Confused By The Cloud?
Cloud computing can be a difficult concept to grasp. For those who have not yet started to use the plethora of services available, either on a personal or enterprise level, it’s difficult to know where to start. What’s the difference between SaaS and IaaS? How do you know whether your organisation needs a hybrid cloud or a private cloud? What level of support, service, and security do you need?
Luckily, an excellent new eBook has just been published by Dell which aims to explain some of these questions. Titled “Demystifying the cloud: A guide to understanding cloud computing”, the publication acts as a complete walk-through of the industry, bringing the differing parts of cloud computing that you need to be aware of into focus.
The book is split into six chapters, each of which tackles a different aspect of cloud computing.
Chapter 1, “What makes cloud so mysterious?”
The opening chapter looks at what exactly the cloud is, how it works, and the different ways of deploying it. As it tries to explain what the cloud is, it discusses the different models of computing (such as ‘Mainframe computing’, ‘Utility computing’, and ‘Grid/distributed computing’), before drawing the conclusion that “Cloud computing shares characteristics with [lots of models], but none of them – by themselves – completely describe cloud computing”. It then moves on to teach users about public clouds, private clouds and hybrid clouds, and the differences between IaaS, SaaS, and PaaS.
Chapter 2, “Why cloud technology is miraculous”
The next section addresses the cloud’s benefits and talks you through what it can offer to companies. Topics covered include how the cloud can “reduce IT costs and increase business agility” by offering just the right amount of computing capacity, how innovation becomes easier thanks to the lack of need for a data centre, and how the cloud has become for catalyst for the phenomenal growth now being seen in the Internet of Things. It even includes a mini quiz!
Chapter 3, “Multi-cloud Challenges”
Chapter 3 assesses some of the issues and problems that users need to plan for and tackle. The biggest takeaway from the section is in the opening line, “Those easily-acquired, amazing services can accumulate quickly, and if left unchecked, they may unleash chaos across your company. Plan for the big picture before you jump in”.
It then lists a series of helpful questions that would-be users need to consider; what kind of availability does your provider guarantee? Does your provider apply different security measures to different types of data? What plans are in place to recover from security breaches as well as man-made and natural disasters? Does your provider offer support 24/7 all year long? It concludes by saying that if you’re unsure how to create a fully unified cloud environment, you should use a cloud broker.
Sponsored eBook Giveaway By Dell
By Daniel Price
