The capability to use on-demand and scalable computing models has again put ‘cloud computing’ at the center of every digital transformation initiative. With deployment of cloud computing models on the rise, it is necessary to understand the different types of cloud computing deployment options that an enterprise can explore.
Cloud computing deployment models
Depending on the type of business need, enterprises can explore different cloud computing deployment models. These include:
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- Public Cloud
- Private Cloud
- Hybrid Cloud
- Distributed Cloud
- Multi-Cloud
- Community Cloud
Public Cloud
One of the most popular cloud computing models, the public cloud model allows enterprises to host their applications or consume services on a public cloud. This IT model provides on-demand computing resources, which is managed by a third-party service provider and shared with multiple organizations. Cloud computing service providers partition their infrastructure into virtual machines, which is typically available on a pay-per-use basis for enterprises. This model can be effectively used by enterprises for managing spikes in their traffic. For example, when e-commerce firms receive an unexpected spike in traffic on any major festival or a product launch that attracts huge attention, they can use the public cloud model to spin up virtual servers on the fly, and then remove the virtual machines, as the traffic comes down. This model also allows smaller firms to access the latest technologies enabled by the cloud, as there are no upfront costs to invest in setting up infrastructure.
Private Cloud
For enterprises who have compliance or restrictions for storing data on the public cloud, a private cloud model is more appropriate. In a private cloud, enterprises can consolidate IT resources at a central level, and provide dynamic provisioning and de-provisioning using a centralized portal. This private cloud is only available to the users of a single company or a group of companies, and the organization has the flexibility to customize the private cloud to its unique requirements. For conglomerates, the private cloud is a good option, as it allows them to share IT resources optimally and charge them according to usage.
Hybrid Cloud
A hybrid cloud computing model enables firms to take the benefits of both private and public cloud models. For example, when the internal IT capacity is fully stretched, enterprises can use the public cloud model to handle the extra load. The hybrid cloud model is also preferred for hosting workloads that have compliance or data security requirements to be fulfilled.
Distributed Cloud
The distributed cloud model is a recent trend. Many enterprises are keen to use the benefits of public cloud. A distributed cloud allows enterprises to run and deploy public cloud services in different locations. This can be on third-party data centers, your provider’s public cloud infrastructure or your own on premise infrastructure. The biggest benefit – you can monitor everything from a single console.
Multi-Cloud
A multi-cloud model is the preferred model today, as enterprises are looking at de-risking themselves by putting different workloads in different clouds. Some organizations also prefer multiple clouds, as each cloud may offer a different technology capability.
Community Cloud
As most sectors have unique requirements, a community cloud can be more beneficial as it is customized for specific verticals. For example, the banking or financial services industry may benefit from a cloud infrastructure that is more compliant with specific regulations pertaining to their sector. This will not only make compliance easier, but will also help smaller companies start their operations in a faster way.
Cloud Computing Services
Cloud computing services can be classified into three major parts:
- Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)
- Platform as a Service (PaaS)
- Software as a Service (SaaS)
Let us now look at each cloud computing service in detail:
Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas)
This service allows enterprises to consume infrastructure on a pay-per-use basis. This includes infrastructure such as servers, storage, operating systems, development tools or networking firewalls.
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Typically used to deploy apps, a Platform as a Service (PaaS) gives enterprises a complete infrastructure setup from servers, storage, networking, development tools, middleware and databases. For example, developers can use a framework provided by a PaaS provider to create and customize cloud-based applications, and also leverage in-built software components.
Software as a Service (SaaS)
In the SaaS model, enterprises can access software applications on a pay-per-use or subscription model. The onus of maintaining the infrastructure for the application software is on the service provider, which eliminates the need for any upfront costs required for IT infrastructure. As applications are hosted centrally and updates are done automatically, this also eliminates the need for time spent in new installations.
Storage as a service (STaaS)
With Storage as a Service (STaaS), enterprises can consume storage as per need. Instead of buying and maintaining storage related infrastructure, this service gives enterprises the capability to add, remove or modify storage requirements and pay only for the storage used.
Security as a Service (SECaaS)
Typically provided by a managed security services provider, a SECaaS allows enterprises to free up their enterprise security resources, with the service provider taking complete responsibility of ensuring security. This could include services such as data loss prevention, antivirus management, spam filtering, network security, identity management etc.
Test environment as a Service (TEaaS)
The test environment as a service model gives enterprises the ability to test their software or applications by just using a web browser. Clients save on deployment of test infrastructure for testing purposes, the tools required for testing and maintenance related costs.
Desktop as a Service (DaaS)
Extremely popular in the remote working scenario, the Desktop as a Service (DaaS) is a type of offering wherein virtual desktops are offered to end users. Virtual desktops promise robust security, as all information is stored on the server, and not on individual machines or laptops. All management of data, backup and storage is done by the service provider.
Cloud migration best practices
It is a time of choice and flexibility and most enterprises are looking at a multi-cloud option to reduce their risks and avoid vendor lock-in. However, while a multi-cloud option gives flexibility, it also exposes the organization to other risks.
This is because managing cloud infrastructures can be substantially more complex than traditional data infrastructures. Global Dots has the experience and expertise in cloud migration, and has helped numerous enterprises migrate seamlessly to the cloud. GlobalDots helps you quantify, understand, optimize, and automate your infrastructure, to control your data through knowledge. This is achieved through our Cloud Management Platform through which you can monitor and optimize your cloud processes and resources to the smallest detail.
How to Reduce Cloud Costs
If you want to reduce your cloud costs, we can help you with that easily. Our Elastic Compute Cloud solution reduces EC2 costs by 50% – 80% with 100% availability and granted SLAs. We also use our managed cloud management expertise to help you get the best out of your cloud investments. Most enterprises find that their cloud-assets are not fully utilized. The Global Dots team can help in establishing guidelines, governance standards and guide enterprises on which workloads are suited for specific clouds. This has helped enterprises reduce their cloud sprawl, and in cutting down unnecessary spending
Embedding security in applications: A critical need for the new world of cloud
In the digital age, as organizations speed up their software development processes to meet the needs of a new world, there is a high probability of applications not following the required security guidelines. Developing applications collaboratively creates unique challenges for security teams. Business partners faced with weeks or months of project delays often resort to starting application development offsite with their vendor to “accelerate” the project. Late in the project they discover that key enterprise controls were not considered part of the requirements, causing delays and rework.
GlobalDots allows you to turn this paradigm upside down: Utilizing native cloud services (e.g. the AWS Console and APIs) in conjunction with GlobalDots’ enterprise controls, the system integrator or third parties can be granted access to a cloud development account before the ink is dry on their statement of work.
We help in addressing the most common cloud challenges faced by large enterprises. These include:
- Lack of resources/expertise
- Security
- Managing cloud spend
- Compliance
- Governance/control
With GlobalDots, you can safely enable self-service & direct AWS, Azure and GCP access for all your applications and developers. GlobalDots helps your cloud team be more efficient, giving it the tooling and automation necessary to manage the complexity of implementing the best practice of a multi-account strategy and allowing SecOps and DevOps teams to focus on higher-value activities.
Cloud Optimized Routing
If you’re a SaaS provider, you know that sub-second application response time is an important but often unrealized goal. Latency is a critical requirement in the remote working scenario, and research has consistently shown that an application response time of over 1 second will cause an interruption in the user’s flow of thought, and a delay of about 10 seconds will result in the abandonment of the task.
The problem with slow application response time usually comes from the Internet Backbone problem. The Internet backbone is made up of many large Network Service Providers that interconnect with each other. These large networks charge Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to transport data packets long distances.
Within the Internet Backbone, all traffic is treated equally, and so ISPs maximize profitability by minimizing the cost of sending traffic. Least cost routing is the process of selecting the path traffic will take along the Internet Backbone based on the lowest cost, not on best performance.
To solve this problem, and to avoid the usual workarounds which aren’t that effective, GlobalDots employs an Internet Overlay Network.
GlobalDots’ Internet Overlay Network leverages the surface area of public cloud providers to continuously monitor the global Internet Backbone to find the fastest routes, avoiding congestion and overcoming the performance problems caused by least cost routing. In the process, it can improve data transfer performance by 10x or more.
GlobalDots is unique in leveraging the surface of the public cloud, across 15+ cloud providers across the globe to provide optimal routing across the Internet Backbone. Other internet overlay providers are trapped in expensive and inflexible private clouds. GlobalDots takes advantage of the scale of public cloud investment in both location and in peering relationships with local ISPs.
Benefits of using an Internet Overlay solution:
- Fast, seamless content collaboration
- Dynamic SaaS performance
- Expansion to new geographies
- Secure private network
Cloud Security
While the cloud computing model is extremely advantageous for many firms, it has also introduced new risks. As more organizations are storing information on the cloud, there is a huge possibility of leakage of sensitive information. This can happen if organizations are not aware of applying the right security controls on the cloud. Unsecured storage has led to a huge number of cloud-related data breaches. Similarly, cloud misconfiguration is also another common reason for cloud-related vulnerabilities, which hackers can exploit to their advantage.
For ensuring cloud computing security, organizations have to adopt a comprehensive cloud governance model that ensures that the right controls are in place to protect data or the applications in the cloud ecosystem.
The key issues with respect to cloud computing can be classified into two major categories:
- Information security issues faced by cloud service providers. This can include organizations providing IaaS, SaaS or PaaS
- Information security issues faced by the customers of cloud service providers
In a cloud environment, the onus of ensuring security is always on the customer. While cloud service providers have their own sets of policies and processes to ensure security, enterprises are primarily responsible for configuring the applications. Research firm, Gartner has highlighted this, when it says, “Through 2022, at least 95% of cloud security failures will be the customer’s fault.” Many times, customers make the classic mistake of leaving default credentials on, which can lead to data breaches.
GlobalDots’ Cloud Web Application Firewall (WAF) stops OWASP security threats the moment they happen. We make sure your data is protected from all threats non-stop, and our cybersecurity team acts as an extension of your IT team, working together to stop all possible cyberattacks the moment they happen. Global Dots has the required monitoring tool and skilled professional experts who can give enterprises a complete overview of every single incident that is happening across the cloud infrastructure. We not only monitor threats continuously, but also ensure that enterprises are compliant with the latest regulations, as required in specific industry verticals.
DDoS protection and mitigation for cloud applications
Every day, thousands of websites become victims of a DDoS attack. And while many sites are back up and running within hours, the damage to both revenue and customer trust can devastate a business for years. A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack is a cyber-attack in which an attacker renders a website unavailable to users by attacking it with multiple compromised systems.
All organizations suffer from DDoS attacks at some point in time, so it’s crucial to have a cloud protection stack in place. Network DDoS attacks, such as SYN Flood and DNS Amplification attacks, are quickly growing in size. This is why the appropriate capacity for mitigation needs to be provided.
Through partnering with different service providers, we can offer robust CDNs that leverage a global network of strategically positioned servers to provide you the capacity to mitigate even multi-gigabit DDoS attacks.
GlobalDots provides comprehensive protection against some of the most popular DDoS attacks. We provide protection against DDoS attacks such as SYN flood attacks, DNS flood attacks, UDP flood attacks, IPSec flood attacks, Smurf attacks etc.
Aside from targeted DDoS attacks, your business is in danger of being targeted by bad bots – automated attacks like click fraud, content and price scraping etc.
Bad bot attacks are on the rise – a significant percentage of all web traffic consists of bad bots. Bad bot attacks span across industries, regardless of the size of the company.
Business owners are facing ever increasing threats, that’s why we have created a new approach to combat these threats. Our solution is focused on dynamic behavior profiles of real customers called Behavioral Fingerprinting.
This approach enables GlobalDots to effectively prevent and mitigate 100% of OWASP handbook’s automated attacks, including:
- Ad fraud
- Vulnerability scanning
- CAPTCHA bypass
- Scraping
- Credential cracking credential stuffing
Global Dots has access to the best knowledge in the network, and leverages this knowledge to monitor and prevent DDoS attacks in real-time. We have proactively prevented many DDoS attacks from happening by monitoring infrastructure, applications and networks in real-time.
Cloud Security as a Unified Service
To simplify the process of managing different cloud infrastructures, international office branches and data centers, GlobalDots has developed a unique solution called the GlobalDots Cloud.
GlobalDots Cloud is a secure and unified global network which delivers a cloud-based SD-WAN with built-in network security stack for all enterprise locations, cloud resources and mobile users. This is a complete solution for a modern enterprise’s cloud needs: from a global, SLA-backed backbone, DDoS and bot protection to integration of multiple cloud environments into a single network, our solution streamlines your cloud operations so you can focus on your business
How GlobalDots can help
In a multi-cloud world, managing cloud infrastructure can be substantially more complex than a traditional data center infrastructure. If done right, a cloud infrastructure can provide the required scalability and agility for enterprises to be more competitive in the marketplace.
At GlobalDots, we are proud to provide some of the most advanced technologies and solutions to help you reduce costs, manage cloud infrastructure and increase security of your public or hybrid clouds. We can also provide every possible service and cloud computing model that your business wants. Our immense knowledge and expertise gained over the years can help your enterprise succeed on the cloud by executing the right technological choices.
Contact us to get the full arc of cloud-related services, including the right cloud computing model for your prospective business needs.
