From personal usage to small or medium-scale businesses, and even complex enterprises, the cloud provides enough computing, storage, and other resources needed to set up a comprehensive software infrastructure. This infrastructure model provides flexibility, scalability, availability, security, and cost efficiency compared to the traditional software infrastructure setting. But who are the enablers of this model?
This is the second article in our "Cloud Computing for Devs" series. In the first article, Cloud Computing Demystified: Everything You Need to Know to Stay Ahead of the Game, we covered the basics of cloud computing. Now, we'll dive deeper into the exciting realm of choosing the perfect cloud provider for your business or personal use.
Let's get started!
What is a Cloud Provider?
Before we get into the nitty-gritty of choosing a cloud provider, let us understand what a cloud provider is and what it is not.
As we now know, cloud computing is "the delivery of computing services such as servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence over the internet (the cloud)." In simple terms, a company or organization that offers these services to individuals, businesses, or other entity is what we refer to as a cloud provider or cloud service provider (CSP).
Cloud providers typically buy all the hardware needed for a software infrastructure, store it in a data center, build software around it, and make it available for third-party use over the internet.
While this defines a cloud service provider, it is equally important to understand what a cloud service provider is not. A CSP like AWS or Azure is not the same as a traditional hosting provider like Bluehost or WhoGoHost. Although they offer some cloud-like services like server provisioning and web hosting, traditonal hosting companies are often focused on one or a few of these services. A CSP, on the other hand, provides a full suite of services required to set up and maintain the infrastructure of any software at any scale. Clod service providers differentiate themselves by offering on-demand self-service, resource pooling, rapid elasticity, and measured service while maintaining a pay-as-you-go pricing model.
Why Use a Cloud Service Provider?
In the first part of this series, we explored how cloud computing allows you to shift the responsibilities of managing, updating, and replacing your hardware component to a third party on a pay-as-you-go basis. This and many other benefits explained in the previous part of this series are why you should use a cloud service provider. Instead of buying and maintaining your own infrastructure on-premise, you can access it as a service over the internet at a fraction of the cost.
Also, using a cloud service provider is a helpful way to access computing services that you would otherwise have to buy and install on your own, such as infrastructure resources, platforms like Linux, middleware and runtime environments, and ready-to-use applications.
Factors to Consider When Assessing a Cloud Provider
Choosing a cloud provider for your business requires you to carefully analyze some considerations. Some of these factors include:
Performance and Reliability
The performance and reliability of your chosen cloud provider automatically affect your business. Therefore, you must choose a cloud service provider who can guarantee a rock-solid infrastructure according to the following metrics:
Network and Infrastructure Capabilities: An ideal cloud provider who can offer a reliable service must be able to offer a high-quality network and infrastructure capability. This includes things like redundant hardware, load balancing, and disaster recovery.
Uptime Guarantees: Cloud providers typically provide uptime guarantees, which promise a certain percentage of availability for their services. For example, AWS offers an uptime guarantee of 99.9% for its EC2 service.
Data center locations: A reliable and performant cloud provider must have data centers located in different parts of the world. This helps to ensure strategic replication and data availability, even if there is an outage in one data center.
Scalability and Flexibility
Business needs may change over time, so it's crucial to assess a cloud provider's ability to scale with an increase or decrease in workload.
Elasticity of resources: To ensure flexibility, a cloud provider must allow you to be able to start small and scale as needed without any forced commitment.
Ability to handle peak workloads: A good cloud provider should be able to handle peak workloads without any performance degradation. This is important if you have seasonal or cyclical traffic patterns.
Ability to support a wide variety of applications: An ideal cloud provider must provide extensive support for a wide range of applications and use cases. This includes modern web applications and traditional enterprise applications.
Security and Compliance
Security is a top priority for any business, and this is even more so on the cloud.
Data encryption: Your chosen CSP must offer encryption of your data at rest and in transit to protect it from unauthorized access.
Compliance certifications: A cloud provider must be compliant with relevant compliance frameworks, such as ISO 27001 and PCI DSS. This shows that they have implemented the necessary security controls to protect your data.
Access controls: To safeguard your data from illegal access, the cloud provider must have effective access controls in place. User authentication and role-based access control are examples of this.
Pricing Model
Pricing is one of the key advantages of using the cloud over traditional on-prem infrastructure. Hence, it is necessary to consider the pricing models a cloud provider provides:
Pay-as-you-go pricing: The most popular pricing model for cloud services is pay-as-you-go pricing. You only have to pay for the resources you utilize.
Reserved pricing: This is a sort of pricing that allows you to get a discount on your cloud resources if you commit to utilizing them for a set amount of time.
Pricing transparency: A good CSP should have its pricing available to the public. This means you should be able to simply comprehend how much they would charge you for their services before signing up.
Integration and Interoperability
Compatibility with existing systems and applications, APIs, and development tools are among these criteria.
Compatibility with existing systems and apps: A cloud provider should be compatible with the systems and applications you already have. This will make moving your workloads to the cloud easier.
APIs and developer tools: Cloud providers should provide APIs and developer tools that make integrating their services with your apps simple. This will assist you in developing more powerful and scalable applications.
Capabilities for multi-cloud and hybrid cloud deployments: Cloud providers should support multi-cloud and hybrid cloud deployments. This gives you the freedom to select the finest cloud provider for each of your requirements.
Support and Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
Owing to the huge number of service that CSP typically provide, you will likely run into an issue that you'll need technical support to help you resolve. This makes it imperative to assess the technical support channels and response times, documentation and knowledge base, and SLA terms and guarantees.
Technical support channels and response times: Your chosen cloud provider should offer 24/7 technical support. This means you should be able to get help with your cloud problems at any time of day.
Documentation and knowledge base: An ideal CSP should provide comprehensive documentation and a knowledge base. This will help you troubleshoot problems and learn how to use their services.
SLA terms and guarantees: Cloud providers offer SLAs that guarantee the availability of their services that you should get familiar with before signing up. Knowing that your data is always available will give you peace of mind.
Popular Cloud Providers
Amazon Web Services
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the leading cloud service provider, offering a comprehensive suite of cloud computing services. AWS offers a variety of services, including compute power via Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), scalable storage via Amazon S3, database services via Amazon RDS, and serverless computing via AWS Lambda. With data centers in multiple locations across all continents, AWS provides global availability, strong security measures and a platform that allows for extensive integration. AWS is well-known for its enormous ecosystem and its periodic innovation with new services and capabilities.
Microsoft Azure
Azure is a cloud computing platform provided by Microsoft. It offers a wide range of cloud computing services, such as virtual machines, storage, databases, AI services, and developer tools. Azure integrates seamlessly with many other Microsoft products and services, making it an appealing option for enterprises that already use Microsoft technologies. It is a strong contender in the CSP market, providing a complete suite that makes the business of infrastructure provisioning and management seamless.
Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is Google's cloud computing service. GCP provides a diverse set of services such as computing, storage, machine learning, and data analytics. It is well-known for its solid infrastructure, scalable solutions, and advanced artificial intelligence capabilities. GCP also integrates with other Google services like Google Workspace and BigQuery. It prioritizes usability and delivers a developer-friendly environment.
IBM Cloud
IBM Cloud is a cloud computing platform offered by the computing giant, IBM. It provides infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and software as a service (SaaS), among other services. IBM Cloud features a wide range of offerings, including virtual servers, object storage, AI services, and blockchain technology. It also provides specialized services to the healthcare, financial, and retail industries.
Alibaba
Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing subsidiary of Alibaba Group, is a well-known Chinese cloud service company. It provides a variety of services such as computing, storage, networking, databases, and security solutions. Alibaba Cloud primarily serves customers in the Asia-Pacific area, although it provides features that are suitable for global users. It is well known for having a significant presence in the e-commerce and digital economy sectors.
Digital Ocean
DigitalOcean is a cloud infrastructure provider that primarily caters to developers and small-to-medium-sized businesses. It offers a simplified and user-friendly experience, with services such as virtual machines (droplets), managed databases, and object storage. DigitalOcean focuses on simplicity, affordability, and ease of use, making it popular among startups and individual developers.
Conclusion
Cloud computing is a game changer, but cloud providers are the enablers. In this article, we've learned what cloud service providers are, examples of popular ones, and the criteria you should consider when deciding on the one that will suit you.
In the next article in this series, we will compare and contrast three of the most popular cloud service providers to help you streamline the list mentioned here and make an informed decision before hopping on one.
Thank you for reading. Anticipate the next part.