Almost every organization nowadays relies on the cloud to meet its needs. As a result, the cloud has experienced widespread adoption in IT, leading to IT classification as Traditional vs. Modern. Cloud not only modernizes IT, to me I have concluded and refer to Cloud as a Modern IT (CaaMIT), defined as “the convenient deployment and management of IT resources powered by the cloud” (rketoma)..
Without getting caught down in the intricacies, this article outlines the core concepts of Cloud computing. Before getting into the technical details, you must have a general understanding of the principles. You’ll learn why cloud computing has become so popular that it’s now an inevitable requirement for every company looking to upgrade its IT infrastructure to meet the ever-changing and growing business requirements.
Basic concept
At its core, cloud computing consists of physical servers residing in data centers globally distributed all over the planet. Providers – owners of these massive globally distributed data centers abstract hardware resources from these server farms and make them available to clients as a service in a deployment model called Public Cloud. Other deployment models also exist like Private, Hybrid, or Community cloud. The Private Cloud, for instance, is privately owned by a business and used for its sole business purpose.
The Problem
When you think about it, technology in business was a gradual process until it became a dependable part of every organization, allowing those businesses that adopted it to develop more quickly and efficiently. Demand and competitiveness necessitated more rapid innovation. As a result, Businesses found themselves constrained to invest considerable budgets in constructing, owning, and running the proper IT infrastructure that will continue to meet their business needs and, as a result, their consumers’ needs.
However, this wide adoption came with some disadvantages in security, reliability, availability, scarcity of IT expertise, and more. Correspondingly, some businesses demonstrated an inability to innovate quickly. But the most significant negative impact was seen in companies’ Capital and Operational Expenditures (CAPEX and OPEX), which both soared considerably.
The solution
To address these issues, larger firms, such as Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and others, began leasing IT assets in services. So, instead of a company purchasing large servers, contracting talents, establishing complex infrastructures, and running them themselves, corporations and people might rent IT resource(s) as a service for a reasonable fee and have the service(s) delivered via the internet. These providers are called cloud service providers.
The cloud service providers came up with three main cloud service models for consumers; Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS).
Cloud Service Models
The three main cloud service models measure the amount of control, management, and flexibility you will get after contracting cloud services from a provider. With these models, it is easy for consumers (companies in particular) to provision and de-provision cloud resources to meet the requirements of the business and their clients.
IaaS: Allows companies to provision hardware, thereby removing the burden placed by the cost and complexity of buying and owning physical servers, networking, storage, etc.
PaaS: It is a development platform hosted and managed by the cloud service provider, with a large number of required tools and services. Consumers can build, test, run, and manage applications they develop without the need to own the platform themselves.
SaaS: Allows the use of software hosted and managed by a cloud service provider. It means that consumers can use the software without having to install it on their system. The software can be accessed and used online, primarily through the use of a web browser.

Most businesses that migrate to the cloud experience significant CAPEX and OPEX savings (if well planned and implemented). We will cover efficient planning and implementation in a separate article.
Overall Benefit
Migrating most, some, or all of the physical IT environment to the cloud, companies have saved money, time, and satisfaction for their clients, the cloud has become widely adopted. Providers continue to improve and increase the range of service offerings such that the cloud has become the new normal, an approach to modern IT.
In brief
The idea with cloud computing is trivia; as an analogy – because most of us do not own an electric power supply for our household. We rent and pay bills monthly – paying for what we consume. The same concepts apply here. As a consumer, you do not need to own any physical IT infrastructure; you rent and pay for what you consume. Nowadays, cloud service providers offer a wide range of billing options and provide individual consultation to meet the specific needs of individuals and organizations.
Final word
Although there are several advantages achieved when a business finally decides to move its workloads to the cloud, there are many business considerations to be taken. Otherwise, the result could be catastrophic.
rketoma