Have you ever wondered why the cloud is such a big deal?
Ten years ago, if you mentioned the term “cloud computing”, the average person would have thought you were talking about the weather and would have given you a strange look.
But did you know that cloud computing has been around since the 1950’s?
Today, the term “Cloud solutions” means any application, storage, or other resource that is accessed with an Internet connection through another providers shared cloud computing infrastructure. Cloud based solutions offer great benefits to businesses, especially considering the explosive growth of the hybrid and remote workforce model in the post pandemic world.
Cloud solution models for businesses
PaaS stands for Platform as a Service, which is intended for building and running apps. This is most applicable to companies with development teams that need access to tools, services, and systems that support the web application lifecycle.
IaaS stands for Infrastructure as a Service, which is intended for organizations that are looking either to reduce their onsite network and server infrastructure, or to offload some of the infrastructure with the intent of establishing a hybrid cloud architecture (see below). IaaS is the most flexible model in that it allows IT teams to have the most control over the tools and services they desire to use, however, there are more technology layers to consider when building an IaaS cloud solution and it may take much longer to implement than expected.
SaaS stands for Software as a Service, which is intended for businesses that do not have development teams and are comfortable with having their data hosted by a third-party cloud provider. There are literally thousands of SaaS providers with applications instantly available for virtually any business. Business suites such as Office 365 are commonly known SaaS applications, and many small businesses run up to 80% or more of their applications under this model.
Cloud architectures for businesses
As I mentioned earlier, most cloud solutions for small businesses are best built using a hybrid cloud architecture. The hybrid cloud allows businesses to have maximum flexibility and not be locked into any single vendor’s cloud solution. Public cloud providers like Microsoft Azure, Amazon AWS, and Google Cloud would love to host all your PaaS, IaaS, and SaaS needs, but you should be wary of being locked in by a single vendor.
A private cloud solution can offset this situation by allowing businesses to implement some services on their own hardware onsite or in a private datacenter where you have much more control. Private cloud combined with public cloud defines what a hybrid cloud is, and this architecture offers the best of both worlds – convenience, cost, and speed of implementation.
How to get the best cloud solution for your business
Cooperative Systems implements hybrid cloud solutions for our customers utilizing our own private cloud datacenter which can be used for IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS models. Plus, we fully support and implement public cloud solutions like Office 365 and many SaaS applications across many industries. And most of all, Cooperative Systems can assess your current environment, design, build, implement, and maintain a hybrid cloud solution optimized for your business.