WHAT IS A CLOUD SERVICE?
A Cloud service means a service made available to users on demand via the Internet from a cloud computing or Internet Service Provider's servers as opposed to being provided from a client/company's own on-premises servers/computers. A Cloud service is designed to provide easy, scalable access to applications, resources and services, and is fully managed by a cloud service/Internet Service Provider.
A cloud service can dynamically scale to meet the needs of its users, and because the service provider supplies the hardware and software necessary for the service, there's no need for a client/company to provision or deploy its own resources or allocate IT staff to manage the service.
MAIN BENEFITS OF CLOUD COMPUTING:
- Self-service provisioning: End users can spin up computing resources for almost any type of workload, on-demand, and without direct intervention from IT administrators
- Elasticity: Companies can scale up as computing needs increase and then scale down again as demands decrease.
- Pay per use: Computing resources are measured at a granular level, allowing users to pay only for the resources and workloads they use.
EXAMPLES OF A CLOUD SERVICE INCLUDES:
- Online data storage
- Backup solutions
- Web-based e-mail services
- Hosted office suites and document collaboration services
- Database processing
- Managed technical support services and more.