Cloud Computing

• Cloud computing is used across all industries.
• Cloud services offer greater efficiency at lower costs.
• Their particular strengths are scalability and on-demand use.
• Virtually the entire IT infrastructure is available via the internet.
• For proven processes and state-of-the-art machine learning applications

Cloud computing refers to the provision of IT resources (servers / storage space / networks / software / analysis tools, etc.) via the internet. Companies usually no longer maintain these IT resources themselves, but purchase the required IT solution as needed. This offers companies a high degree of flexibility at good conditions.

The concept of cloud computing not only enables companies to avoid purchasing costly IT infrastructure, but also to gradually outsource existing structures to the cloud. Instead of the on-premise solution at their own location, companies (partially or completely) rely on virtualized IT infrastructure and software solutions from specialized cloud providers.

Cost Efficiency

By relying on cloud computing, companies no longer have to make expensive investments in IT infrastructure such as server systems. Costs for maintenance and servicing can also be saved. Instead, companies only pay for the software and hardware they use. This pays off for companies of all sizes.

Flexibility

By using a cloud computing solution, company employees have access to the resources they need for their work from anywhere. At the same time, this also simplifies cross-team and cross-departmental collaboration on projects and customers, which in turn boosts productivity.

Scalability

A particular strength of cloud computing is the ability to scale resources as required. Companies do not have to keep expensive IT capacities “in stock”, but can flexibly adjust them upwards (or downwards) seasonally or during peaks in demand. The provision of such additional resources is usually possible within a very short time.

Security

When it comes to cloud security, professional cloud service providers offer the advantage that they can design their entire infrastructure for maximum efficiency and security. By specializing in this area, established providers of cloud computing solutions in particular can ensure that services are protected against attacks and outages more easily and cost-effectively.

Up-to-Dateness

By purchasing software and hardware, companies can always be sure that they have access to the latest versions and features of certain services. This completely eliminates the need to install patches or comprehensive firmware updates on the customer side, allowing employees and especially the company's own IT department to focus on more important tasks.
 

We have compiled further information about these and other cloud computing benefits on our blog.

In practice, there is no one cloud - depending on the type and use, there are various cloud computing models, each of which has specialized purposes. We have summarized the most important types of clouds here:

Public Cloud

A public cloud is provided and operated by a third-party provider. Companies have the option of accessing these IT resources. The entire infrastructure, such as servers, storage, networks or software, is accessed via the internet. The entire administration of the infrastructure is carried out by the third-party provider.

In such a cloud, a company is one of many “clients” that jointly use the IT resources of the cloud computing provider on a non-exclusive basis and for a fee. Use is usually based on a subscription or “pay-as-you-go” model, and the scope of use is very easily scalable.
 

Private Cloud

A private cloud describes a cloud environment whose resources are exclusively available to a specific customer/company. This type of architecture is often preferred when particularly sensitive data is involved or industry-specific compliance requirements need to be taken into account.

Such a cloud environment can either be set up on the company's premises in a local data center or operated externally by a third-party provider. Such a model offers companies the benefits of the cloud with a high degree of control over the respective systems.
 

Hybrid Cloud

A hybrid cloud is a mixture of a public and private cloud environment. It can be set up in such a way that sensitive data is stored in a private cloud and can be flexibly accessed in the public cloud of a third-party provider if required.

Depending on the setup, the exchange of data between the private and public cloud can be regulated more openly or more restrictively. The particular strength of hybrid clouds lies in their rapid scalability - for example, when flexibly moving workloads between clouds or “cloud bursting” in the event of peak loads.
 

Multi-Cloud

If companies use a multi-cloud model, this typically means a combination of several cloud services to which a company's workloads can then be distributed. On the one hand, this prevents dependency on a single provider, but on the other hand it leads to increased complexity when managing data.

Multi-cloud and hybrid cloud are similar at this point in that a hybrid cloud - depending on the setup - can also function as a multi-cloud. Such an infrastructure can be created, for example, when a company's own private cloud is linked with several individual public clouds from third-party providers.

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)

With the Infrastructure-as-a-Service concept, cloud providers make basic components of an IT infrastructure available. These are components such as servers, networks, databases or storage. 

Companies can purchase all or some of these components as required and use them flexibly. Payment is always made for the precise amount of resources required. This allows customers to save all the costs of an on-premise infrastructure.
 

Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)

A Platform-as-a-Service solution is particularly interesting for companies that require a virtual environment for the development, testing and provision of applications. Such a turnkey “sandbox” includes numerous components from the IaaS area as well as the necessary tools, middleware and more that companies need specifically for development.

This cloud computing model gives companies access to an environment that meets their requirements at all times and can also be scaled flexibly over the course of the project. On-demand access to a fully operational environment greatly simplifies software development and other programming work without the need to allocate resources to set up, maintain and update.
 

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)

The use of cloud software is one of the best-known services in cloud computing today. With Software-as-a-Service, applications are provided via the cloud and are usually hosted and managed purely on the server side. These software applications are usually used as part of a subscription.

Users / companies access the software resources in the cloud via the internet and use the respective applications as required. The cloud computing provider takes care of updating the software to a new version as well as security updates and more, which makes using these software solutions very convenient.
 

Serverless

Serverless computing is characterized by the fact that the customer does not have to spend any effort on setting up and managing the server infrastructure. The provider of the cloud computing solution takes over all administrative processes and the companies - or more specifically the developers - focus on their code.

Serverless computing is highly scalable and works on an event-driven basis. In practice, this means that developers can run applications here and the IT resources are provided exactly in line with the respective requirements. This dynamic and automatic scaling means that companies pay precisely for the resources they actually use.

The opportunities that cloud computing opens up for companies today go far beyond convenient data access and exchange. We have compiled some of the most important use cases for cloud infrastructures here:
 

• Scaling the Infrastructure

  Depending on the business area, order situation and season, the requirements for the digital infrastructure can vary enormously. Cloud computing allows companies to flexibly take these fluctuations into account and always use the resources that are actually needed for a fee.
   

• Data Storage

  Cloud environments are ideal for securely outsourcing and storing even large volumes of data. Companies do not need to maintain their own servers or storage media to back up these volumes of data. At the same time, backing up in the cloud also allows easy access by authorized employees.
   

• Data Processing / Machine Learning

  Merging and storing large amounts of data makes it possible to analyze and evaluate them comprehensively. On the one hand, the evaluation of this data can be supported by AI; on the other hand, this data can also be used to train your own AI models.
   

• Application Development

  Cloud environments offer developers ideal conditions for creating and testing a wide range of applications. The entire required infrastructure is available on demand, can be used very flexibly and is individually scalable, which enables highly focused development with virtually no overhead.
   

• Disaster & Data Recovery

  Cloud computing ensures that business-critical processes are not interrupted for long periods and that data is not lost in emergencies (cyber attacks / natural disasters). High security standards, redundant data backups and failover clusters on the part of cloud service providers offer companies a cost-effective alternative to creating their own duplicate IT infrastructure.