With each passing day, the popularity of cloud computing is increasing. Irrespective of whether a company is big, medium, or small; everybody has already moved or planning to move to the cloud-based servers.
The primary reason behind this shift is that by moving to the cloud-based servers, a company doesn’t have to maintain physical hardware at its end. All their applications run on the cloud utilizing the resources provided by the cloud provider. Hence, a company is free of purchasing, setting up, updating, and maintenance related activities which were earlier mandatory due to the presence of on-premises physical hardware and infrastructure. A company doesn’t even have to worry about steps related to cybersecurity and disaster recovery as it is the responsibility of the cloud services provider.
Most popular names in cloud service providers are Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS). A lot of IT professionals are gearing up for AWS training and certification and Microsoft Azure Certification. Certified cloud professionals are in heavy demand right now and the demand is bound to increase in the future.
In this post, we are going to have a look at some major characteristics or features of cloud computing.
Major Attributes of Cloud Computing
1. Ability to Monitor Statistics
As per requirement, a business, when on cloud-based servers, can consistently monitor the uptime of the server, allocated network storage, and computing abilities. This is one of the most essential features of cloud computing.
2. Hassle-Free Maintenance
As far as a business is concerned, after moving to the cloud, they don’t have to worry about any kind of maintenance activity. Cloud service provider like Microsoft Azure or AWS is responsible for performing maintenance activities and periodic updates at the backend. This leaves the business owners to concentrate solely on running their business on profitable grounds.
When businesses themselves have to take on maintenance activities, the business usually suffered from a significant downtime. Moreover, with on-premises physical infrastructure, there’s always the danger of one or the other kind of failure stalling the business in its tracks. However, with cloud computing in the picture, cloud service providers are consistently monitoring and running maintenance activities and updates periodically. Usually, there will be little to no downtime for a business due to these maintenance activities.
3. Access from Anywhere/Anytime
Another major benefit of cloud computing is that a business will be online 24/7 and can be accessed from anywhere at any time using a digital device. Business owners can access their resources whenever they wish to do so. All that is required is a good internet connection.
4. State-of-the-art Security
When it comes to security, nothing can match the advanced security and privacy features of cloud computing. There’s a dedicated team that monitors different kinds of cyber threats 24/7. Hence, if you are worrying that security might not be enough on a cloud-based server, you need to re-think that thought. The security protocols of cloud-based services are one of the best.
Cloud service providers like Microsoft Azure consistently replicate the data to a different server within the Azure network as a backup. A snapshot of the data is created and stored every time. Hence, even if, in rare cases, a server gets damaged; there will be no data loss for the business.
5. Scalability
Unarguably, scalability is one of the coolest features of cloud computing. There is no hard and fast rule that you have to purchase all the resources at once. You can simply go ahead with your current need. Gradually the traffic hitting your online business will increase. At that time, you can easily scale up the resources allocated to your business to keep the performance at par with the quality standards. This process, in case of on-premises physical hardware and infrastructure, is very difficult and takes up a big slice from the budget as you need to purchase physical hardware and pay specialists a huge amount of money to set them up for you.
This was talking about scaling up your business resources. Now, there are times, when you know that the current resources being utilized by your business is significantly less than what you have purchased initially. In this case, you can even scale down the resources allocated to your business and cut down on your costs. Later, once the flat-line phase or period is over, you can again scale up the resources.
6. Pay for what you use
There are no hidden charges or any kind of extra charges levied on you while availing the cloud-based services. Everything is transparent and crystal clear. You will be only paying for the resources and the services that you will utilize. This makes it pretty economical to shift to cloud-based services and the total initial cost falls well within the budget of all different business sizes whether big, medium or small. Basically, it is just a one-time investment as initially, a business requires buying resources and storage. That too is significantly less than the cost of setting up an on-premises physical infrastructure. Later, you will be just needing to pay minimal maintenance charges and a few other essential expenses.
Conclusion
These are some of the major characteristics or attributes of cloud computing. These amazing features are the reason that cloud computing is gaining immense popularity and all the businesses, whether big or small, are leveraging the amazing benefits of cloud-computing by moving from having a physical on-premises hardware infrastructure to cloud-based servers. The demand for certified cloud professionals is on the rise and is significantly more than the supply. So, if you are looking to get certified on cloud technology, now is the right time to do so and catapult your career to new heights.