Public Cloud: Working and Benefits

The earliest recorded reference of the cloud computing approach was in a Compaq internal paper in 1996. The cloud symbol has been used to depict networks of computer equipment since the beginning of the ARPANET in 1977. 

 

Amazon Web Services launched its Elastic Compute Cloud in 2006. (EC2). Google debuted the Google App Engine less than two years later, while Microsoft Azure was created in 2010. IBM SmartCloud and Oracle Cloud were offered to businesses by 2012.

 

There are many different types of public cloud services and cloud suppliers available today for businesses.

 

 

What is a Public Cloud?

 

The public cloud is an IT architecture in which a third-party supplier manages on-demand computing services and infrastructure that is shared among different enterprises over the public Internet. 

 

Public cloud service providers may charge consumers a monthly or per-use fee for cloud-based services such as infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), or software as a service (Saas), removing the need for users to host these services on-site in their own data centre.

 

Tenants share data centres that have been partitioned into virtual machines by cloud service providers. Tenants can pay for extra cloud-based services such as software programmes, application development tools, or storage, or they can simply rent the usage of those virtual machines. 

 

Companies frequently employ public cloud services to store data that does not require regular access or for less-sensitive applications with unpredictable spikes in consumption. (Here)

 

The public cloud makes computer resources available for purchase by anybody. A public cloud is often shared by several users. Private cloud, on the other hand, refers to cloud-based services that are housed on an organization's own private servers.

 

(Also read- Public cloud vs Private cloud)

 

Composition of Public Cloud

 

Users can share resources in the public cloud while retaining their data's privacy. The architecture of a public cloud is totally virtualized, allowing pooled resources to be used as needed.

 

The capacity to access a service or application from any internet-connected device is a significant benefit of public cloud architecture. Individuals may utilise very complicated programmes practically anywhere since the gadget performs little to no processing.

 

To avoid data loss, public clouds are usually constructed with built-in redundancies. To enable seamless and quick disaster recovery, a service provider may keep mirrored files across many data centres. Data hosted on a public cloud platform is considered safe from the majority of threats.

 

Depending on the sort of service supplied, public clouds may be arranged differently. The three most popular models on the market currently are as follows:

 

1. SaaS

 

A cloud approach in which a supplier delivers software housed in the cloud is known as software as a service (SaaS). The application is accessed over the internet. Individual users are not required to install software on their own computers under this strategy. 

 

This decreases the organization's hardware requirements while also lowering support and maintenance expenditures.

 

 

2. PaaS

 

Platform as a service (PaaS) is a computing approach that enables a company to build applications without having to worry about the infrastructure. 

 

In essence, a provider creates and maintains an optimal environment that consumers may access via a broadband connection. Version control and compilation services, as well as computation and storage resources, are frequently included in PaaS.

 

 

3. IaaS

 

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is a business model in which a company outsources its complete data centre to a cloud provider. 

 

The provider manages the virtualization of the environment and hosts everything from storage servers to networking devices. 

 

Cloud adoption is made easier with IaaS. Purchasing and maintaining hardware on-site is typically more expensive than using the system.(Here)

 

 

Working of Public Cloud

 

Public cloud is an alternative application development approach to traditional on-premises IT architectures. In the basic public cloud computing model, a third-party provider hosts scalable, on-demand IT resources and delivers them to users over a network connection, either over the public internet or a dedicated network.

 

Companies considering a public cloud migration should carefully assess their alternatives when selecting a provider, especially if they will be bound into a long-term contract. 

 

Although careful planning may help keep monthly cloud service fees low, firms with unpredictably high public cloud utilisation may find it difficult to avoid paying a lot of money on public cloud services when consumption spikes.

 

Last but not least, think about where your public cloud service provider is located. Many nations' data privacy regulations mandate that some types of data be retained locally. 

 

These rules change regularly, so choosing a cloud service provider based in your country and being able to ensure that the servers where your data will be housed are local and compliant with area laws is a smart option. 

 

There's also the issue of latency: if your data is stored on the other side of the world, it may take longer to access than if it were kept locally.

 

(Must read: Types of virtualization in cloud computing)

 

 

Benefits of Public Cloud

 

Some benefits of public cloud are:

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Benefits of public cloud

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• Instant access to the latest technologies

 

Large cloud providers give organisations with early and immediate access to the newest IT industry innovations, ranging from automatically updated software to machine learning and AI. Many cloud users don't have the capacity to get this access on their own.

 

• High scalability

 

To satisfy user demand and traffic spikes, cloud capacity and resources scale up quickly. Due to the providers' numerous, logically distinct cloud locations, public cloud users benefit from increased redundancy and high availability. 

 

Along with redundancy and availability, public cloud customers benefit from speedier communication between cloud services and end-users via their provider's network interfaces, however bandwidth and latency difficulties persist.

 

(Suggested blog: How is AI revolutionizing Cloud Computing?)

 

• Flexible Nature

 

The scalability and flexibility of public cloud storage allows users to store large amounts of data and retrieve it quickly. Many businesses use the cloud for disaster recovery, backing up data and apps in the event of a disaster or outage. 

 

It's tempting to keep all data eternally, but users should set up a data retention policy that deletes outdated data on a regular basis to save money on storage and ensure privacy.

 

• Business Analytics 

 

Organizations should collect valuable measurements on the data and resources they keep. Another advantage of doing so is cloud data analytics. To deliver business insights, public cloud services can do analytics on large amounts of data and handle a range of data kinds.

 

• Low Cost: 

 

How much money can a public cloud save you? Of course, it is dependent. Some companies save millions of dollars, and if your account isn't maintained properly, you may not see any savings at all. 

 

However, you can estimate how much money you can save by looking at why public cloud saves you money and then examining your personal IT system. You save money by using the public cloud since you have access to:

 

1. No Equipment required- There's no need to buy equipment or find a place to store it. Setting up a public cloud subscription is inexpensive, and you only pay for the resources you utilise. Your infrastructure cost is transformed from a capital expense (CapEx) to an operational expense (OpEx) when you use the public cloud (OpEx).

2. No maintenance fee- Maintenance is handled by your service provider and is a fixed fee included in your subscription. All software updates are handled by your service provider and are included in your hosting package, so you or your team won't have to worry about them.

3. Pay for what you use- You just pay for what you use, so you don't waste money on resources you don't utilise. You can also quickly scale up or down your computing capacity, utilising more when you need it and less when you don't.

4. Lower energy costs- When you don't have any internal servers, you don't have to pay for the energy they use to run.

 

(Related blog: Snowflake Cloud Computing)

 

 

Conclusion

 

Public cloud computing also offers a variety of analytics and monitoring capabilities. With the advent of applications integrating Edge Computing, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and IoT, and as service providers improve their service portfolios and support, public cloud deployment model popularity has expanded significantly. 

 

To accommodate a wide range of client demands, the next generation of public cloud computing will include more automated, granular, and interconnected services.