Cloud Hosting

Introduction to Cloud Computing Services:

Earlier we used to store our data in hard drives on a computer. Cloud Computing services have replaced such hard drive technology. Cloud Computing service is nothing but providing services like Storage, Databases, Servers, networking, the softwares etc through the Internet.

Few Companies offer such computing services, hence named as Cloud Computing Providers/ Companies. They charge its users for utilizing such services and the charges are based on their usage of services.

In our daily routine we use this cloud service without our notice like web-based email service, watching movies through the internet, editing documents, storing pictures etc uses cloud computing on the back-end.

Using such cloud technology we can design and create new applications, store and recover data, hosting the websites etc.

Generally, cloud computing services are categorized into three types.

1) Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): This service provides the infrastructure like Servers, Operating Systems, Virtual Machines, Networks, and Storage etc on rent basis.

Eg: Amazon Web Service, Microsoft Azure

2) Platform as a Service (PaaS): This service is used in developing, testing and maintaining of software. PaaS is same as IaaS but also provides the additional tools like DBMS, BI services etc.

Eg: Apprenda, Red Hat OpenShift

3) Software as a Service (SaaS): This service makes the users connect to the applications through the Internet on a subscription basis.

Eg: Google Applications, Salesforce

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=> Let us know if we are missing any company in this list

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Here we go with a brief review of the individual company.

=> Explore the site for more features on Amazon Web Services.

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=> Visit Kamatera Cloud Services

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=> You can visit this website for further information.

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=> Visit Google Cloud Platformfor more details.

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=> For more information on this service, visit Adobe website.

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Visit this websitefor further details on VMware Cloud service.

For more information on IBM, access IBM Cloud.

For more details visit Rackspace Cloud.

You can visit the Red Hat website and browse for more information regarding cloud computing.

To learn more about Salesforce, you can visit here.

Visit the website for a free trial version and further details on Oracle Cloud.

For further queries or information regarding pricing visit SAP Cloud.

Visit the Verizon Cloud website for more details.

A free trial version of Navisite desktop service is availablehere.

30 days free trialversion of Dropbox can be accessed here.

For additional information visit Egnyte.

This article provides you a list of best cloud computing service providers using which one can avail various cloud services like file sharing, automatic backup of files, file locking, notifications to users regarding any updates etc.

Depending upon their specifications few of the cloud service providers limit their services to small businesses, consumers, mid-sized businesses etc.

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=> Let us know if we are missing any company in this list.

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Read more from the original source:
15 Top Cloud Computing Service Provider Companies

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Update: 2018 cloud computing trends from the latest RightScale State of the Cloud Survey are now available.

In January 2017, RightScale conducted its sixth annual State of the Cloud Survey of the latest cloud computing trends, with a focus on infrastructure-as-a-service. In 2017, we see several new themes emerging: anarrowing race among public cloud providers,decrease in private cloud adoption, a renewed focus among enterprises on optimizing cloud costs, and strong growth in Docker.

This is the largest survey on the use of cloud infrastructure thatis focused on cloud buyers and users, as opposed to cloud vendors. Their answers provide a comprehensive perspective on the state of the cloud today.

The survey asked 1,002 IT professionals about their adoption of cloud infrastructure and related technologies. Forty-eight percent of the respondents represented enterprises with more than 1,000 employees. The margin of error is 3.07 percent.

We highlight several key findings from the survey in this blog post. For the complete survey results, download the RightScale 2017 State of the Cloud Report.

Cloud Computing Trends: Key Findings

In the twelve months since the last State of the Cloud Survey, weve seen private cloud adoption fall slightly. The percent of respondents now adopting private cloud is 72 percent, down from 77 percent last year.As a result, use of hybrid cloud environments has fallen to 67 percent from 71percent last year. In total, 95 percent of respondents are now using cloud.

The percentage of enterprises that have a strategy to use multiple clouds grew to 85 percent (vs. 82 percent in 2016) with 58 percent planning on hybrid (vs. 55 percent in 2016). There was also an increase in the number of enterprises planning for multiple public clouds (up from 16 percent to 20 percent) and a concurrent decrease in those planning for multiple private clouds (down from 11 percent to 7 percent).

Companies that use public cloud are already running applications in an average of 1.8 public clouds and experimenting with another 1.8 public clouds. While fewer companies are using private clouds, those that do use more, running applications in an average of 2.3 private clouds and experimenting with an additional 2.1 private clouds.

Companies now run 79 percent of workloads in cloud, with 41 percent of workloads in public cloud and 38 percent in private cloud. Its important to note that the workloads running in private cloud may include workloads running in existing virtualized environments or bare-metal environments that have been cloudified.

Enterprises run 75 percent of workloads in cloud with more in private cloud (43 percent) vs. public cloud (32 percent). SMBs run 83 percent of workloads in cloud with more in public cloud (50 percent) vs. private cloud (33 percent).

This year we saw a strong shift toward centralization, with more central IT teams taking a broader view of their role in cloud. They see a role for themselves in selecting public clouds (65 percent), deciding/advising on which apps to move to cloud (63 percent), and selecting private clouds (63 percent).

However, there is now a significant gap between the view of central IT and that of the business units they support. Respondents in business units are less likely to delegate authority to central IT for selecting public clouds (41 percent), deciding/advising on which apps to move to cloud (45 percent), and selecting private clouds (38 percent).

In 2017, cloud challenges declined across the board with the exception of governance/control, which remained flat. This year expertise, security, and spend were all tied for the top challenge with 25 percent of respondents citing each as a significant challenge.

Lack of resources/expertise, the #1 cloud challenge in 2016, was less of a challenge in 2017 with only 25 percent citing it as a major concern, down significantly from 32 percent in 2016. Concerns about security fell to 25 percent vs. 29 percent last year. Managing cloud spend fell only slightly from 26 to 25 percent.

Even as managing cloud costs becomes a top challenge, cloud users underestimate the amount of wasted cloud spend. Respondents estimate 30 percent waste, while RightScale has measured actual waste between 30 and 45 percent.

This increased concern about costs has made optimizing cloud costs the top initiative for 2017 across all cloud users (53 percent) and especially in mature cloud users (64 percent).

As part of adopting DevOps processes, companies often choose to implement new tools that allow them to standardize and automate deployment and configuration of servers and applications. These tools include configuration management tools (such as Chef, Puppet, and Ansible) and, more recently, container technologies, such as Docker and container orchestration and scheduling tools such as Kubernetes, Swarm, and Mesosphere.

The meteoric rise in the use of containers now makes Docker the top DevOps tool among those included in our survey. Overall Docker adoption surged to 35 percent, taking the lead over Chef and Puppet at 28 percent each. (Note that we did not ask about continuous integration tools such as Jenkins, Travis, and others.)

The 2017 State of the Cloud Survey reveals that although AWS continues to lead in public cloud adoption (57 percent of respondents currently run applications in AWS), this number has stayed flat since both 2016 and 2015. It is important to note that while the percentage of companies running at least one application in AWS is flat, the number of applications and VMs they are running is increasing, thereby driving increased revenue for AWS.

In contrast, over the last year, weve seen significant growth in the percentage of respondents running applications in Azure and Google, the #2 and #3 public cloud providers. Overall Azure adoption grew from 20 to 34 percent of respondents to reduce the AWS lead, with Azure now reaching 60 percent of the market penetration of AWS. Google also increased adoption from 10 to 15 percent.

The public cloud adoption numbers above indicate the number of respondents who are running any workloads in a particular cloud. However, it is also important to look at the number of workloads or VMs that are running in each cloud. The chart below shows the number of VMs being run.

So although AWS adoption is flat, it shows the largest footprint for public clouds with 8 percent running more than 1,000 VMs and 28 percent running more than 100 VMs. In comparison, Azure only has 3 percent running more than 1,000 VMs and and 13 percent running more than 100 VMs.

In contrast to last years survey when we saw private cloud adoption grow, the 2017 survey shows that adoption of private cloud is flattening across all providers. Across all sizes of organizations, VMware vSphere continues to lead with 42 percent adoption, slightly below last year (44 percent). OpenStack (20 percent) and VMware vCloud Suite (19 percent) were also flat in growth, with OpenStack barely eking into the #2 slot. Microsoft Azure Pack/Stack was the only private cloud technology to show significant growth, up from 9 percent to 14 percent. Microsoft System Center showed 3 percent growth, which is right at the 3 percent margin of error.

The 2017 State of the Cloud Survey shows that while hybrid cloud remains the preferred enterprise strategy, public cloud adoption is growing while private cloud adoption flattened and fewer companies are prioritizing building a private cloud. This was a change from last years survey, where we saw strong gains in private cloud use.

AWS leads in public cloud adoption despite staying flat for the last two years in the number of respondents using it. However, respondents are running more VMs in AWS than in other public clouds, which explains the AWS lead in revenue. Azure made strong gains in adoption in this years survey, closing the lead on AWS. Google also made gains and still remains in the #3 position.

Enterprise central IT teams are taking a stronger role in cloud adoption. However, business units seem reluctant to give up authority. Cloud governance continues to progress, which will serve to help increase alignment between central IT and the business units they support.

With increasing maturity of both cloud users and cloud providers, we are seeing an across-the-board reduction in cloud challenges. Unlike last year when concern about resources and expertise was the most widespread (32 percent of users), this year security, spend, and expertise tied for the largest concern, albeit with only 25 percent of users expressing concern about each.

As adoption grows, cloud bills and cost concerns are also growing. As a result, the most cited challenge among mature cloud users was managing cloud costs. Most organizations, however, continue to underestimate the level of waste in cloud spend (30 percent) when compared to actual waste between 30 and 45 percent measured by RightScale. Although only a minority of cloud users have taken action to reduce waste, they are now turning their focus to this issue, making it the top initiative for 2017, followed closely by migrating more workloads to cloud.

The use of DevOps practices and tools continues to increase, with enterprises moving beyond piecemeal adoption to company-wide DevOps programs. This year Docker surged to become the top DevOps tool in the survey, seemingly at the expense of configuration management tools such as Puppet and Chef, which showed declines in adoption.

Download the RightScale 2017 State of the Cloud Report for the complete survey results.

Use of Charts and Data In This Report

We encourage the re-use of data, charts, and text published in this report under the terms of this Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You are free to share and make commercial use of this work as long as you attribute the RightScale 2017 State of the Cloud Report as stipulated in the terms of the license.

Read more from the original source:
Cloud Computing Trends: 2017 State of the Cloud Survey

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Examples of cloud computing include Software as a Service, Platform as a Service, and Infrastructure as a Service. Generally, cloud computing services are run outside the walls of the customer organization, on a vendor's infrastructure with vendor maintenance.

Although cloud-like services can be internal (e.g., IU's Intelligent Infrastructure), this document refers exclusively to cloud services provided by third-party vendors over a network connection where at least part of the service resides outside the institution, regardless of whether those services are offered freely to the public or privately to paying or registered users.

Cloud computing represents an externalization of information technology applications and infrastructure beyond an organization's data center walls. In the university context, cloud computing may be thought of as extra-campus or above-campus computing.

Cloud services are often available "on demand," and utilize an infrastructure shared by the vendor's customers. While some offer a flat fee model or consumption-based pricing, other cloud services are offered at no cost.

Within the university, the confidentiality, integrity, availability, use control, and accountability of institutional data and services are expected to be ensured by a suite of physical, technical, and administrative safeguards proportional to the sensitivity and criticality (i.e., risk) of those information assets and services.

These safeguards help protect the reputation of the university and reduce institutional exposure to legal and compliance risks. Much of the challenge in approaching cloud computing involves determining whether a service vendor has adequate safeguards in place commensurate with the value and risk associated with assets and services involved.

Once the high-level challenges are understood, the next step is to consider the risks and determine whether or how to appropriately mitigate those risks in the context of the proposed information and/or service.

The above factors should not be taken to suggest that cloud computing has no potential benefits; but rather that the benefits must be balanced with the risks involved when evaluating the use of cloud computing services.

Cloud computing services are similar to traditional outsourcing and can be approached analogously while accounting for their unique risks/benefits. The following recommendations and strategies are intended to assist units in their approach to evaluating the prudence and feasibility of leveraging cloud services.

See the original post here:
Cloud computing: Hardware & Software Security: Online ...

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Why cloud computing represents a paradigm shift for business, and how business users can best take advantage of cloud services.

Most of the information available on cloud computing is either highly technical, with details that are irrelevant to non-technologists, or pure marketing hype, in which the cloud is simply a selling point. This book, however, explains the cloud from the user's viewpointthe business user's in particular. Nayan Ruparelia explains what the cloud is, when to use it (and when not to), how to select a cloud service, how to integrate it with other technologies, and what the best practices are for using cloud computing.

Cutting through the hype, Ruparelia cites the simple and basic definition of cloud computing from the National Institute of Science and Technology: a model enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources. Thus with cloud computing, businesses can harness information technology resources usually available only to large enterprises. And this, Ruparelia demonstrates, represents a paradigm shift for business. It will ease funding for startups, alter business plans, and allow big businesses greater agility.

Ruparelia discusses the key issues for any organization considering cloud computing: service level agreements, business service delivery and consumption, finance, legal jurisdiction, security, and social responsibility. He introduces novel concepts made possible by cloud computing: cloud cells, or specialist clouds for specific uses; the personal cloud; the cloud of things; and cloud service exchanges. He examines use case patterns in terms of infrastructure and platform, software information, and business process; and he explains how to transition to a cloud service. Current and future users will find this book an indispensable guide to the cloud.

See more here:
Cloud Computing | The MIT Press

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