What are the essentials of cloud computing?

The National Institute of Standards Technology (NIST) lists five

essential characteristics of cloud computing: on-demand self-
service, broad network access, resource pooling, rapid elasticity,
and measured service.
NIST’s 5 Essential Cloud Computing Characteristics
The National Institute of Standards Technology (NIST) lists five
essential characteristics of cloud computing: on-demand self-
service, broad network access, resource pooling, rapid elasticity,
and measured service.

1. On-Demand Self-Service
With cloud computing, you can provision computing services,
like server time and network storage, automatically. You won’t
need to interact with the service provider. Cloud customers can
access their cloud accounts through a web self-service portal to
view their cloud services, monitor their usage, and provision and
de-provision services.

2. Broad Network Access

Another essential cloud computing characteristic is broad
network access. You can access cloud services over the network
and on portable devices like mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and
desktop computers. A public cloud uses the internet; a private
cloud uses a local area network. Latency and bandwidth both
play a major role in cloud computing and broad network access,
as they affect the quality of service.
3. Resource Pooling
With resource pooling, multiple customers can share physical
resources using a multi-tenant model. This model assigns and
reassigns physical and virtual resources based on demand.
Multi-tenancy allows customers to share the same applications
or infrastructure while maintaining privacy and security. Though
customers won't know the exact location of their resources, they
may be able to specify the location at a higher level of
abstraction, such as a country, state, or data center. Memory,
processing, and bandwidth are among the resources that
customers can pool.

4. Rapid Elasticity
Cloud services can be elastically provisioned and released,
sometimes automatically, so customers can scale quickly based
on demand. The capabilities available for provisioning are
practically unlimited. Customers can engage with these
capabilities at any time in any quantity. Customers can also
scale cloud use, capacity, and cost without extra contracts or
fees. With rapid elasticity, you won’t need to buy computer
hardware. Instead, can use the cloud provider's cloud computing
resources.

5. Measured Service
In cloud systems, a metering capability optimizes resource usage
at a level of abstraction appropriate to the type of service. For
example, you can use a measured service for storage,
processing, bandwidth, and users. Payment is based on actual
consumption by the customer via a pay-for-what-you-use model.
Monitoring, controlling, and reporting resource use creates a
transparent experience for both consumers and providers of the
service.
Other Cloud Computing Characteristics
While not among the NIST essential characteristics, cloud
computing offers a variety of other characteristics that can
benefit customers.
Resiliency and Availability
Resilience in cloud computing refers to the ability of a service to
recover quickly from any disruption. Cloud resiliency is
measured by how fast its servers, databases, and networks restart
and recover after any damage. To prevent data loss, cloud
services create a copy of the stored data. If one server loses data
for any reason, the copy version from the other server restores.
Availability is a related key concept in cloud computing. The
benefit of cloud services is that you can access them remotely,
so there are no geographic restrictions when using cloud
resources.

Flexibility
Companies need to scale as their business grows. The cloud
provides customers with more freedom to scale as they please
without restarting the server. They can also choose from several
payment options to avoid overspending on resources they won't
need.

Remote Work
Cloud computing helps users work remotely. Remote workers
can safely and quickly access corporate data via their devices,
including laptops and smartphones. Employees who work
remotely can also communicate with each other and perform
their jobs effectively using the cloud.
What is the need of cloud computing?
Cloud storage enables you to make data available anywhere you
are, anytime you need it. Instead of being tied to a location or
specific device, people can access data from anywhere in the
world from any device—as long as they have an internet
connection.
KNOW THE IMPORTANCE OF CLOUD COMPUTING
IN IT SECTOR:
Cloud computing is a global reality today.
Cloud Computing
Being in the clouds has become the destination for existence in
the Internet world.
The traditional way of IT environment involves the buying of
servers, hardware, licenses, installation of software, and so forth.
The process is costly, involves infrastructure demands and long
deployment cycles. This kind of IT Internet model is getting
replaced by evolving technologies and cloud computing is
bringing the major shift in the IT industry tremendously at a
faster rate.
It is indeed a utility based and service oriented model. The
businesses of all sizes and varied industry verticals are
deploying cloud solutions across the globe. The vendors today
are offering e-mail apps, security options, production systems,
storage, backup services, and other IT components in the cloud.
“The new private cloud options, public cloud, and SaaS
innovations will power the Enterprise transformation in 2018.
In, 2018 it is predicted that cloud applications, platforms, and
services would continue and radically change the way
enterprises compete for customers”
And eventually, the organizations are deriving advantages in
several ways.
To mention a few, they are
 Reduction in Total Cost Ownership [TCO]
 Implementation of IT with increased flexibility
 Increased Collaboration
 Flexibility in time like work from anywhere at anytime
 Increased competitiveness
 Go-to-Market in a lesser time
Top Reasons Why Cloud Computing is Important for
Business
Cloud computing has important aspects in business enterprises.
The AWS solutions in cloud computing help companies and
developers to access data at ease stored on the internet or in the
internal infrastructure of the enterprise. Cloud computing
eliminates the concept of depending upon hardware resources
and depends solely upon virtual machines. Check out the AWS
Solutions Architect Certification fees and course structure in
cloud computing and receive a certification to upskill your
career.
1. Scalability
Cloud computing is a scalable procedure. It has innumerable IT
resources which have been helping it bloom over the years.
Scalability refers to the expansion of infrastructure to handle an
increased loaf for every application. Cloud computing helps in
this procedure. It helps developers to increase their popularity
in business. It is a primary driver of meeting the changing
demand for computing and development. Hence, this is why
cloud computing is so important for business.
2. Flexibility
Cloud computing promotes flexibility in the workplace. It
allows the employees to be flexible enough by accessing the
data from home or on a holiday. Since cloud computing is
present over virtual media, the commute from home to work is
saved if the employee has a stable internet connection. Cloud
computing is hence considered to be much more flexible than
Grid computing.
3. Saving Costs

Cloud computing cost savings

Cloud computing is known to save capital costs at large. Some
of the integral benefits of popular cost savings are no upfront
hardware or software purchases that are required for cloud
computing. The time to spend on computing, storage, and
networking is reduced, which has exempted plenty of costs. It
also has shown amazing results in reducing operational costs,
maintenance, and upgrade expenses as well. This is why cloud
computing is very important.
4. Disaster Recovery
Disaster Recovery or DRaaS is a cloud computing service
model that helps an organization back up its data over the cloud
with the help of an IT infrastructure third-party cloud
computing environment. It provides DR orchestration as well
through a SaaS solution so that the IT infrastructure can regain
its functionality. It helps the employees quickly recover the
critical systems of an organization after a disaster and gives the
employees remote access to the systems. This ensures a secure
virtual environment. The importance of cloud security is
immensely beneficial and keeps data secured.
5. Compliance and Security
Cloud computing comes with security services that enable the
cloud to reserve the data even during a disaster. It backs up the
data with the help of an IT infrastructure cloud structure which
helps in regaining its full functionality. Cloud computing
compliance and security ensure user and data authentication
with access control and privacy protection. Many organizations
are inclined toward using a private cloud database. Cloud
computing ensures the privacy of the data, and that is also why
security is important in cloud computing. This particular
method ensures the privacy of the company infrastructure and
maintains a commendable amount of cyber security.
6. Manage IT Infrastructure With Low Complexity
Cloud computing helps in managing IT infrastructure without a
tad bit of complexity. It helps to manage the server hardware
with amazing networking equipment to build cloud-based
applications. The hardware and the software components of
cloud computing enable the seamless implementation of cloud
computing models in any organization. Cloud computing is
smooth and provides for hassle-free work irrespective of the
medium of public, private, or hybrid cloud. This is considered
to be one of the popular services provided by cloud vendors.
7. Multiple Service Offerings
Cloud computing is a very popular service provider that has
been facilitating people for a very long time. It has a plethora of
service providers in the market who have defined what is the
need for cloud computing. Multiple service providers offer
cloud computing. They are:
 Amazon Web Services (AWS).
 Microsoft Azure.

 Google Cloud Platform.

 IBM Cloud Services.

 Adobe Creative Cloud.

These cloud computing websites provide a great opportunity for

backing up data and other resources ensuring the upholding of
the IT infrastructure. It provides multiple services that are
suitable for your needs.
8. Improved DevOps
Cloud computing matters because of a lot of reasons. One of
the important aspects of cloud computing is improved DevOps.
The improved DevOps enable centralized governance and
control with efficiency that integrates the deployment
procedures. The cloud infrastructure hence allows the
developer with a much more grasp over their components
which results in quick action procedures. Furthermore, its
speedy delivery help in making the cloud projects to be much
more defined and fold back quickly in the software.
9. Effortless Maintenance
The code maintainability in cloud computing is pretty high,
enabling organization-wide coordination. It depends upon the
search, reuse, and change of other team codes and enhances
precision in the process of cloud computing. Therefore, cloud
computing is easy to maintain taking into account the current
scenario by generating a large codebase for large-scale
organizations.
10. Easy Accessibility
Cloud computing is an easy-to-access computing system. The
cloud computing system is easy to access to manage the data. It
helps to access online data easily the organizations. It is easy to
build and is resistant to any kind of fault tolerance. The
developers can add extra resources to allocate them from a
redundancy of any kind. It is easily accessible because it
consists of both hardware and software components that are
required for an efficient computing model.
11. Higher Level of Security
Cloud computing provides a higher level of security when it
comes to both public and private clouds. It saves the data and
ensures zero data breaches altogether. The hybrid cloud comes
with automated data security with advanced visibility and
predictive threat analytics. It also enhances fast and easy
onboarding as well. The cloud computing system consists of
features for protection against hackers. This is why security is
important in cloud computing because it helps to maintain a
proper course of privacy for the companies.
12. Increased Collaboration
Cloud computing provides an optimal solution to help teams
work faster and at ease. This enables flexible scheduling of
work. The tasks can be shared amongst the different
collaborators to ensure proper work balance between colleagues
from different time zones. Collaboration is integral in cloud
computing because it enables all the team members to work
together irrespective of location. Cloud computing will help the
team members to work together irrespective of their location.
Even if a team member loses or damages a device, the data
will, however remain safe and secure.
13. Automatic Updates
One of the biggest reasons why cloud computing is interesting
is because it provides automatic updates. Cloud providers
usually come up with a cloud service model called Software as
a Service or SaaS. This model enables the software vendors to
take care of regular software updates on behalf of the users.
This provides hassle-free service, which improves energy
efficiency. It also saves time by reducing computer-related
emissions.
14. Increased Focus on Core Business
The core business model of cloud computing is to provide
flexibility in the workplace. It also facilitates managing
complex IT infrastructure. The key focus of cloud computing is
to work with a cloud partner in improving the business. Cloud
computing focuses on providing the core components of IaaS,
SaaS, PaaS, and BaaS. Cloud computing procedures mainly
focus on these aspects and, thereby are focused primarily on
data storage and respecting its privacy.
15. Competitiveness
Cloud computing can analyze big data in cloud systems which
creates a competitive advantage in the world of cloud service.
The major advantage of cloud computing is the access and
affordability of data for both small and medium-scale
enterprises. It also reduces IT costs which is beneficial when
you are starting your business. The other competitive
advantages of cloud computing are:
 Cost leadership.
 Defensive Strategies
 Strategic Alliances