Get up to date quickly on the most important cloud IT computing terms to stay involved in the conversation. If you’re not already familiar, the basic understanding of the IT term ‘Cloud Computing’, or ‘on-demand computing’, is the ability to store and access data and programs across all devices via a network. There are multiple types of cloud computing terms, which are applied to companies like Amazon, Dropbox and Xero. Each company’s need for cloud computing is distinct and have shaped new terms for cloud computing IT that are now crucial terms to add to your vocabulary.
1) Co-Location
When a company owns the actual physical servers, but rent ‘rack-space’ in a data centre to house the servers. This is a typical first step to the cloud.
2) Virtualisation
Software that manages the physical server and gives the ability to run multiple servers on one physical server. Each virtual server is unaware of the others on the box. Virtualisation is the major driving technology behind cloud computing.
3) Software as a service (Saas)
The circumstance that occurs when a software company runs their software in the cloud on their own servers. The company is charged for usage of the software, rather than the company owning a software license to run on their own servers. E.g., Dropbox, Xero, Hotmail.
4) Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)
The circumstance where a company rents a virtualised server from the cloud provider. The company doesn’t know (and doesn’t mind) which particular physical server in the data centre that they are running on. E.g. Microsoft Azure, Amazon AWS.
5) Public Cloud
Cloud services that a company can sign up to online without interacting with the cloud provider’s staff. Contracts and prices are published and publicly accessible. E.g. Amazon AWS, Dropbox, Xero, Hotmail and Microsoft Azure.
6) Private Cloud
This is a smaller version of Public Cloud, where there isn’t the scale to accept all-comers. Servers need to be manually provisioned and as a result, the contracts and prices are negotiated case-by-case by companies offering Private Cloud options.
Interested to see how Cloud Computing IT can change the way your company runs? Download our guide Getting Started in The Cloud now.
