Daily Archives: September 8, 2021

Cloud computing is a phrase many of us hear but may not understand. This is because it encompasses several different systems and services, making it feel ambiguous or confusing.

In this article, we share a simple definition of cloud computing, examples of computing, and discuss why companies use cloud computing.

Cloud computing is the use of off-site systems to help computers store, manage, process, and/or communicate information. These off-site systems are hosted on the cloud (or the internet) instead of on your computer or other local storage. They can encompass anything from email servers to software programs, data storage, or even increasing your computers processing power.

The cloud is a term that simply means the internet. Computing involves the infrastructures and systems that allow a computer to run and build, deploy, or interact with information. In cloud computing, this means that instead of hosting infrastructure, systems, or applications on your hard drive or an on-site server, youre hosting it on virtual/online servers that connect to your computer through secure networks.

Cloud computing is the use of hardware or software off-site that is accessed over networks for computing needs. Examples of cloud computing depend on the type of cloud computing services being provided.

The main types of cloud computing include software as a service, platform as a service, and infrastructure as a service. Serverless computing, also known as function as a service (FaaS), is also a popular method of cloud computing for businesses.

Yes. Cloud computing still needs servers to function; the servers are just virtualized. This means instead of your application, system, or processes running off a single on-site server, they use multiple servers often in multiple locations connected to each other and your device over secure virtual networks. This allows the cloud computing service provider to provide services to multiple peopleand to scale according to client volumeand deliver the service anywhere with an internet connection.

Your company is probably already using several cloud computing services. For instance, all hosted email providers including Gmail and Outlook are SaaS cloud computing services. So are popular CRMs and automated marketing platforms such as Salesforce, Hubspot, Mailchimp, and more.

However, for many companies, additional examples of cloud computing services include:

Why should your business consider using cloud computing over traditional brick-and-mortar hosting solutions? This article discusses how cloud computing can save time and money while improving your computing experience.

Is your company considering moving some of your infrastructure to the cloud? If so, youre not alone. According to Gartner Inc., cloud infrastructure spending increased in 2018 by 31.3% over 2017.

But why are so many companies making the shift from traditional in-house computing? Below we explore 10 benefits of cloud computing.Read More

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What is Cloud Computing? Definition, Examples, & Uses

Cloud Computing has become the buzzing topic of today's technology, driving mainly by marketing and services offered by prominent corporate organizations like Google, IBM & Amazon. Cloud computing is the next stage to evolve the Internet. Though for some people, "Cloud Computing" is a big deal, it is not. In reality, cloud computing is something that we have been using for a long time; it is the internet facility, along with the associated standards that provide a set of web-services to users. When users draw the term 'Internet' as a "cloud", they represent the essential characteristics of cloud computing.

Cloud computing is the latest generation technology with an extensive IT infrastructure that provides us a means by which we can use and utilize the applications as utilities via the Internet. Cloud computing makes IT infrastructure along with its services available "on-need" basis. The cloud technology includes - a development platform, hard disk, computing power, software application, and database. This technology doesn't require large-scale capital expenditure to access cloud vendors. Instead, the cloud facilitates 'pay-per-use,' i.e., the organizations' users have to pay only that limited amount to use the cloud infrastructure. In other words, cloud computing refers to applications and services that run on a distributed network using virtualized resources and uses the standard internet protocols for accessing.

Before learning about Cloud technology, readers must know about Networking, computers, database, etc. Terms such as operating system, applications, programs, and their meanings must be known before starting this.

The small and extensive IT companies follow the old traditions of managing IT infrastructure, i.e., server room, to keep all the details and maintain that server. In a word, it is a server room consists of database servers, mail server, firewalls, routers, switches, QPS (Query per second) & Load handler, and other networking devices along with server engineers. To provide such IT infrastructure, a huge amount of money has to spend. So, to reduce the IT infrastructure cost, Cloud Computing technology came into play.

Cloud computing technology brings a shift in the real paradigm of technology in the way systems are deployed. The massive cloud computing technology was enabled by the likeness & trend of the Internet & the growth of some famous multinational companies. Cloud computing makes the user dream come into reality by the concepts of 'pay-as-you-go', infinite scale architecture, and universal system available with high-speed and accuracy.

With the cloud's help, an organization or individual can start from low and small grade to a big name within a short time. So cloud computing is said to be a revolutionary change, even though the technology is still in an evolving stage. Cloud computing takes services, applications, and technology similar to the internet world and converts them into a self-service utility.

If we analyze the Cloud technology intelligently, we will see that most people separate the cloud computing model into two distinct sets:

These topics will have an elaborate discussion on the later chapters as each of them has their subcategories.

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Cloud Computing - W3schools

Cloud computing, which underpinned the worlds economy, global supply chains and remote workforces during the coronavirus pandemic, will continue to be an essential target for organizations looking for increased scalability, business continuity and cost efficiency in 2021.

The effects of COVID-19 will linger throughout 2021, as businesses will look to lay a foundation for increased agility, said Dustin Milberg, field chief technology officer for cloud services at InterVision, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based IT service provider and AWS Premier Consulting Partner. Cloud will take a key focus in this goal, given its benefits of improved accessibility, scalability and flexibility.

But those companies who view cloud as a journey and not a destination will see more success, according to Milberg.

This is because simply getting to the cloud doesnt automatically mean youll see improved performance and spending, he said. Instead, cloud is an iterative process of optimization and creating security by design to match your companys goals, both now and in the long term.

Enterprises technology needs have increased in complexity over the past year, as workplaces quickly became decentralized during the pandemic, with remote workers across the globe, noted Steve Miller-Jones, vice president of edge strategy and solution architecture at Limelight Networks, a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based content delivery network (CDN) service provider.

At the same time, exciting new technologies are making it easier to instantly generate, process and analyze data for better business performance, he said. These operational demands are shifting how businesses leverage cloud computing.

Heres a look at some of the cloud computing trends expected to loom large in 2021.

Global Public Cloud Infrastructure Market Hits $120B

The global public cloud infrastructure market will grow 35 percent to $120 billion in 2021, as the cloud continues to take center stage in the recovery from the pandemic, according to Forrester Research.

The aggressive move to cloud, already proceeding at a healthy clip before the pandemic, will spike in 2021, yielding even greater enterprise adoption, cloud provider revenue and business value, the Cambridge, Mass.-based market research company said in its Predictions 2021 report.

Forrester previously forecast the public cloud infrastructure market would increase 28 percent to $113.1 billion next year.

The percentage of worldwide IT spending thats dedicated to the cloud will continue to accelerate in 2021. Gartner, the Stamford, Conn.-based research and advisory firm, projects that worldwide public cloud spending by end-users will grow 18 percent next year to $304.9 billion, up from $257.5 billion this year.

The pandemic validated clouds value proposition, Sid Nag, research vice president at Gartner, said in a report this week. The ability to use on-demand, scalable cloud models to achieve cost efficiency and business continuity is providing the impetus for organizations to rapidly accelerate their digital business transformation plans. The increased use of public cloud services has reinforced cloud adoption to be the new normal now more than ever.

While software as a service (SaaS) still will be the largest market segment for end-user cloud IT spending its expected to grow approximately 16 percent to $117.8 billion -- application infrastructure services (PaaS) is expected to grow at a higher 26.6 percent rate to about $55.5 billion, according to Gartner. The growth in PaaS will be driven by remote workforces continued need to access to high-performing and scalable infrastructure via modernized and cloud-native applications, it said.

The cloud is being used to facilitate much of our remote work environments, so companies will continue to migrate workloads and begin using more PaaS resources to take maximum financial advantage of these somewhat forced changes, said George Burns III, senior consultant for cloud operations at SPR, a Chicago-based technology modernization firm.

Cloud system infrastructure services (IaaS) spending is projected to increase 26.9 percent to $65.3 billion.

Reshuffling Of The Big Three Cloud Providers

There will be a reshuffling of the top three public cloud providers in 2021, with Chinas Alibaba Cloud displacing Google Cloud to take the No. 3 spot for revenue in the global public cloud infrastructure market. behind No.1 Amazon Web Services and Microsoft, according to Forrester.

Alibabas cloud computing revenue grew 59 percent year-over-year to $2.19 billion for the quarter that ended Sept. 30, driven by the acceleration in digitalization across industries and businesses of all sizes in China, the company disclosed this month. Revenue from customers in the internet, finance and retail industries were the primary growth drivers.

Google Clouds revenue -- which includes sales from Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) productivity tools and other enterprise cloud services increased to $3.44 billion, compared to $2.38 billion in the same quarter last year.

Google (Cloud) establishes itself as an enterprise-friendly cloud as the work it has put into ERP (enterprise resource planning) workloads, analytics and account management pay off in 2021, said Hyoun Park, CEO and chief analyst at Amalgam Insights, a technology advisory firm in Berkeley, Calif.

Amalgam expects Google Cloud to achieve healthy 40-plus percent growth next year.

(Google Cloud CEO) Thomas Kurian has had a strong two-year run so farin translating Googles technology into defined enterprise products, services and relationships, he said.

Amalgam, which estimates AWS has more revenue than its next three largest competitors combined, expects AWS revenue will grow less than the combination of Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure in 2021.

This is great news for the business world, as it means that the cloud market is finally a competitive one rather than Amazon vs. the dwarves, Park said.

AWS will further its progress in providing services for operations management, building on top of communications, messaging, and operations services such as Amazon Chime, Amazon Simple Queue Service, AWS Chatbot and AWS RoboMaker, according to Park said.

Although AWS provides the technology to scale, the larger Amazon company has a combination of processes, operations and logistics that have led to meteoric growth, he said. AWS is in a position to share more of the Amazon core DNA as services and software to further grow the AWS business.

Microsoft, meanwhile, will exceed $25 billion in Azure cloud revenue in fiscal year 2021 -- driven by secular market demand for cloud and partner trust that Amazon and Google cannot match -- and finally break out Azure revenue in its annual reports, Park projected.

Edge Is the New Cloud

Edge is the new cloud, and new edge vendors will trim 5 points from public cloud growth next year, according to Forresters predictions.

In 2021, we will see new business models emerge that facilitate the deployment of edge, efforts by cloud platforms to compete, and AI and 5G facilitating the expansion of edge use cases, Forrester said.

Large vendors including Dell, HPE, IBM and Intel are doubling down on the edge with cloud-like solutions deployable to anywhere, according to Forrester, and content delivery networks and data center colocation vendors are offering edge compute services across hundreds or thousands of local points of presence.

Over the next three years, buyers will shift their cloud strategies toward the edge to capture all this innovation and become more connected, Forrester said. While public clouds will play a part, we do not think they will dominate, as their culture is based on massive data centers and tight control of the architecture -- the exact opposite of what firms need to serve customers locally.

While the centralized cloud isnt going anywhere, developments in serverless computing models and the creation of distributed service layers around the cloud are powering new real-time IT applications, according to Miller-Jones.

Enterprises are looking to the network edge to bridge the gap between the centralized cloud and end-users, providing low-latency application and content performance for all users, wherever they are working from, Miller-Jones said. Integrating a distributed edge strategy within a broader cloud computing effort is key to continued innovation in 2021, he said. Environments at the network edge that scale when needed, are instantly accessible and that are consumed as a service are key developments in this new paradigm.

Miller-Jones pointed to two pivotal ways the network edge will transform and expand cloud computing next year.

By integrating the network edge into their cloud strategy, developers have the ability to easily deploy services at the edge without having to be concerned with the operational overhead of managing more infrastructure, he said. With integrated development and deployment pipelines, developers can move application services and functions from the cloud into network edge locations. This will help create more responsive and dynamic applications.

In 2021, Miller-Jones also expects to see a bigger emphasis on enterprise network edge security and protecting users, services, applications and data, as enterprises embrace distributed application environments.

Achieving high levels of security throughout the network edge and into the last-mile of distribution is a key challenge for the enterprise and will be enabled by security services at the network edge, he said.

Artificial Intelligence Engineering

Organizations need a strong artificial intelligence (AI) engineering strategy to ensure their AI projects dont fail, Gartner said in its Top Strategic Technology Trends for 2021 report.

Without AI engineering, most organizations will fail to move AI projects beyond proofs of concept and prototypes to full-scale production, Gartner said.

AI projects often are not successful because of maintainability, scalability and governance issues, but a strong AI engineering strategy will help the performance, scalability, interpretability and reliability of AI models while delivering the full value of AI investments, according to Gartner.

AI engineering makes AI a part of the mainstream DevOps process rather than a set of specialized and isolated projects.

AI engineering stands on three core pillars: DataOps, ModelOps and DevOps, Gartner said. DevOps deals mainly with high-speed code changes, but AI projects experience dynamic changes in code, models and data, and all must be improved. Organizations must apply DevOps principles across the data pipeline for DataOps and the machine learning (ML) model pipeline for MLOps to reap the benefits of AI engineering.

In terms of governance and AI engineering, responsible AI is emerging as an umbrella term for certain aspects of AI implementations to deal with AI risk, trust, transparency, ethics, fairness, interpretability, accountability, safety and compliance, according to Gartner.

Responsible AI signifies the move from declarations and principles to the operationalization of AI accountability at the organizational and societal levels, it said.

Multi-Cloud And Joint Cloud Provider Offerings

Next year will see the beginnings of multi-cloud and joint provider cloud offerings, as providers realize they can partner to accelerate go-to-market launches, capitalize on mutual strengths and take on the 800-pound gorilla that is AWS, according to Park.

This idea was anathema to cloud providers for most of the 2010s, as the goal of having a cloud platform was theoretically to be the one and only platform that a company uses, Park said. However, as multi-cloud environments have started to develop, vendor competition has evolved and massive cloud markets continue to exist, cloud vendors must reconsider how they go to market.

The Oracle-Microsoft interconnect relationship that started in June of 2019 is an example of a relationship that could be expanded to take advantage of Oracles networking and Microsofts ML capabilities, Young said.

Rivals Microsoft and Oracle last year announced they were linking their clouds to allow joint customers to migrate and run their enterprise application workloads across Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud. The move was seen as a bid by Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft -- the No. 2 cloud provider -- and Redwood City, Calif., cloud underdog Oracle to better compete against AWS.

Going Serverless

Serverless is the next evolution from monolithic application architecture after service-oriented architecture and micro-services architectures, said Derek Swanson, chief technology officer of Needham, Mass.-based Silk, whose cloud data platform enables companies to adopt hybrid cloud.

Serverless was among the top five fastest-growing PaaS cloud services for 2020, according to the Flexera 2020 State of the Cloud report.

Serverless is a true cloud computing paradigm, and it is hard to overstate how much it will impact how much cloud is consumed going forward, Swanson said. It is such a compelling model, that applications will be designed and developed going forward to work with serverless, rather than serverless being developed to work with the way we currently develop applications.

The industry already is on this journey with containers and cloud-hosted common applications as they drive the need for applications to be made up of smaller components that can be given different treatments, including running in different locations, according to Swanson.

Serverless is a boon for developers of all kinds, he said.

Up until now, having knowledge of AWS, Azure or GCP capabilities was a key requirement of a cloud application developer, he said. These resources were in high demand. Going forward, this level of detailed knowledge is mooted by serverless, with the serverless interface in cloud becoming the interface developers interact with, not the lower-level interfaces.

Automated Cloud Orchestration And Optimization

Cloud platforms will continue to develop automated cloud orchestration and optimization as the complexity of managing both the quantity and quality of interconnected services across applications and services overwhelms even the savviest of IT organizations, according to Park.

Automated service and performance management must be one of the most important aspects of choosing a cloud provider in 2021, as companies may have to manage a hundred or more services from a single cloud provider, Park said.

The Growth Of SASE Adoption

While its at the peak of Gartners Hype Cycle, secure access service edge (SASE) will continue to gain adoption as organizations move past the quick response measures they enacted this year for their massive and unexpected increase in remote worker connectivity, according to Derek Brost, director of professional services for security and compliance at InterVision.

Pronounced sassy and primarily delivered as a cloud-based service, SASE is a network architecture that combines software-defined WAN capabilities and cloud-native network security services including zero-trust network access, secure web gateways, cloud access security brokers and firewalls as a service.

Many IT networking groups unfortunately found the strain and limits of their remote access VPN concentrators and, even after overcoming or addressing those breaking points, they next coped with emerging issues in their bandwidth constraints, lack of network segmentation, weakness in endpoint security solutions and myriad untrusted devices connecting to sensitive corporate systems, Brost said. Wise IT groups will budget and start planning for a more converged and integrated cloud-based approach to remote device, workforce and distributed security technology.

Perfect Storm Of Data Privacy And Cloud Migration

The combination of the coronavirus pandemic and an increase in cloud infrastructure will create the perfect storm for data governance and compliance in 2021, according to Balaji Ganesan, co-founder and CEO of Privacera, a data governance and security solution provider, and co-founder of Apache Ranger.

Organizations will continue to initiate projects to ensure secure data migration to the cloud -- i.e. encryption of all data that is required by the enterprise data governance team before their IT or data teams are allowed to move data from on premises to the cloud, Ganesan said.

In 2021, data governance will become an ever more prevalent topic for CIOs, CISOs, and CDOs to ensure responsible use and availability of cloud data, he said.

Next year will spell the end of what Ganesan called the wild west of information sharing. Regulatory legislation around the world will move toward increased control of personally identifiable information (PII) data to safeguard consumer privacy, as countries increasingly following the lead of the European Unions General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The latest politicization of coronavirus data -- combined with the manually and bot-assisted dissemination of information and misinformation based on personal data leveraged out of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter --portends the end of the wild west of personal information on the internet and will begin a new era of consumer privacy, Ganesan said.

Standalone data security and governance tools finally will become an integral part of mission-critical business processes, according to Ganesan.

In 2021, security, privacy and governance will be embedded early in business processes, he said. Developers and technical teams will incorporate these requirements early when building new systems. IT teams will invest in tools to provide secure access to data while balancing ease of use and performance. As a result, data security, governance, privacy would become table stakes in all IT strategy.

Increased Cloud Management And Cost Containment Challenges

For many enterprises, moving workloads to the cloud has greatly improved some operational efficiencies and collaboration, but it has also proven costly.

We are seeing that customers are much too immature in their skills sets and are using their cloud infrastructure in an inefficient manner compared to how they use their traditional legacy infrastructure, Swanson said. In fact, cloud wastage is a problem that hinders cloud adoption. Operational inefficiencies are still too great, and customers are not seeing the cost curves being bent down, but staying at a 1:1 ratio.

Beyond cloud waste, system platform and management vendors want to be relevant to the rapidly growing cloud computing market, and they understand that managing and operating cloud computing is a new operating paradigm that requires new platforms and tools, according to Swanson.

While many new companies have sprung up dedicated entirely around cloud cost control, look for these tools to become consolidated and extended natively into production application stacks, as vendors look to make their offerings more appealing through built-in cloud efficiency and cost-management elements, he said.

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10 Future Cloud Computing Trends To Watch In 2021 - CRN

There are three types of clouds: public, private, and hybrid. Each type requires a different level of management from the customer and provides a different level of security.

In a public cloud, the entire computing infrastructure is located on the premises of the cloud provider, and the provider delivers services to the customer over the internet. Customers do not have to maintain their own IT and can quickly add more users or computing power as needed. In this model, multiple tenants share the cloud providers IT infrastructure.

A private cloud is used exclusively by one organization. It could be hosted at the organizations location or at the cloud providers data center. A private cloud provides the highest level of security and control.

As the name suggests, a hybrid cloud is a combination of both public and private clouds. Generally, hybrid cloud customers host their business-critical applications on their own servers for more security and control, and store their secondary applications at the cloud providers location.

The main difference between hybrid cloud and multicloud is the use of multiple cloud computing and storage devices in a single architecture.

There are three main types of cloud services: software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and infrastructure as a service (IaaS). Theres no one-size-fits-all approach to cloud; its more about finding the right solution to support your business requirements.

SaaS is a software delivery model in which the cloud provider hosts the customers applications at the cloud providers location. The customer accesses those applications over the internet. Rather than paying for and maintaining their own computing infrastructure, SaaS customers take advantage of subscription to the service on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Many businesses find SaaS to be the ideal solution because it enables them to get up and running quickly with the most innovative technology available. Automatic updates reduce the burden on in-house resources. Customers can scale services to support fluctuating workloads, adding more services or features they grow. A modern cloud suite provides complete software for every business need, including customer experience, customer relationship management, customer service, enterprise resource planning, procurement, financial management, human capital management, talent management, payroll, supply chain management, enterprise planning, and more.

PaaS gives customers the advantage of accessing the developer tools they need to build and manage mobile and web applications without investing inor maintainingthe underlying infrastructure. The provider hosts the infrastructure and middleware components, and the customer accesses those services via a web browser.

To aid productivity, PaaS solutions need to have ready-to-use programming components that allow developers to build new capabilities into their applications, including innovative technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), chatbots, blockchain, and the Internet of Things (IoT). The right PaaS offering also should include solutions for analysts, end users, and professional IT administrators, including big data analytics, content management, database management, systems management, and security.

IaaS enables customers to access infrastructure services on an on-demand basis via the internet. The key advantage is that the cloud provider hosts the infrastructure components that provide compute, storage, and network capacity so that subscribers can run their workloads in the cloud. The cloud subscriber is usually responsible for installing, configuring, securing, and maintaining any software on the cloud native solutions, such as database, middleware, and application software.

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What is Cloud Computing? | Oracle South Africa

Enterprises eager to undergo digital transformations and modernize their applications are quick to see the value of adopting a cloud computing platform. They are increasingly finding business agility or cost savings by renting software. Each cloud computing service and deployment model type provides you with different levels of control, flexibility and management. Therefore, its important to understand the differences between them.

Common convention points to public cloud as the delivery model of choice. But, when considering the right architecture of cloud computing for your applications and workloads, you must begin by addressing the unique needs of your business.

This can include many factors, such as government regulations, security, performance, data residency, service levels, time to market, architecture complexity, skills and preventing vendor lock-in. Add in the need to incorporate the emerging technologies, and you can see why IT leaders are challenging the notion that cloud computing migration is easy.

At first glance, the types of cloud computing seem simple: public, private or a hybrid mix of both. In reality, the choices are many. Public cloud can include shared, dedicated and bare metal delivery models. Fully and partially managed clouds are also options. And, in some cases, especially for existing applications where architectures are too complex to move or the cost-benefit ratio is not optimal, cloud may not be the right choice.

The right model depends on your workload. You should understand the advantages and disadvantages of each cloud deployment model and take a methodical approach to determining which workloads to move to which type of cloud for the maximum benefit.

Dive deeper into specific cloud service and deployment models, cloud computing architecture and cloud computing examples

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Cloud computing | IBM

Cloud computing enables access to software applications, data storage, and other services over the Internet instead of through physical servers.

Technologys movement to the cloud is inexorable, says Ian Gorton, PhD, director of the graduate computer science programs at Northeastern UniversitySeattle. Large companies have been shifting to the cloud for several years. The IT analyst firm Gartner predicts that half of all companies worldwide will adopt an all-in cloud strategy by 2021. This means that they will stop investing in onsite data centers and servers or replace them entirely, and instead shift these resources to the cloud. Large companies and government agencies may employ hundreds of people to assist with a transition from onsite to cloud-based systems, Gorton adds.

The move to the cloud has also picked up in the months since the COVID-19 pandemic struck, as companies have shifted to support remote workforces with video conferencing software such as Microsoft Teams as well as collaboration products such as Google Docs. In addition, popular consumer sites such as Netflix and Spotify run using cloud services, and as they continue to grow, they too will need software engineers and architects with cloud computing skills.

According to Dice, landing a job as a software engineer, developer, or architect increasingly requires cloud computing experience. These skills come with an increase in salarythe median annual salary for cloud computing roles is $107,000, compared to $94,000 for other tech salaries.

Many of the traditional software development principles apply to cloud computing, but certain practices are especially valuable because of the way cloud-based services are managed. This article provides a closer look at what cloud computing does and provides 15 specific skills that will help you advance your cloud computing career.

Learn how Northeasterns Graduate Certificate in Cloud Computing can accelerate your career.

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Cloud computing refers to a range of computing services that are available over the Internet and not stored on your own computers or servers. Users pay for cloud-based services on an as-needed basis, whether its the amount of storage needed, the number of users of a software application, or the variety of services used.

There are three main types of cloud computing services:

Cloud computing is often beneficial for organizations that dont want to buy and maintain physical technology infrastructure, especially if they arent planning to access applications or databases 24/7. Organizations such as hospitals, however, who often run mission-critical software in their own onsite data centers, are less likely to benefit from cloud services.

Meanwhile, major cloud services providers, like Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure, benefit from scale. They can provide the same single service to thousands of customers of various sizes and in various industries.

Did You Know? The term cloud computing arose because the first schematic diagrams from telecommunications companies used the cloud to represent the Internet.

The skills needed to manage cloud computing services fall into two buckets: The fundamentals that are an important part of everyday work and the more advanced skills that are part of larger IT projects and IT management. Heres a look at these skills in more depth.

These eight cloud computing skills are an important part of the day-to-day work of a cloud engineer or cloud architect. Honing these skills will help you contribute to a team thats designing, developing, securing, and maintaining cloud services within an organization.

This is a critical skill for any software developer, but cloud architects and administrators will also have to write code from time to time. Certain popular programming languages are better suited for cloud-based software. These include Java, JavaScript, and Python, as well as emerging languages such as Go and Scala. For database programming, youll need to be familiar with SQL, NoSQL, and Linux.

Amazon, Microsoft, and Google lead the cloud services market. Knowing how each of these three platforms works is a necessary skill for cloud computing professionals. Other companies with cloud platforms include IBM, Dell, Oracle, and Alibaba, which has a large presence in China. While each of the major vendors offers a certification program, a Graduate Certificate in Cloud Software Development will provide a well-rounded look at the cloud platforms as a whole.

Each cloud platform has specific strengths. Amazon is a leader in infrastructure; Microsoft is known for software; Google integrates with other vendors products; IBM focuses on artificial intelligence; Cisco Systems is a leader in networks, and so on. To work with cloud services, you need to be able to evaluate each platform and select the best option for a particular need.

Because platforms have different strengths, organizations are unlikely to use a single cloud platform. Data integration across different platforms is a highly sought skill among cloud computing professionals. This is especially true for organizations that use cloud services alongside legacy onsite client-server applications. Additionally, a multi-cloud strategy is beneficial for the sake of redundancy, as it gives an organization a fallback option if one cloud service is down.

Storing data on the cloud isnt the same as using an onsite data center. Challenges include storage limitations, security, and database performance. Whats more, vendors typically offer a variety of databases, with some better suited for analyzing large data files and others optimized for processing transactions, Gorton says. Cloud computing professionals need to understand which databases and services best suit a particular business need.

With multiple cloud services interacting with one another, network management is a critical skill for cloud engineers. As with databases, different networks are suitable for different cloud services. For example, organizations often require employees to log into a virtual private network to access applications with access to sensitive information such as financial reports or personnel files; meanwhile, services such as videoconferencing may be routed on a different network because of performance requirements. As more employees continue to work remotely in the wake of COVID-19, effective network management will be an increasingly important cloud computing skill.

Ensuring that an organizations cloud services are secure requires particular attention to detail. Its not enough to secure the data itself; organizations need to protect the applications that use the data as well as the servers on which the applications run. Devices that transmit data to the cloud must be secured as well, whether theyre the smartphones in employees hands or the sensors transmitting data from the hospital room. Staying on top of emerging trends in cybersecurity will help you keep your organization a step ahead of major threats.

The rise of cloud computing has led to a shift away from the traditional specialization of IT roles. While an onsite data center may have a system administrator, network engineer, security analyst, and storage engineer, todays IT professionals need to be comfortable wearing each of those four hatsand taking on additional responsibilities or learning new technologies as necessary.

These seven skills apply to long-term cloud computing projects that an organization is likely to undertake as its use of cloud services matures. Developing these skills will further demonstrate your cloud expertise and enable you to take on additional responsibilities, which will help you build your resum and advance your cloud computing career.

There are two major types of data migration to the cloud: Moving an old (or legacy) application from an onsite server to the cloud and moving from one cloud platform to another. To successfully migrate data, cloud professionals must be able to assess and map out their infrastructure, understand each cloud platforms process for data migration, and indicate where data has been moved toall while ensuring that nothing is lost during the process.

Automation is a major benefit of cloud services. When a piece of software can input information and decide the next action in response, an end-user doesnt have to make that decision, which further improves efficiency. Programming this automation requires knowledge of artificial intelligence and machine learning, as they enable the creation of complex algorithms that help computers make decisions. The ability to automate multiple tasks also requires knowledge of the organizations cloud architecture, namely which individual systems interact with or depend upon each other.

Cloud computing is less about building new systems from scratch and more about putting systems together based on existing services, Gorton says. Assembling these distributed systemsso named because resources are located in different placesrequires several skills, Gorton adds. These include predicting and monitoring system performance and comparing attributes of different services and data models.

Its important to be able to draft plans for migrating data, bringing a new database online, creating a new network connection, or introducing another change to an organizations cloud environment. These plans should include a written step-by-step procedure and a fallback option, which returns the project to its original state if a problem arises. The plans that organizations use for onsite changes such as server migrations or network upgrades can be applied here, though updates will be necessary to accommodate for the cloud.

Cost and workload estimation are critical skills due to how cloud service providers write their contracts, Gorton says. For example, if a data limit is exceeded, or an application requires more computing power to complete data analysis, organizations can expect to be hit with an overage. Another essential but often-overlooked consideration is what Gorton calls orphaned resources, or features that are created, misplaced, and created again, at a cost to an organization. Keeping a watchful eye on whether features are no longer being used can help keep costs down.

Employers value job candidates with expertise in metrics and analytics. For example, its important for organizations using third-party cloud services to monitor application performance, as this ensures that they are getting their moneys worth from a service providers contract. Or, a network engineer may be tasked with evaluating and comparing cloud-based communication services as a way to replace landline telephones. Understanding which metrics set apart a certain service, or which features will cost the most money in the long run, is an important cloud computing skill.

Beyond your range of technical skills, soft skills such as communication and decision-making are valuable for a career in cloud computing. Internal stakeholders will turn to you for advice as they evaluate cloud platforms for their departments (or the entire company), so its important that you can clearly explain the benefits and drawbacks of each option. Cloud engineers working in customer-driven industries such as retail or travel should also be comfortable communicating directly with a companys vendorespecially when experiencing problems or negotiating a new service contract.

If youre interested in developing the cloud computing skills that will help you advance your career, consider a Graduate Certificate in Cloud Software Development from the Khoury College of Computer Sciences.

Through this program, youll learn through hands-on work on projects sourced from the industrys leading cloud computing platforms, including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. Youll collaborate with faculty members who have implemented cloud services in a variety of industries, including finance, biomedical science, and the U.S. military, and who can bring real-world experience into the classroom setting.

To learn more about Northeasterns cloud computing program, explore the program page here.

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15 Key Cloud Computing Skills to Advance Your Career