Posted by Curious to know about Alibaba Cloud Computing?
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Alibaba started the public cloud journey in 2009 with the name Aliyun, in 2015 they made a billion-dollar investment in Aliyun.
Which was renamed as “Alibaba Cloud” later.
Alibaba Cloud has an annual revenue run rate of $7 billion.
They provide reliable and easy to use cloud services. Alibaba Cloud is serving more than 3 million customers in 200+ countries.
Before digging more, We will discuss about cloud computing.
The concept of Cloud Computing is common for all Cloud providers, That’s why we will clear this concept first.
What is Cloud Computing?
Cloud Computing is the on-demand delivery of resources (servers, databases, networking, storage, etc.) over the internet on a pay-as-you-go basis.
In simple words, Cloud computing is the use of remote servers on the internet to store, manage and process data rather than local servers.
‘Pay-as-you-go’ means you will pay for what you will use.
Alibaba Cloud and other cloud providers (AWS, Google, etc.) use a “pay-as-you-go” model.
That’s why we should always be familiarized with the cloud pricing models otherwise, it can lead to unexpected expenses.
you can check out the Alibaba Cloud Pricing here.
To gain coherence and economies of scale, cloud computing makes use of resource sharing.
Benefits of Cloud Computing/Alibaba Cloud Computing
Cloud computing has several benefits for businesses and end-users, Here are some of the main benefits of cloud computing.
Cost Effective
Cloud computing reduces the cost of buying hardware and software and setting up and running server. It helps us to save the cost of IT experts for managing the infrastructure.
Cloud Computing also cuts the cost of downtime. Since downtime rarely happens in cloud computing but if it happens sometimes. The company will not spend the time and money to fix any issues related to downtime.
Elasticity
In Alibaba cloud computing, you can scale up and down quickly: almost instantly.
When you need more resources for your website or applications, you can scale up and down easily. This is one of the key advantages of cloud computing: elasticity.
Storage Space
On the cloud, you can store unlimited data because it provides virtually unlimited storage capacity. In the cloud environment, you should not worry about running out of storage and you don’t need to think about future needs either. you can use the storage according to your business requirements, and scale up and down when needed.
Data Recovery
The cloud gives you easy way for data recovery. You should not worry about the data loss if you are using cloud. you can access your data always even if your devices are not operable.
Organizations who are using cloud based services can recover their data in no time.
Go globally in no time
In only a few mouse clicks, you can deploy your apps or websites all over the world. you can expand to new geographic regions and deploy your application in no time.
As a result, your customers can enjoy a better user experience with lower latency while you save money on infrastructure deployment.
Cloud Service Models (IaaS, PaaS and SaaS)
There are mainly three types of cloud service models- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS).
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
IaaS providers, such as Alibaba Cloud, provides on-demand fast provisioning of virtualized hardware infrastructure resources like server, storage and network.
When you need the flexibility in controlling virtualized hardware and OS of the application then you should go with this service model.
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Developer resources are hosted on cloud providers’ infrastructures in the PaaS model. APIs, web portals and gateway apps allow users to access these resources through the internet.
PaaS supply an on-demand environment for developing, testing, delivering and managing applications. This is developer friendly, developers can easily create web or mobile apps, without worrying about the set up and management of the infrastructure.
Software as a Service (SaaS)
Software as a Service allows users to connect and use cloud-based applications over the internet. The common examples of SaaS are email service providers like Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.
The Above email services are for personal use and free to use, but for the organizations based use, you can rent the apps by subscription plans. We use many SaaS based applications in our business like CRM, ERP, etc.
SaaS provides complete end to end solution, you just need to purchase and use it as per your needs. you can browse the applications with browser on your phone, tablet or PC.
You can purchase the services on a pay-as-you-go basis from the cloud service providers like Alibaba Cloud. Cloud service providers manage all the hurdles like hardware, software management, data security and appropriate service agreements. They will keep your data in their data centres and allows you to access your data in no time.
In below image, you can understand IaaS, PaaS and SaaS easily.
Deployment Models of Cloud Computing
Before choosing the right cloud computing for you or your organization. It is extremely important to check the right deployment models and service models, where you will implement your cloud services.
There are mainly three different ways to deploy cloud services:
- Public Cloud
- Private Cloud
- Hybrid Cloud
Public Cloud
Public clouds are the most common type of deployment model of cloud computing. In this type of deployment model, all the cloud resources like servers, storage, etc. are owned and managed by third-party cloud service providers.
In public cloud, you will share the same hardware, storage and network devices with others and access your services using a web browser. There are many advantages of public cloud.
- There is no need to purchase any hardware or software. you will pay for what you use.
- Your cloud service provider will provide the maintenance, Hence you will not take any headache for the maintenance.
- Scalability is a great feature in the cloud, you can use on-demand resources to meet your business requirements.
Public cloud is a virtual image of the cloud provider that you are using on lease from service providers and pay for what you use.
In Alibaba Cloud, you get highly secure and scalable services.
Private Cloud
Private cloud infrastructure is operated for single organization, organization can manage it internally or by a third party. They can hosted it either internally or externally using third party. You can understand it with the name- ‘Private Cloud’ means only for the private uses of organizations.
If organizations are using private cloud they can customize the resources to meet specific IT requirements, it will be easier for them. Private cloud has some own benefits like.
- Organizations can customize it’s cloud environment to meet specific business requirements because they have more control.
- In a private cloud, resources are not shared with anyone, that’s why you can achieve a higher level of privacy and control. Privacy matters in every organization and you can achieve it with the help of a private cloud.
Hybrid Cloud
Hybrid cloud is a mixture of public and private cloud, it gives you the benefits from both the clouds. It has certain level of flexibility that public and private cloud don’t have.
Hybrid cloud architecture effectively helps to minimize the constraints that come with private cloud networking’s multi-access relay capabilities. Virtualized interface models have several benefits, including enhanced runtime stability and adaptive memory processing.
Conclusion
Alibaba Cloud is serving customers around the globe, it has 69 zones located across 23 regions in the world. While working with the Alibaba cloud service, the products that I have used gave me a better experience and as a user, I have trust in the products and services provided by Alibaba Cloud, their extensive portfolio of products and services makes it a top cloud industry leader.