8 Key Features of Cloud Computing You Shouldn’t Miss

Cloud computing can help organizations operate more efficiently, improve their security, and enable them to save money. As the cloud computing industry grows, it will become an even more critical part of the IT environment.

The global cloud market size is forecast to hit $1,554.94 billion by 2030, partly driven by the increased adoption of cloud-native applications in banking and supply chain management.

Additionally, the increased use of advanced and innovative technologies, including 5G, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, is also boosting the cloud market.

Table of Contents Table of Contents

1. Key Takeaways
2. What Is Cloud Computing?
3. Why Is Cloud Computing Important?
4. How Businesses Benefit From Cloud Computing
5. Essential Characteristics of Cloud Computing
6. The Bottom Line
7. FAQs
8. References

Show Full Guide

Table of Contents

1. Key Takeaways
2. What Is Cloud Computing?
3. Why Is Cloud Computing Important?
Show Full Guide
4. How Businesses Benefit From Cloud Computing
5. Essential Characteristics of Cloud Computing
6. The Bottom Line
7. FAQs
8. References

What Is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is a modern IT model that enables organizations to easily access servers, networks, storage, development tools, and applications via the Internet. With cloud computing, organizations don’t have to spend money on equipment, training, or infrastructure maintenance, as cloud service providers take care of all that.

Companies that shift their digital assets, applications, and data to cloud environments can benefit from the cloud’s scalability and flexibility. This migration enables organizations to align their technological infrastructures with their changing needs, encouraging innovation and creating value for the business.

Why Is Cloud Computing Important?

Cloud computing has become increasingly important for organizations of all sizes. One of the main reasons is that cloud computing is cost-effective.

Rather than pay upfront for hardware or software, companies pay for specific cloud features and services on a pay-as-you-go basis. That means they only pay for the cloud resources they use.

In addition, increased cloud solutions’ scalability enables organizations to easily scale their IT infrastructures up or down as necessary without buying new hardware and software and hiring new IT employees. With cloud flexibility, companies can better respond to their ever-changing business needs.

Then, there are the security features of cloud computing. To protect organizations’ sensitive corporate data, cloud providers offer numerous security capabilities, such as access control, encryption, and disaster recovery.

Cloud computing is considered highly reliable. That’s because the cloud providers have multiple data centers in various locations worldwide. Moreover, they use redundant systems to guarantee organizations have round-the-clock data access.

Cloud computing also enables companies to access their applications and data from anywhere at any time with any device connected to the Internet. This is particularly important for companies with remote workers or whose employees are always on the road.

How Businesses Benefit From Cloud Computing

Nasir Rafiq, IT manager at Queen Victoria Hospital (QVH), a long-time customer of Hyve Managed Hosting, explains how cloud computing helps his organization.

“Queen Victoria Hospital’s website is our shopfront and a crucial way for us to communicate with our external stakeholders,” he said. “It provides a range of information and resources for clinicians who might want to refer a patient, whilst for patients, the site gives details about the hospital, treatment, and consultants as well as a wide range of downloadable information.”

As such a vital resource, website reliability, availability, and security are critical, Rafiq says. Working with a managed cloud provider means that the small, hospital-based IT team is able to deliver the best web hosting solution for the hospital.

“Hosting the QVH website on the cloud with our partners at Hyve Managed Hosting has allowed us to ensure the reliability and performance we need while achieving value for money for our IT department and strong service capabilities to manage any issues that web hosting presents,” Rafiq told Techopedia.

When it comes to the type of cloud solution QVH chose, a managed cloud allowed the hospital to rely on external expertise to support its server build, migration, content delivery, platform configuration, and launch.

“Once the QVH site was live, we could then rely on Hyve’s 24/7 monitoring and support as well as ongoing performance tuning to maintain a reliable experience for our clinicians, staff, and patients,” he said.

Brandon Leiker, principal solutions architect, security at 11:11 Systems, a managed infrastructure solutions provider, also says cloud computing helps him in his job.

“My primary use of cloud computing has been to leverage IaaS [infrastructure-as-a-service] and SaaS [software-as-as-service] solutions,” he told Techopedia.

Leiker explained that IaaS gives him the ability to quickly and easily deploy a virtual machine or virtual appliance to troubleshoot and test or demo a solution, alleviating the need to build and maintain a virtualization environment and infrastructure.

The ability to leverage SaaS solutions has been greatly helpful to solve several use cases,? Leiker added.

“I use an Apple Mac and some productivity solutions aren’t available for Mac. One that immediately comes to mind is Microsoft Visio; however, Microsoft and other vendors offer online flowchart and diagramming software. I’ve commonly used SaaS solutions for customer relationship management, IT service management, human resource information systems, project management and issue tracking, knowledge and content management, etc.

“Solutions such as these provide great flexibility and convenience – they can generally be accessed from anywhere using any popular web browser and don’t require the installation of client software.

“The organization providing the SaaS solution maintains the underlying infrastructure and code, ridding your organization of the burden of capacity planning, upgrading, patching, etc.,” he said.

Essential Characteristics of Cloud Computing

There are several essential characteristics of cloud computing. Here are eight of the key features of cloud computing:

1. On-Demand Self-Service

On-demand self-service in cloud computing is an approach to providing IT resources where the user can request, receive, and configure those resources as needed without the help of the IT department.

One of the key cloud computing features, self-service on demand enables companies to scale their IT resources up or down as needed without spending much money on additional hardware or software.

2. Easy Maintenance

Another benefit of cloud computing is that it’s easy to maintain. This is one of the key features of cloud computing because the providers take care of the hardware, software, and security, so organizations don’t have to worry about those things.

This can save businesses time and money. It can also help organizations focus on their core business activities, knowing their providers will handle all system updates and patches.

3. Resource Pooling

Resource pooling in cloud computing is the process of combining multiple computing resources, such as storage, processing, and network bandwidth, into a single pool that can then be shared by multiple users.

This provides a more efficient and cost-effective way to manage and scale computing resources because it allows users to access the resources they need when they need them without having to invest in dedicated hardware.

4. Scalability

Scalability means that a cloud-based application or cloud service can handle more traffic as well as an increase in the number of users without a loss in performance. This is accomplished by distributing the workload between several servers, ensuring they are not overwhelmed.

Scalability is essential in cloud computing because it allows companies to meet the demands of their customers without having to spend a lot of money on infrastructure.

5. Measuring and Reporting Service

Another important feature of cloud computing is measuring and reporting – the process of gathering and analyzing data about how the cloud system or application performs.

The measuring and reporting service benefits cloud providers and their customers. It can help cloud providers track performance, identify and resolve issues, and enhance the overall quality of their services. It also allows customers to understand how their applications are performing, identify areas they can improve, and make informed decisions about how to use cloud services.

6. Cost Efficiency

Cloud computing is cost-effective because organizations only have to pay for the resources they use, and they don’t have to invest in hardware or software. This can save companies a significant amount of money, especially if they need to scale their operations quickly or have workloads that keep changing.

Cloud computing can also help organizations save money on energy since they can use the resources of a cloud provider’s data centers, which are often more efficient than on-premise data centers.

7. Security

Security is another key feature of cloud computing. Cloud providers protect customers’ data and cloud-based applications with various security measures, including data encryption, restricting access to data to authorized users, monitoring their networks for suspicious activity, and implementing procedures to recover data and applications in the event of a disaster.

However, both the cloud provider and the customer have roles to play when it comes to security. The cloud provider’s responsibility is to ensure the security of its platform, while the customer is responsible for ensuring the security of its applications.

8. Resiliency

Resiliency in cloud computing is the ability of a cloud system to continue operating and remain available to users despite a wide variety of disruptions, including hardware and software failures, natural disasters, and other external events.

Resiliency is a critical characteristic of cloud computing systems because it ensures that users can continue to access their data and applications even when there are problems with the underlying infrastructure.

The Bottom Line

Cloud computing offers businesses numerous benefits. From increased flexibility and security to cost optimization and resiliency, cloud computing enables companies to take advantage of the power of technology to thrive in today’s fast-paced and interconnected world.

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