From this post, we will know the contribution of Cloud Computing in IT Industry.
The origins of cloud computing technology go back to the early 1960s when Dr. Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider (link resides outside ibm.com), an American computer scientist and psychologist known as the "father of cloud computing", introduced the earliest ideas of global networking in a series of memos discussing an Intergalactic Computer Network. However, it wasn’t until the early 2000s that modern cloud infrastructure for business emerged.
Cloud computing is the on-demand access of computing resources—physical servers or virtual servers, data storage, networking capabilities, application development tools, software, AI-powered analytic tools and more—over the internet with pay-per-use pricing.
Cloud computing is a model for delivering IT resources over the internet with pay-as-you-go pricing. Instead of buying, owning, and maintaining physical data centers and servers, you can access technology services, such as computing power, storage, and databases, on an as-needed basis from a cloud provider. In simpler terms, cloud computing means storing and accessing data and programs over the internet instead of your computer's hard drive. It is a technology that uses remote servers on the internet to store, manage, and access data online rather than local drives.
A cloud services provider (CSP) manages cloud-based technology services hosted at a remote data center and typically makes these resources available for a pay-as-you-go or monthly subscription fee.
Compared to traditional on-premises IT that involves a company owning and maintaining physical data centers and servers to access computing power, data storage and other resources (and depending on the cloud services you select), cloud computing offers many benefits, including the following:
Cloud computing lets you offload some or all of the expense and effort of purchasing, installing, configuring and managing mainframe computers and other on-premises infrastructure. You pay only for cloud-based infrastructure and other computing resources as you use them.
With cloud computing, your organization can use enterprise applications in minutes instead of waiting weeks or months for IT to respond to a request, purchase and configure supporting hardware and install software. This feature empowers users—specifically DevOps and other development teams—to help leverage cloud-based software and support infrastructure.
Cloud computing provides elasticity and self-service provisioning, so instead of purchasing excess capacity that sitsunused during slow periods, you can scale capacity up and down in response to spikes and dips in traffic. You can also use your cloud provider’s global network to spread your applications closer to users worldwide.
Cloud computing enables organizations to use various technologies and the most up-to-date innovations to gain a competitive edge. For instance, in retail, banking and other customer-facing industries, generative AI-powered virtual assistants deployed over the cloud can deliver better customer response time and free up teams to focus on higher-level work. In manufacturing, teams can collaborate and use cloud-based software to monitor real-time data across logistics and supply chain processes.
Data centers
CSPs own and operate remote data centers that house physical or bare metal servers, cloud storage systems and other physical hardware that create the underlying infrastructure and provide the physical foundation for cloud computing.
Networking capabilities
In cloud computing, high-speed networking connections are crucial. Typically, an internet connection known as a wide-area network (WAN) connects front-end users (for example, client-side interface made visible through web-enabled devices) with back-end functions (for example, data centers and cloud-based applications and services).
Virtualization
Cloud computing relies heavily on the virtualization of IT infrastructure—servers, operating system software, networking and other infrastructure that’s abstracted using special software so that it can be pooled and divided irrespective of physical hardware boundaries.
Public cloud
A public cloud is a type of cloud computing in which a cloud service provider makes computing resources available to users over the public internet. These include SaaS applications, individual virtual machines (VMs), bare metal computing hardware, complete enterprise-grade infrastructures and development platforms. These resources might be accessible for free or according to subscription-based or pay-per-usage pricing models.
Private cloud
A private cloud is a cloud environment where all cloud infrastructure and computing resources are dedicated to one customer only. Private cloud combines many benefits of cloud computing—including elasticity, scalability and ease of service delivery—with the access control, security and resource customization of on-premises infrastructure.
Hybrid cloud
A hybrid cloud is just what it sounds like: a combination of public cloud, private cloud and on-premises environments. Specifically (and ideally), a hybrid cloud connects a combination of these three environments into a single, flexible infrastructure for running the organization’s applications and workloads.
Multicloud uses two or more clouds from two or more different cloud providers. A multicloud environment can be as simple as email SaaS from one vendor and image editing SaaS from another. But when enterprises talk about multicloud, they typically refer to using multiple cloud services—including SaaS, PaaS and IaaS services—from two or more leading public cloud providers.
Traditionally, security concerns have been the primary obstacle for organizations considering cloud services, mainly public cloud services. Maintaining cloud security demands different procedures and employee skillsets than in legacy IT environments. Some cloud security best practices include the following.
As companies strive to advance their sustainability objectives, cloud computing has evolved to play a significant role in helping them reduce their carbon emissions and manage climate-related risks. For instance, traditional data centers require power supplies and cooling systems, which depend on large amounts of electrical power. By migrating IT resources and applications to the cloud, organizations only enhance operational and cost efficiencies and boost overall energy efficiency through pooled CSP resources.
According to an International Data Corporation (IDC) forecast (link resides outside ibm.com), worldwide spending on the whole cloud opportunity (offerings, infrastructure and services) will surpass USD 1 trillion in 2024 while sustaining a double-digit compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.7%. Here are some of the main ways businesses are benefitting from cloud computing.
Resources: What Is Cloud Computing? | IBM
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