What are some examples of Cloud Services
18 March 2021
‘Cloud services’ refers to the range of services delivered to companies and customers over the internet.
Instead of maintaining software and various platforms on each of your employee’s computers, you can simply access these services from anywhere through the cloud.
Whether you’re writing an email, creating an invoice or collaborating on a documents, there’s a cloud service solution that you can use.
How do cloud services work?
Cloud services are managed by IT service providers.
By using cloud services, your company can quickly scale both infrastructure and software. You will also lower costs as you don’t need to pay for on-premises software licences, or the IT employees to perform installations and upgrades.
What are the different types of cloud services?
There are three basic types of cloud services:
The first is Saas, which stands for Software as a Service. This would be a software application that you could access over the cloud without having to have it installed on your device.
PaaS stands for Platform as a Service. A service provider delivers a platform to you, enabling you to develop, run, and manage business applications over the cloud.
Finally, Iaas, or Infrastructure as a Service is infrastructure delivered over the internet. This would be the actual data storage – instead of maintaining servers and physical data centres, you can access all your data seamlessly though the cloud.
- Software as a Service (SaaS)
A variety of services are available as Software as a Service, including file storage, backup, web-based email and project management tools. Using one of these applications, users can access, share, store and secure information in the cloud. SaaS cloud solutions examples include Dropbox, Slack and Microsoft 365.
- Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Platform as a service is an environment in the cloud where developers can build and deploy apps. PaaS provides the database and operating system that is needed to develop cloud-based software. Developers can focus on their task, without needing to build and maintain the infrastructure that such software development processes normally require. AWS Elastic Beanstalk and Windows Azure are two cloud technology examples of PaaS.
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Infrastructure as a service provides the infrastructure that you need to manage SaaS tools, including servers, storage, and networking resources. The cloud provider would manage the storage servers and networking hardware and may also offer additional services like load balancing and firewalls.
What are some examples of cloud services?
Common SaaS services include Dropbox, Salesforce, Cisco WebEx. PaaS services include Google App Engine, Apache Stratos and OpenShift. Some well-known IaaS services are Amazon Web Services (AWS), Cisco Metapod and Microsoft Azure. Many of these cloud computing service examples are already familiar to us all.
How are cloud services delivered?
Cloud services are delivered through a public cloud, private cloud or a mix of both commonly known as hybrid cloud.
- Public cloud services
Cloud services that are available over the web are referred to as public cloud services. The main benefits of a public cloud service include the ability to share resources at scale, flexibility and lower costs. The popular SaaS apps like Slack, Dropbox and Gmail are all accessible through a public cloud.
- Private cloud services
With a private cloud services model, apps and data are only available through the company’s internal infrastructure. Companies working with highly sensitive data often use a private cloud, which can offer them greater security.
- Hybrid cloud services
Hybrid clouds combine public clouds with private clouds, with the two platforms interacting seamlessly together.
We provide everything you need to view and control the assets, data flows and security risks in your cloud-based workloads and applications. Our cloud security solutions provide consistent protection across multiple clouds in line with your governance, risk and compliance requirements.
Speak to us today for a free cloud assessment.
