Enterprises have traditionally been making new capital infrastructure investments to keep up with growing IT and Web demands. This approach is increasingly cost prohibitive and is becoming so process-intensive that it delays resource availability while users wait for servers, applications, storage drives and network connections to be provisioned. The expenses, processes and wait times associated with this traditional approach don’t work in today’s dynamic business world, where Web 2.0 technologies and mobile trends have created user expectations for instant IT and communications resources.
This is where the flexible new business model called cloud services comes into play.The cloud can be defined as a way for enterprises to quickly and easily tap computing, storage, software, development and network resources on demand. The model offloads the capex burden from enterprise budgets and moves it into a “pay-as-you-use” service model, reducing overall IT spend and service-commitment terms.
Several types of managed and unmanaged services can be offered from the cloud, depending on what the enterprise is trying to accomplish. Let’s look at the primary offerings.
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Generally offered as an unmanaged service, IaaS consists of server, storage and local network resources made readily available to an enterprise and billed based on the level of each resource actually consumed during the billing period. With an IaaS, the provider gives the business more or less an empty container, in which the business customer installs its own operating systems, applications and storage data. Employees throughout the enterprise then simply dip into the resources in the cloud. The setup saves enterprises from making upfront and ongoing investments in the underlying foundation of servers, storage devices and local network connections as the business grows and requirements change. Reasons to tap into an IaaS can range from wanting to out-task an entire IT infrastructure to wanting to avoid purchasing an extra rack for new equipment in an already full data center.
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
This type of unmanaged cloud service is intended to serve the application development community. Whether it is reaching enterprise programmers, large independent software vendors (ISVs) or entrepreneurs inspired by
the “app store” model in the mobile industry, these services make available all the tools, operating system platforms, and storage necessary for developers to create new Web applications. Programmers, for example, can leverage new Web services application programming interfaces (APIs) and protocols residing in the cloud to quickly develop a new application. Again, the development platform and tools become available to
developers on a pay-as-you-use basis, without requiring the hefty upfront investments that can get in the way of entrepreneurship and stifle innovation. Still another cost barrier to entry comes down when developers store their code and data in the cloud, using and paying for only as much storage space as needed. In addition to making the appropriate tools available on demand at an affordable cost, the PaaS also enables developers to push their
code out to the cloud when it is ready and immediately make it available on an Internet-wide scale to internal users, consumers and other customers, some of whom may choose to deploy it, it turn, in a software as a service (SaaS) model.
Software as a Service (SaaS)
In this type of cloud service, software applications become available in the form of a network-based service, in that users access them across a wide-area network. This provides an alternative to an enterprise buying software licenses, loading the software on a self-built and self-maintained computing infrastructure and having to keep pace with software patches and version updates. In other words, SaaS is a cost-effective way for enterprises to procure rights to use software as needed. By using on-demand licensing, enterprises get the benefits of commercially licensed use without the associated complexity and potential high initial cost of equipping every
device with application software. Given this description, SaaS can be thought of as a fully managed service. The provider maintains both the software and hardware environment on behalf of the enterprise customer with no requirement for enterprise IT personnel to do any customization or version tracking, patching and updating.
Links of interest:
- Ethernet Whitepapers
- USA Business & Carrier Metro Ethernet
- Metro Wave Division Multiplexing, DWDM Services and DWDM/ROADM
- Business Phone Systems (external)
- International WAN & DIA Services
- Wholesale SIP Termination (carrier & enterprise)
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