5 Major Types of Cloud Computing – Differences & Similarities

Cloud Computing is a key component as businesses worldwide go through a dynamic shift to a holistic end-to-end digital transformation. Cloud Computing has altered the way people create, operate, and use software products and services. 

As cloud computing becomes the norm and its usage becomes vast, it is pertinent to understand the different types of cloud computing and characteristics of cloud computing. For facilitating the migration to the cloud dependent on specific requirements whether it is for businesses or independent developers. 

What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is the on-demand access to computing resources—applications, servers (physical and virtual), data storage, development tools, networking capabilities, and more—hosted at a remote data centre managed by a cloud services provider via the internet (or CSP). The CSP makes these resources available for a monthly subscription fee or charges a usage fee.

Cloud computing as a term was inspired by the cloud symbol, which is frequently used in flowcharts and diagrams to represent the internet.

The hardware and software components required for the proper implementation of a cloud service model are referred to as cloud infrastructure in an all-encompassing manner.

Fundamentally, cloud computing is a catch-all term for anything involving the delivery of hosted services over the internet. These services are classified into three types: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). Here’s the best cloud computing language for every developer.

Now that we have learned what is cloud computing. Let’s understand the major types of cloud computing in trend. There are four main types of cloud computing: private clouds, public clouds, hybrid clouds, and multi-clouds. Choosing a type cloud computing is a unique decision and is very crucial. So let’s dive deep into the different types of cloud computing in detail.

Public Clouds

Among the different types of cloud computing models, we will first discuss the private cloud model. The public cloud refers to a set of computing services provided over the internet by third-party providers, offering a broad range of services that can be purchased or used by anyone interested. Users can access public clouds for free or on-demand, paying only for the computing resources used, such as CPU cycles, storage, or bandwidth.

Using public clouds can help businesses save money by eliminating the need to purchase, manage, and maintain on-premises infrastructure. This type of cloud computing also provide scalability and flexible bandwidth and RAM, enabling businesses to easily expand their storage to meet their needs.

Private Clouds

Private types of clouds computing are a pool of computing resources that are provided over a private network of computers and exclusively used by a single organization over a prolonged period. This type of cloud computing is also known as an internal cloud, enterprise cloud, or corporate cloud. A private types of cloud computing is usually managed by internal resources and its use is restricted to the organization. There are various advantages to using a private cloud, such as self-service, scalability, elasticity, and additional controls, security, and customization.

Private clouds offer a higher level of security by encrypting sensitive data and hosting it internally, preventing third-party access to sensitive information. However, private clouds also have a major disadvantage, which is the organization’s responsibility to manage and maintain all the data centers themselves, leading to considerable resource consumption.

Hybrid Clouds

Hybrid clouds combine the benefits of both public and private clouds, offering the “best of both worlds” approach to cloud computing. This type of cloud computing allows businesses to shift workloads between public and private clouds, depending on computing requirements and cost. As a result, organizations can scale their on-premises infrastructure up to the public cloud when the demand for computing and processing fluctuates. This enables them to handle any overflow without worrying about their data being accessible to third parties and ensures their data is protected from third-party access.

Community Cloud

Community Cloud is a types of cloud computing approach where infrastructure is shared among organizations that have common interests, such as security or compliance requirements. This type of cloud computing can be considered a hybrid of private and public clouds, but it’s only accessible to a group of organizations that share the same community cloud infrastructure. In this model, organizations share resources, costs, and responsibilities, which can result in significant cost savings and increased efficiency.

Community Clouds are typically used by organizations with shared concerns around data privacy, security, and regulatory compliance. It allows multiple organizations to share the same cloud infrastructure, while maintaining control over their own data and applications. This model is often used by government agencies, healthcare providers, and financial institutions.

Multi Clouds

Multi-cloud is one of the best types of cloud computing, which refers to an approach where organizations use multiple cloud services from different cloud vendors, be it private or public clouds. While a hybrid cloud can also use a multi-cloud approach, not all multi-clouds are hybrid clouds. A hybrid cloud is created by integrating multiple clouds or orchestrating them to form one unified cloud.

Multi-cloud environments may be designed intentionally for better data control or as an additional layer of disaster recovery, or they may occur accidentally, usually as a result of shadow IT. Regardless, many organizations are adopting multi-cloud strategies to enhance security and performance by leveraging various platforms.

High-performance Computing (HPC) cloud

High-performance Computing (HPC) cloud is a type cloud computing that provides high-performance services to perform advanced computing tasks that require significant processing power, memory, and storage capacity. This type of cloud computing enables users to run complex, data-intensive applications on virtual machines, and provides access to a large number of processors, memory, and storage resources. 

Difference in the Types of Cloud Computing

The differences between different types of cloud computing appear in terms of ownership, accessibility, security, cost, scalability, flexibility and maintenance, and these can be seen as advantages & disadvantages of cloud computing.

Similarities in the Types of Cloud Computing

All of the above types of cloud computing, offer service such as IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS. They all feature shared infrastructure in terms of resource pooling, high scalability, on-demand self-service, high availability, virtualization technology, data protection, and centralized management.

All types of cloud computing have highly scalable resources that can be accessed through on-demand self-service, making them convenient and efficient for users. They all employ virtualization technology, allowing multiple users to share the same infrastructure while maintaining data protection and centralized management. Additionally, all types of cloud computing model provide a high level of availability to ensure that services remain accessible to users.

Overall, despite their differences, all types of cloud computing offer similar features and benefits. Benefits of cloud computing in data science & MI can help make informed decisions.

Which Type of Cloud Computing Should You Use?

Now we are aware of what is cloud computing is and what the major types of cloud computing. Choosing the right type of cloud computing depends on various factors, such as the organization or project’s needs, budget, and security requirements. A thorough analysis of these factors can help in making an informed decision about the most suitable type of cloud computing model for the organization or the project. The above lists will help in figuring out which type of cloud computing suits the organization or the project. Know the skills required for cloud computing to make a career in it.