What is Cloud and what are the cloud services for individuals and businesses. Assoprovider illustrates the advantages and market figures in Italy and abroad
If you want to know what the cloud is and what cloud services are available on the market, read this article in which we analyze the phenomenon today and what the market numbers are in Italy and abroad.
When was cloud computing born
The first time the term cloud computing was used was in 1997 by Harvard professor, Ramnath Chellappa, during one of his lectures. In those years, several companies were already beginning to provide their services in cloud mode, usually dedicated to businesses.
With cloud computing, companies have immediately had the opportunity to achieve significant savings on the purchase and management of machines and infrastructure.
Compared to what happened in the past, server hosting - understood as a single machine located in a known location - has been replaced by a technology featuring a distributed group of interconnected servers (the so-called cloud). Thanks to these servers, it becomes possible to manage a series of online services more easily and economically.
Companies were therefore the first to immediately understand its advantages. Let's take an example. It is no longer necessary to have very powerful hardware to open spreadsheets: simply access the cloud through an application. which in technical terms is called "middleware". With this system, the computing power is no longer on the employee's desk but is distributed among all the computers that are part of the cloud.
Cloud Services Overview
To fully understand what cloud services are, however, it is necessary to make some initial distinctions. Going into detail, there are two distinct types of cloud services based on purpose: storage and computing. In simple terms, "storage" offers the possibility to store data online, while computing also provides the opportunity to work in the cloud (e.g., edit, save, share, collaborate on multiple documents or the same document).
After making this primary distinction, we can try to understand what cloud services really are and what they allow us to do. Let's analyze the three main ones:
- Software as a Service (SAS). Here the protagonist is the cloud service provider who offers a web application that users can access online without needing to install it on their computers: Google Documents is one of the most well-known examples.
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). In this type of service, the user purchases "computational power" from the provider. In other words, they rent any hardware component (CPU, hard disk...). The user pays proportionally to what they need, with a monthly or annual subscription. The web hosting services offered by the provider they are an example.
- Platform as a Service (PaaS). This is a hybrid model in which the client can develop applications using a web-based tool (which is installed on the service provider's machines) and also partly on their own hardware, in order to retain the generated data.
The advantages of cloud
There are many advantages that cloud solutions offer to users, both from an economic and technical perspective.
From an economic perspective, we can list three main benefits:
- The cost of technology decreases: companies and individuals with cloud services save on the purchase, installation, and maintenance of hardware and software.
- The flexibility of the model: the user can adjust their contract according to their needs, decreasing or increasing the space required for their activities.
- Resource savings: the company using cloud services will not need to hire specialized personnel to manage the infrastructure: it is the service provider companies that do so!
While among the technical advantages, the most evident ones are greater scalability (if more resources are needed, the company can request them from the service provider and obtain them quickly). Then there is mobile access, because the data is centralized and can be accessed from any device (a model that has facilitated the development of new work paradigms, such as smart working). And then there is the increased security that the cloud guarantees, although this point deserves further discussion, which we will address in the next paragraph.
Cloud between growth and challenges
Cloud has already won: in 2017 there was an 18% increase in business volume. Today, the market estimate is 978 million in our country, while it is 146 billion worldwide, with a growth of 20% per year (data Forbes).
However, these data cannot overshadow the many challenges that technology will have to face in the coming years to become increasingly reliable. Such as the issue of cybersecurity: the big players in the sector are not exempt from the issues that plague the Network, and it is necessary to consider the dangers to data integrity that also come from within.
From employees who are often poorly informed and may engage in behaviors that jeopardize the infrastructure. Meanwhile, the other challenge is the need for a shared standard among service providers to ensure consumers' freedom to migrate from one internet provider to another without technical obstacles.
If you still have any doubts, do not hesitate to contact us. Assoprovider will help you understand how cloud services work and which cloud to choose to improve your company's performance.
