application programming interface (API) or dashboard.
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Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) Paas is another step further from full, on-premise infrastructure management. It is where a provider hosts the hardware and software on its own infrastructure and delivers this platform to the user as an integrated solution, solution stack, or service through an internet connection. A few examples of PaaS are AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Heroku, and Red Hat OpenShift.
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Software-as-a-service (SaaS) SaaS, also known as cloud application services, is the most comprehensive form of cloud computing services, delivering an entire application that is managed by a provider, via a web browser. Software updates, bug fixes, and general software maintenance are handled by the provider and the user connects to the app via a dashboard or API. There’s no installation of the software on individual machines and group access to the program is smoother and more reliable.
Cloud computing deployment models
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Cloud A cloud-based application is fully deployed in the cloud and all parts of the application run in the cloud. Applications in the cloud have either been created in the cloud or have been migrated from an existing infrastructure to take advantage of the benefits of cloud computing. Cloud-based applications can be built on low-level infrastructure pieces or can use higher level services that provide abstraction from the management, architecting, and scaling requirements of core infrastructure.
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Hybrid A hybrid deployment is a way to connect infrastructure and applications between cloud-based resources and existing resources that are not located in the cloud. The most common method of hybrid deployment is between the cloud and existing on-premises infrastructure to extend, and grow, an organization’s infrastructure into the cloud while connecting cloud resources to the internal system. For more information on how AWS can help you with your hybrid deployment, visit our Hybrid Cloud with AWS page.
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On-premises The deployment of resources on-premises, using virtualization and resource management tools, is sometimes called the “private cloud.” On-premises deployment doesn’t provide many of the benefits of cloud computing but is sometimes sought for its ability to provide dedicated resources. In most cases this deployment model is the same as legacy IT infrastructure while using application management and virtualization technologies to try and increase resource utilization. For more information on how AWS can help, refer to Use case: Cloud services on-premises
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