Managing Director at Codete. Master of Law, a graduate of postgraduate studies at the University of Economics in Krakow. In his daily work, he masters the combination of business strategy and technology.

Artur Olechowski

<p>The global cloud computing market is on the rise. According to a recent report, it’s going to reach <a href="https://www.reportlinker.com/p05749258/Cloud-Computing-Market-by-Service-Deployment-Model-Organization-Size-Workload-Vertical-And-Region-Global-Forecast-to.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">$623.3 billion</a> by 2023. There are many reasons why more and more businesses are moving to the cloud. Many of them cite cost optimization, data security, and disaster prevention as their primary causes. But migrating to the cloud comes with some challenges too.</p><p>In this article, we dive deep into all of the most important advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing to show you why the solution has become so popular and what challenges it poses to teams looking to make the most of cloud-based resources and cloud services. Keep on reading if you want to find out whether or not your business should migrate to the cloud.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Table of contents:</p><ol><li><a href="#intro">What is cloud computing?</a></li><li><a href="#prosandcons">Cloud computing advantages and disadvantages list</a></li><li><a href="#future">Is cloud computing the future of IT? Conclusion</a></li></ol><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="intro" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>What is cloud computing?</h2><p>Before we dive into the advantages and disadvantages of the solution, let’s first explain what cloud computing actually is.</p><p>Cloud computing involves the provisioning of computer resources, usually within a pay-as-you-go model. These resources may include virtual machines, data storage, service architectures, databases, managed container orchestrators, and many others.&nbsp;</p><p>Today, the cloud computing market is ruled by three major players: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure:</p><ul><li><strong>Amazon Web Services</strong> - AWS is probably the most well-known and largest cloud computing provider. It offers several almost 200 products for development teams on top of their computing and storage. These include AWS Lambda, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), or Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Engine (EKS).</li><li><strong>Google Cloud</strong> - This Google-run cloud computing service operates on the same infrastructure that powers Gmail, YouTube, the Google search engine, and other services. It offers compute, storage, and a suite of tools for team collaboration.</li><li><strong>Microsoft Azure </strong>- Developed by Microsoft, Azure supports various tools, languages, and frameworks. It allows teams to create, deploy, and manage applications. It’s particularly well known for offering specialized services such as data management, machine learning, and blockchain.</li></ul><p>Apart from these three big players, there’s a number of other cloud service providers such as Alibaba Cloud, the largest cloud computing in China, or Oracle Cloud, operated by the Oracle corporation and offering an Infrastructure as a Service solution for running and storing applications.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h2>Types of cloud computing</h2><p>Cloud computing is constantly evolving, but we can distinguish four main types of cloud setups used by businesses today.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>1. Public cloud</h3><p>These services are offered by third-party providers over the public Internet, meaning that practically anyone can use them. Such services usually offer storage space and compute that is greatly scalable, allowing businesses to eliminate high costs since cloud providers are responsible for system management and maintenance. That way, companies don’t have to worry about running and maintaining their own data centers.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>2. Private cloud</h3><p>A private cloud is used by a single organization and is not publicly available. The idea is to prevent resources from being shared to achieve compliance and build a better security posture. That’s why it’s usually chosen by businesses that are subject to strict security regulations. Only authorized users will be able to access, use, and store data in the private cloud. However, this comes at a cost since the company owning the cloud needs to take care of both the hardware infrastructure and software (or outsource it to a third party).</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>3. Hybrid cloud</h3><p>A hybrid cloud is a combination of private and public clouds that enables sharing of data and applications. Thanks to this solution, companies gain more flexibility and have access to more deployment options. At the same time, they can use the private cloud to optimize their infrastructure and security. Naturally, building the bridge between the private and public clouds requires a lot of expertise in this type of integration.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>4. Multi-cloud</h3><p>Gartner revealed that <a href="https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/why-organizations-choose-a-multicloud-strategy/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">81% of businesses</a> are reusing more than one cloud service provider. This doesn’t come as a surprise - while AWS offers great databases, Google is known for its machine learning capabilities. Companies looking to get access to the best-in-class services choose to go multi-cloud precisely because of that reason. But that’s not everything. Multi-cloud is about developing an infrastructure where engineers can take advantage of different services to optimize costs, prevent disasters, and achieve higher availability.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h2>Quick guide to cloud services</h2><p>Cloud computing services come in different shapes and sizes, but you can roughly divide them into three different classes according to the abstraction level of capability offered.</p><h3>1. Infrastructure as a Service</h3><p>This offering involves virtualized resources such as storage, compute, and communication available on demand. Cloud infrastructure allows on-demand provisioning of servers running different operating systems and customized software. Infrastructure services are the bottom layer of cloud computing systems.</p><h3>&nbsp;</h3><h3>2. Platform as a Service</h3><p>Apart from infrastructure-oriented clouds that offer computing services, here’s another approach: offering a high level of abstraction that makes the cloud easily programmable. This is known as Platform as a Service. A cloud platform provides an environment where developers can create and deploy applications. They don’t necessarily have to know how many processors or memory these applications will be using.</p><h3>&nbsp;</h3><h3>3. Software as a Service</h3><p>Applications residing on top of the cloud are known as Software as a Service. These services are located in the layer that can be accessed by end-users through the Internet. That’s why consumers are more and more likely to use online software services instead of locally-installed computer programs. This model of delivering applications means that there’s no more burden of software maintenance for customers, which simplifies the development and testing.</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="prosandcons" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>Cloud computing advantages and disadvantages list</h2><h3>Benefits of cloud computing</h3><h4>1. Low upfront cost</h4><p>When picking a cloud computing service, you don’t have to worry about any cost associated with buying, setting up, and configuring servers or building a data center. This is the primary reason why so many businesses are migrating to the cloud today.&nbsp;</p><p>With a wide range of cloud-based services on offer, all it takes is selecting the right service provider. You only pay for the resources that you use and store in the cloud. This allows for a flexible, scalable, and cost-effective solution.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h4>2. High availability</h4><p>Major cloud providers offer complex infrastructures that comprise multiple data centers scattered across the entire world. Thanks to this immense infrastructure, they can create robust and scalable services that offer outstanding availability and SLAs.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h4>3. No management overhead</h4><p>Cloud computing minimizes the infrastructure required to serve the customers. This means that you don’t have to worry about managing it to deliver your products or services. As a result, engineers can focus on writing code and deploying it without having to engage with operations infrastructure in the process. As you can imagine, faster deployment means faster time to market for your new updates and product features.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h4>4. Faster time to market</h4><p>In the tech world, timing is everything. By using the cloud, teams can focus on what matters most: creating new products and solving customer problems instead of waiting for their IT teams to provision new resources. The cloud helps to reduce the deployment of new servers from days to minutes, bringing you a much faster time to market.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h4>5. Drive to innovation</h4><p>Cloud providers offer state-of-the-art IT resources developers can access as soon as they need, so the business gets ahead of the competition. Companies use cloud capabilities to respond to changes faster and at a lower cost, building truly agile businesses ready for the demands of the modern economy.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h4>6. Scalability</h4><p>As your business grows, you can easily scale your cloud computing solution so that it serves more of your users. You won’t have to deal with any overhead costs related to setting up and maintaining additional in-house servers.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h4>7. Better collaboration</h4><p>As remote work becomes the industry standard across many sectors and dispersed teams might work from different locations around the globe, using cloud-based solutions makes a lot of sense. By building your application in the cloud, you can provide employees with a robust and secure way to work together and exchange company data to become even more productive - even on the go.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>Challenges of cloud computing</h3><h4>1. Initial migration costs might be high</h4><p>Switching to the cloud is cost-effective over the long term. But every cloud migration incurs some expenses. Pay attention to the following costs:</p><ul><li>network costs – for transferring your data to the cloud,</li><li>labor costs – to make sure that your applications are properly migrated,</li><li>synchronization costs - related to ensuring that your data in on-premises systems is synchronized with the data on the cloud server,</li><li>integration and application testing costs.</li></ul><p>Note: Some applications might not be as ready to move into the cloud as others – for example, they might need some extra testing.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h4>2. Building skills among developers</h4><p>Cloud providers generally try to make their solutions as easy to use as possible. However, your developers might still require some training to become fully proficient. And like every training, this involves both time and money. Training developers to use the cloud means that they will have less time to do their jobs. However, this is an investment with future gains on the horizon.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h4>3. Building a cloud infrastructure requires expertise</h4><p>You need to engage an expert before carrying out the cloud migration. This person or team will have the necessary experience and knowledge to guide you in the early stages of implementation up until its completion. Choosing between different providers is very difficult. For example, Amazon Web Services offers 400 different EC2 instances. How are you supposed to make sense of that without any experience in AWS?</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h4>4. Downtime might still happen</h4><p>With the cloud, you lose control if downtime hits your cloud computing service provider. That said, make sure that your deployment architecture is built with the option of temporarily losing the data center. This is smart disaster prevention.</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="future" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>Is cloud computing the future of IT? Conclusion</h2><p>It’s safe to say that the most innovative projects happening in IT right now are in the cloud-native landscape. Containerization with tools like Kubernetes, DevOps trends and best practices like <internallink internallinkid="/blog/business-value-of-ci-cd">Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery (CI/CD)</internallink>, automation – they’re all here to help development teams become more efficient.</p><p><strong>If you would like to make a move to the </strong><internallink internallinkid="/blog/what-is-cloud-computing-software-development-benefits-and-challenges-for-business-owners"><strong>cloud environment</strong></internallink><strong> for your organization, team up with an expert consultant to guide you through the process and help you choose the best cloud solutions out there.&nbsp;</strong></p><p>At Codete, we have years of experience in providing advisory services to companies in need of cloud technology expertise and carrying out cloud migrations with cost efficiency in mind. <a href="/estimation" target="_blank">Get in touch</a> with us if you’re looking for help in building a truly modern business in the cloud.&nbsp;</p>

Key Cloud Computing Disadvantages and Advantages | Codete Blog

List of Most Important Cloud Computing Disadvantages and Advantages

CTO at Codete. In 2015, he received his Ph.D. from the Institute of Fundamental Technological Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. His area of expertise is artificial intelligence.

Karol Przystalski

<p>More and more organizations move their workloads to the cloud to reap benefits from its scalability and flexibility.&nbsp;</p><p>Flexera’s <a href="https://info.flexera.com/CM-REPORT-State-of-the-Cloud?lead_source=Website%20Visitor&amp;id=Blog"><u>State of the Cloud 2021</u></a> report showed that 92% of enterprises have a multi-cloud strategy - meaning that they use more than one public cloud platform at the same time. And another 82% have a hybrid cloud strategy where they use public cloud services together with local data centers.&nbsp;</p><p>Cloud spendings are increasing as well - today, 36% of organizations spend more than $12 million per year on public cloud, and 90% of them expect their cloud usage to grow further because of the COVID-19 pandemic.</p><p><strong>But how has </strong><internallink internallinkid="/blog/what-is-cloud-computing-software-development-benefits-and-challenges-for-business-owners"><strong>cloud computing</strong></internallink><strong> become such a critical resource? Why did it become so popular among startups and enterprises alike? What’s the future of the cloud?&nbsp;</strong></p><p>To answer these questions, let’s take a look at the past. In this article, we trace the evolution of the cloud - from its beginnings to the present times and beyond - and analyze all the key concepts that lead to disrupting the industry.</p><p><br>Here's and outline of what you will find in the article:</p><ol><li><a href="#start"><u>When did cloud computing start?</u></a></li><li><a href="#securityandfuture"><u>Private cloud, cloud security, and the future of cloud computing</u></a></li><li><a href="#cloudforbusiness"><u>Cloud history - what does it mean for business?</u></a></li></ol><p>&nbsp;</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="start" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>When did cloud computing start?</h2><p><strong>Let’s start with the basics. What exactly is cloud computing all about?</strong></p><p>Cloud computing offers on-demand access to computing resources via the internet. The resources in question can be servers (both physical and virtual), data storage, development tools, applications, networking capabilities, and more. They’re all hosted at a data center owned and managed by a cloud services provider like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform. They all make such resources available for a monthly subscription fee or bill them according to usage data.</p><p>Why is cloud computing so disruptive relative to traditional on-premises IT?</p><ul><li><strong>It reduces the </strong><internallink internallinkid="/blog/optimizing-costs-of-it-infrastructure"><strong>costs of the IT infrastructure</strong></internallink> - purchasing, installing, configuring, and managing an on-premises infrastructure is an expensive endeavor. Public cloud offloads most or all of this effort for a cost-effective solution.</li><li><strong>It enhances your agility and time-to-value</strong> - thanks to the cloud, teams can start using enterprise applications in minutes instead of waiting for the IT department to respond to their request for weeks or even months.</li><li><strong>It’s easier to scale </strong>- instead of buying excess capacity that ends up sitting unused during periods of low usage, you can easily scale capacity up and down in response to spikes in traffic.</li></ul><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>A brief history of cloud computing</h3><h4>Milestone 1: Shared time mainframe</h4><p>In its essence, the cloud is someone else’s computer that we can use remotely. The origins of this idea date back to the 1950s when the first concepts of time-sharing emerged in the IT field.</p><p>Back then, computers were very expensive, and buying one for each individual user in a company wasn’t feasible. Instead, several people would connect to a single shared machine and use it at the same time. By using the so-called <strong>dumb terminals</strong>, they avoided wasting processor cycles. This idea was pioneered by John Backus, who described it in the 1954 summer session at MIT. Bob Berner developed it further in a 1957 article in Automatic Control Magazine and W. F. Bauer took it up in a scientific paper published in 1958.</p><p>The first implementation happened at MIT under the name <strong>CTSS (Compatible Time-Sharing System)</strong> in 1959 by John McCarty. In 1961, Donald Blitzer demonstrated something similar - the PLATO II system.</p><p>But the commercially successful product was the <strong>Dartmouth Time-Sharing System</strong> released a few years later, in 1964. Computing power started to be treated as a commodity, and new computer bureaus emerged where customers could purchase processing power. This model worked really well until the 1980s, when cheap personal computers entered the scene.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h4>Milestone 2: Emergence of a global network, aka the internet</h4><p>An essential ingredient of the cloud’s success is connectivity. The idea is that users can access cloud-based resources from any location in the world.</p><p>The first mainframes used by several people at the same time were usually located in the same building. Local networks were in operation by the end of the 1950s. But in 1960, a new idea emerged - J.C.R Licklider proposed a <strong>global network</strong> that would connect all of the existing computing centers. In 1962, DARPA hired him to serve as the director of the new office. The idea was to connect the United States Department of Defence mainframes located at the Pentagon, Cheyenne Mountain complex, and Strategic Air Command.</p><p>The project <strong>ARPANET</strong> based on packet switching began in 1966 and became operational in 1969. It went from 4 nodes to over 200 by 1981. This constituted a core part of the network that later developed into the internet during the 1990s.&nbsp;</p><p>When the internet became widespread, companies started building web applications like crazy. This, in turn, created an increased demand for servers and data centers for hosting them. So, the idea of selling computer power as a commodity reemerged.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h4>Milestone 3: The rise of Virtual Machines (VMs)</h4><p><strong>Virtualization</strong> is another key aspect of the cloud that provides users with virtual computers that are independent of the underlying hardware. Moving between on-premise and cloud - as well as between different cloud platforms - should be easy.&nbsp;</p><p>Virtualization is nothing new under the sun. The idea of a virtual machine simulating enough hardware to allow system operation to run in isolation was introduced in 1966 - with the IBM CP-40 and CP-67 operating systems.</p><p>IBM released the first hardware-assisted virtualization that enables a machine to provide architectural features for virtualization in 1972 (the IBM/370 machine). Intel added the modern x86 virtualization features we know so well in 2005 (asVT-x) and to AMD processors in 2006 (AMD-V).&nbsp;</p><p>Virtualization at the level of the operating system led the way to containers like Docker that emerged in 2013 and opened the door to <strong>microservices</strong>.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h4>Milestone 4: The early cloud</h4><p>The term “cloud” was used already in the 1990s to describe something on the internet or located outside in network diagrams. The rise of web applications that allows performing tasks inside web browsers created the need to differentiate these apps from desktop apps that users had to install on their computers.</p><p>This is when the term <strong>Software as a Service (SaaS)</strong> emerged. Salesforce encapsulated this approach perfectly in the late 1990s. When web development boomed, the industry was looking for a simpler way of hosting new applications. This led to Platform as a Service (PaaS), with the precursor Zimki launched in 2006. In 2008, Google released its App Engine - a service that would later become Google Cloud Platform.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h4>Milestone 5: The rise of the cloud</h4><p>As internet-based companies grew, they needed more computing power to handle traffic peaks like Black Friday sales. This was when the idea of renting computing power in a flexible way was born, leading to Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).</p><p>Amazon Web Services was the first company in <strong>Infrastructure as a Service</strong>, which is at the core of the modern cloud’s origins. AWS started in 2003 with SQS queues but made a mark on the industry in 2006 with the release of Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). The service allows users to rent virtual machines billed per second of usage instead of investing in classic servers and building a traditional on-premises data center. Microsoft followed with a similar service Azure Virtual Machines in 2010 and Google with Google Compute Engine in 2012.</p><p>Today, these three companies are considered the big three cloud providers, with Oracle, IBM, and Alibaba trailing behind. Modern cloud platforms use virtual machines to offer compute capacity but the cloud is about so much more: providing networks, container engines, various forms of storage, applications, and much more.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="securityandfuture" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>Private cloud, cloud security, and the future of cloud computing</h2><h3>Cloud security</h3><p>Security is the primary obstacle for embracing the cloud, especially public cloud services. However, cloud service providers are investing a lot in security solutions that outperform on-premises security.</p><p>According to McAfee, <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190617005945/en/New-McAfee-Report-Finds-Eighty-Seven-Percent-Companies"><u>52% of companies</u></a> enjoy better security in the cloud than on-premises. Gartner predicted that by 2020, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud workloads will experience <a href="https://www.gartner.com/imagesrv/books/cloud/cloud_strategy_leadership.pdf"><u>60% fewer security incidents</u></a> than workloads ran in traditional data centers.</p><p>Still, keeping the cloud secure requires companies to implement different procedures and develop different employee skillsets such as:</p><ul><li>Shared responsibility for infrastructure security with the cloud provider</li><li>Data encryption at rest, in transit, and in use</li><li>Smart user identity and access management</li><li>Thorough security and compliance monitoring.</li></ul><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>Private clouds</h3><p>Organizations that need to comply with strict regulations - for example, in the financial services industry - often turn to private cloud systems that are designed to meet these requirements.&nbsp;</p><p>Private cloud platforms are used mainly for storing and sharing sensitive data, but also services like email. A private cloud offers the advantages of the public cloud like scalability and elasticity but allows controlling security and addressing privacy concerns (like in an on-prem environment).</p><p>A private cloud is usually hosted on-premises in the company’s data center but can also be hosted on a cloud provider’s infrastructure or developed on rented infrastructure located in an offsite data center.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>The future of cloud computing</h3><p>Here are the most interesting trends that will be shaping the industry’s direction in the years to come.&nbsp;</p><h4>1. Edge computing</h4><p>Edge computing technologies and the Internet of Things (IoT) are going to power one key future development of the cloud. By 2025, there will be more than <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1101442/iot-number-of-connected-devices-worldwide/"><u>75 billion IoT-connected devices</u></a> around the world.&nbsp;</p><p>Edge computing brings decentralization to the table by allowing companies to store and process data near (at the “edge”) of the data collection source (the device). The idea is to locate the application closer to the data source or the end-user. This is how applications can work in real time with almost zero latency.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h4>2. Quantum computing</h4><p>Processing massive data volumes fast is still a challenge. Quantum computing is here to solve the problem by handling complex calculations and large data sets in a matter of a few minutes. Another potential use is encrypting communication and enhancing cybersecurity.</p><p>Quantum computers promise to speed up the development of innovative medical solutions and machine learning techniques for accurate diagnoses or financial strategies. The idea is to save time and costs through this type of optimization.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h4>3. Cloud automation&nbsp;</h4><p>Automation solutions help teams to automate manual tasks, eliminate human errors, and optimize processes related to the provisioning, management, and monitoring of cloud-based environments.</p><p>Companies looking to optimize their cloud resource use will be looking for AI-based tools that make quick decisions about resource provisioning and work towards cost optimization of the infrastructure.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h4>4. The Internet Of Everything (IoE)</h4><p>The Internet of Things (IoT) is a strong trend, but the Internet of Everything is going to take it to the next level. The idea here is to connect all the devices that were previously unconnected.&nbsp;</p><p>The Internet of Everything aims to connect more than just physical devices, but also people, data, processes, and objects. The technology is set to revolutionize the public sector by improving labor productivity and cost utilization.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><section id="cloudforbusiness" style="height: 20px;"></section></div><h2>Cloud history - what does it mean for business?</h2><p>Today’s cloud offerings are the result of years of development in research areas that lead to the birth of some pretty sophisticated projects. It’s hard to believe that the originals of modern cloud solutions can be traced back to the 1950s!</p><p>The general trend in the IT industry is automating as many aspects of system development and maintenance as possible, slashing the amount of required code and opportunities for human-made errors. This would allow developers to focus their effort on mission-critical tasks. The cloud is now at the forefront of this trend and likely to cause some more disruptions soon.</p><p><strong>Are you using public cloud services or planning to migrate? We have many years of experience in this area and are happy to provide you with expert advice to help you make the most of the </strong><a href="https://codete.com/services/cloud-computing"><strong>cloud for your business</strong></a><strong>.</strong></p>

Cloud Computing - History and the Future | Codete Blog

Cloud Computing - History and the Future

Paweł Dyrek

Benefits of Cloud-based Software Development | Codete Blog

7 Benefits of Cloud-based Software Development

<p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200808073611/https://codete.com/services/cloud-computing"><strong>Cloud computing software development</strong></a><strong> is a key technology trend for the years to come. Research from </strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200808073611/http://www.bain.com/Images/BAIN_BRIEF_The_Changing_Faces_of_the_Cloud.pdf"><strong>Bain &amp; Company</strong></a><strong> indicated that by 2020, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) would increase by 18% CAGR. But what exactly is cloud computing all about, and how can it help your business?</strong></p><p>Read this article to find out the key advantages and challenges of cloud computing, in-depth information about cloud computing service models, and outsourcing cloud computing.</p><h2>What is cloud computing? Definition and benefits</h2><p>Cloud computing refers to a way of delivering technology to consumers or employees via internet servers that process and store data while the client system uses it. In the past, the software had to be shipped on a CD, and users needed to manually download the updates to keep their program secure and free of bugs.</p><p>With cloud computing, you can deliver software and services over the internet without the need for using any traditional installation media. When the internet became capable of transmitting massive amounts of data in short periods, delivering entire services online became possible – and that’s what we call Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).</p><p>It doesn’t matter whether the client-side uses a desktop computer, a laptop, or a mobile device. Cloud computing ensures that the software is delivered on their devices and doesn’t require the device to come with high computing power.</p><h3>Cloud computing systems and technologies</h3><p>When designing computer networks, IT professionals usually connect computers with lines representing cables and connections. That’s also how switches and servers are connected to each other as well. When such networks are connected, engineers may use a simplified representation of the network in the form of a cloud. That’s why so many services today are called cloud services – they rely on this complex network to work. As a network, the internet provides companies with numerous cost-effective alternatives to owning their services on local servers.</p><h2>Benefits and challenges of cloud computing</h2><h4>High accessibility and mobility</h4><p>One of the greatest benefits of cloud computing is that it provides users with unparalleled accessibility of resources (data, applications, service, and others.). Cloud-based tools are accessible from anywhere, at any time, and from any type of device (this is called the ATAWAD logic). The only condition is that the device is connected to the internet. Since data and applications aren’t stored locally, they’re always available – even if a user loses access to their device.</p><h4>Flexibility</h4><p>Cloud computing made services much more flexible to meet the demands of organizations today. Cloud-based solutions can be adjusted at any time, depending on the current needs and the business processes of your company. For example, most cloud tools allow you to reduce or increase the resources available and pay only for what you consume. Moreover, these resources can be easily shared – for instance, a team can work on the same document in real-time. With this flexibility comes greater agility as services now no longer require complex infrastructure, which is expensive to maintain and impossible to resize.</p><h4>Maintenance and updates</h4><p>Another key advantage of cloud computing is that all of the maintenance burdens are taken care of by the service provider. They’re the ones who implement updates and ensure that the service runs smoothly, allowing you to focus on mission-critical tasks and optimizing your work. All the updates are rolled out automatically and cause no interruption to service. Most providers offer new features and optimizations regularly too.</p><h4>Excellent security</h4><p>Cloud computing provides greater security in comparison to traditional and internal infrastructures. Constrained by time and budget, companies can’t ensure such a level of security of their own IT systems. Cloud providers guarantee this security by offering high-quality security systems and services such as data replication, Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP), Business Continuity Plan (BCP), as well as the latest security technologies.</p><h4>Cost control</h4><p>Cloud computing also offers a method for greater control of costs related to your IT infrastructure. You can easily adjust the resources allocated into your infrastructure, depending on your changing needs by increasing or decreasing the resources available. &nbsp;You’ll pay only for what you consume as part of the Pay as You Go model, which is a standard in cloud-based solutions. You won’t have to deal with any expenses related to the maintenance and renewing of your equipment (both hardware and software) to optimize your operational and business costs.</p><h2>Top cloud computing services</h2><p>In general, cloud computing can be categorized into four types:</p><ol><li>Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) – providing the infrastructure with elements such as servers, operating systems, networks, virtual machines, and storage.</li><li>Platform as a Service (PaaS) – this is a service used in developing, testing, and maintaining applications. It provides additional tools such as a database management system DBMS and Business Intelligence (BI) capabilities.</li><li>Software as a Service (SaaS) – this service connects users to the applications through the internet, usually on a subscription basis.</li><li>Desktop as a Service (DaaS) – it provides virtual desktops hosted by a supplier and accessible from anywhere through the internet.</li></ol><p>Just to give you an idea of different cloud providers, here’s a closer look at three of the most popular ones.</p><h4>Amazon Web Services (AWS)</h4><p>Considered the safest and best-protected platform of cloud services, AWS offers a broad range of infrastructure services like database storage, computing power, and networking. You can use it to build complex applications that need to be flexible, scalable, and reliable.</p><h4>Microsoft Azure</h4><p>Microsoft’s cloud platform is used for deploying, designing, and managing applications through a worldwide network. Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing service that supports various operating systems, databases, tools, programming languages, and frameworks.</p><h4>IBM Cloud</h4><p>IBM Cloud offers Iaas, PaaS, and SaaS via all of the available cloud delivery models. When using it, you can choose and unite different tools, data models, and delivery models in designing next-generation services or applications. The IBM Bluemix Cloud platform allows incorporating high0-performing cloud communications and services into IT environments.</p><h2>Outsourcing and cloud computing services</h2><p>As one of the leading providers of integrated software development services, Codete offers cloud computing software development solutions that are fully maintained by our teams of experts. We help our clients integrate cloud-based technologies to introduce new standards of efficiency for their platforms used for tasks ranging from Big Data computations to delivering services to end-users.</p><p>Our cloud-based software development services have been growing as we rely on a long-term strategy that ensures the reliable delivery of service and maintenance to our business partners. Our objective is to provide our clients with compliant, well-secured, and reliable solutions and services that are based in the cloud.</p><h2>Codete cloud computing services – case study</h2><p>Raisin is a leading organization of pan-European money-saving banking products. It’s a versatile tool that allows users to find investment opportunities, regardless of their place of residence within Europe. We helped Raising build their core product, the deposit location system. We created a dedicated IT team made up of backend engineers with FinTech expertise who create a tailor-made solution based on Abacus, a technology widely used by global leaders in digital banking.</p><p>Our team created Raisin’s platform for browsing and comparing hundreds of financial products offered by European banks. Cloud computing software development was a key part of the project.</p><h4>Conclusion</h4><p>Cloud computing holds great potential for organizations that want to stay nimble and enable fast growth through access to flexible and scalable resources. By teaming up with an experienced technology partner like Codete, you can make the most of the cloud-based solutions for your business. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200808073611/http://codete.com/contact">Get in touch with us</a> if you’re looking for a team of talented engineers who know how to make the cloud work. We helped companies across different industries to optimize their options thanks to cloud computing.</p>

Cloud Computing

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