Cloud technologies appeared back in the distant 50s of the twentieth century, when computers were very expensive and a solution was needed so that several people could simultaneously connect to a common processor. The first working solution was presented in 1964. Since then, the number of cloud services has grown steadily.
A public cloud is when the virtual IT infrastructure of the cloud belongs to the provider and is leased to the client company. From an economic point of view, a public cloud is a service, namely, virtual infrastructure as a service. The provider allocates a pool of virtual resources in the amount in which they are needed by the client company, which runs its applications on them.
Thanks to the development of the Internet, online services SaaS (Software as a Service) have become widespread, which do not need to be installed on a computer. As the number of developers increased, it became necessary to simplify the process of deploying new programs. This is how PaaS (Platform as a Service) appeared. Later, IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) appeared – this is a complete software and hardware complex of virtual capacities for processing and storing data, network communications and other resources on which a user can deploy and execute arbitrary software. including operating systems and applications.
We have been using many cloud services for a long time and do not even suspect that they are located in the same cloud.These include all services that can be accessed via the Internet, in the browser interface, or using an installed client program: email, social networks, website builders, online offices, Internet accounting, hosting services, object storage services, programs processing of text, sound and video.
The growth of cloud services is not surprising – they cover many business needs at once. For example, they allow you to quickly increase the required capacity and even optimize work.
Cloud growth factors:
Development of the Internet – to connect to services, users only need access to the network, they can be located anywhere in the world.
The emergence of virtualization – there is an active development of digital systems that do not depend on binding to equipment and allow you to start and finish work at any time.
Scalability – the amount of consumed resources can be increased in literally a few minutes.
Reduced costs – there is no need to purchase equipment that is constantly increasing in price.
Maximum flexibility – Clouds simplify the maintenance of business applications and enterprise systems.
Security – data stored in the cloud becomes virtually invulnerable to cybercriminals.
Speed – an opportunity to speed up the process of bringing new products to market: to deploy a new service for development, you do not need to purchase equipment, wait for delivery and look for a place to place it.
However, there are things that hinder rapid growth:
We need a reliable channel for accessing the Internet – access to cloud services requires a constant connection to the Internet, which is a problem for many remote areas of our country.
It is not always possible to customize the software “for yourself” – the user may not have access to change (add) software.
Privacy issues – you have to trust the service provider and agree that your data is stored with the cloud service provider.
There is no confidence in security – the safety of data cannot be guaranteed by anyone (for example, when using cloudy Windows, viruses and system vulnerabilities are relevant), nevertheless, the “cloud” is often a more reliable system than a personal computer.
Does business benefit from cloud adoption?
The transition to the clouds is useful both for medium-sized businesses, which can transfer all infrastructure to the cloud and completely abandon stationary servers, reducing the cost of equipment and its maintenance, and for large companies that do not have enough space to host additional (new) software, because in the cloud you can deploy separate applications for the work of departments.
Additional bonuses:
- Savings on PCs, servers, rental of premises.
- Transparent payment management.
- You can hire employees from any city and country.
- Prevention of data leakage in case of loss of the end device due to the fact that the information is located on the cloud platform.
- Business continuity – cloud services are available 24 hours a day. This is not an office that closes at 6:00 pm.
Flexible, relatively young companies or organizations employing system administrators who understand the capabilities of the clouds will continue to actively migrate to the public cloud, if not all, then part of production resources and services.
Over the past two years of working in hybrid mode (mostly remote), companies have adapted to the fact that employees can not go to the office, work from different cities and successfully complete production tasks. Translation to a remote format not only does not harm the business, but often the quality of work only improves. Optimization of office resources will continue, incl. through the use of cloud technologies. The sooner and faster companies integrate cloud services and solutions into their infrastructure, the easier it will be for them to scale in the future.
Due to the fact that it is not necessary to transfer all data to the cloud, it can be used as an additional resource to increase capacities – for example, to place only certain applications, for example, telephony or 1C. Migration to the cloud takes place on a tight schedule with the help of engineers from companies that provide cloud services.
What cloud resources are used most often:
- Virtual server rental.
- Backup.
- Disaster Resilience (DRaaS).
- Hybrid cloud.
- Virtual contact center.
- Application rental.
- Private cloud.
- Virtual office.
Conclusion
The growth of IT services will continue. This is facilitated by the high demand for cloud services and data center services due to the ongoing pandemic, the consequences of which we will observe in 2022-23. Cloud growth is also heavily influenced by the desire of businesses to move capital to operating costs, as digital transformation often requires increased budgets.
