Types of cloud services Dynamics 365
Not all clouds are the same, and no one type of cloud computing is right for everyone. Several different models, types, and services have evolved to help offer the right solution for your needs.
Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)
IaaS is the most flexible category of cloud services. It gives you complete control over the hardware that runs your application (IT infrastructure servers and virtual machines (VMs), storage, networks, and operating systems). Instead of buying hardware, with IaaS, you rent it. It's an instant computing infrastructure, provisioned and managed over the internet.
Note
When using IaaS, ensuring that a service is up and running is a shared responsibility. The cloud provider is responsible for ensuring the cloud infrastructure is functioning correctly, while the cloud customer is responsible for ensuring the service they are using is configured correctly, is up to date, and is available to their customers. This situation is referred to as the shared responsibility model.
IaaS is commonly used in the following scenarios:
- Migrating workloads: Typically, IaaS facilities are managed in a similar way as on-premises infrastructure and provide an easy migration path for moving existing applications to the cloud.
- Test and development: You can quickly set up and dismantle test and development environments, bringing new applications to market faster. IaaS makes scaling development and testing environments fast and economical.
- Storage, backup, and recovery: You avoid the capital expenditure and complexity of storage management, which typically requires skilled staff to manage data and meet legal and compliance requirements. IaaS is useful for managing unpredictable demand and steadily growing storage needs. IaaS can also simplify the planning and management of backup and recovery systems.
Platform as a service (PaaS)
PaaS provides an environment for building, testing, and deploying software applications. The goal of PaaS is to help you create an application quickly without managing the underlying infrastructure. For example, when deploying a web application using PaaS, you don't have to install an operating system, web server, or even system updates.
PaaS is a complete development and deployment environment in the cloud, with resources that enable organizations to deliver everything from simple cloud-based apps to sophisticated cloud-enabled enterprise applications. Organizations purchase resources from a cloud service provider on a pay-as-you-go basis and accessed over a secure Internet connection.
PaaS is commonly used in the following scenarios:
- Development framework: PaaS provides a framework that developers can build upon to develop or customize cloud-based applications. Just like a Microsoft Excel macro, PaaS lets developers create applications using built-in software components. PaaS includes cloud features such as scalability, high-availability, and multi-tenant capability reducing the amount of coding that developers must do.
- Analytics or business intelligence: Tools provided as a service with PaaS allow organizations to analyze and mine their data. They can find insights and patterns, and predict outcomes to improve business decisions such as forecasting, product design, and investment returns.
- Serverless computing: Overlapping with PaaS, serverless computing focuses on building app functionality without spending time continually managing the servers and infrastructure required to do so. The cloud provider handles the setup, capacity planning, and server management for you. Serverless architectures are highly scalable and event-driven, only using resources when a specific function or trigger occurs.
Software as a service (SaaS)
SaaS is software that is centrally hosted and managed for the end customer. It's based on an architecture where one version of the application is used for all customers, and licensed through a monthly or annual subscription. Microsoft 365, Teams, and Dynamics 365 Sales are perfect examples of SaaS software.
Cost of ownership
The following table contains an overview of the cost structure across the three types of cloud services.
Management responsibilities
One thing to understand is that these categories are layers on top of each other. For example, PaaS adds a layer on top of IaaS by providing a level of abstraction. The abstraction has the benefit of hiding the details that you may not care about, so that you can get to coding quicker. However, one aspect of the abstraction is that you have less control over the underlying hardware.
The following illustration shows a list of resources that you manage and that your cloud provider manages in each cloud service category.
- IaaS requires the most user management of all the cloud services. The user is responsible for managing the operating systems, data, and applications.
- PaaS requires less user management. The cloud provider manages the operating systems, and the user is responsible for the applications and data they run and store.
- SaaS requires the least amount of management. The cloud provider is responsible for managing everything, and the end user just uses the software.
Combine cloud services to fit your needs
IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS each contain different levels of managed services. You may easily use a combination of these types of infrastructure. You could use Microsoft 365 on your company's computers (SaaS), and in Azure, you could host your VMs (IaaS) and use Azure SQL Database (PaaS) to store your data. With the cloud's flexibility, you can use any combination that provides you with the maximum result.
Now let's turn our attention to the different types of clouds.
Public, private, and hybrid clouds
Public cloud
Third-party cloud service providers own and operate public clouds, which deliver their computing resources, like servers and storage, over the internet. Microsoft Azure is an example of a public cloud. With a public cloud, all hardware, software, and other supporting infrastructure are owned and managed by the cloud provider. You access these services and manage your account using a web browser.
This model is the most common deployment model. In this case, you have no local hardware to manage or keep up to date—everything runs on your cloud provider's hardware. In some cases, you can save additional costs by sharing computing resources with other cloud users.
Public cloud offers the following advantages:
- High scalability, which means you don't have to buy a new server to scale.
- Pay-as-you-go pricing; you pay only for what you use.
- You're not responsible for maintenance or updates of the hardware.
- You can take advantage of the skills and expertise of the cloud provider to ensure workloads are secure, safe, and highly available.
Not all scenarios fit the public cloud. Here are some disadvantages to think about:
- There may be specific security requirements that can't be met by using a public cloud.
- There may be government policies, industry standards, or legal requirements that public clouds can't meet.
- You don't own the hardware or services and can't manage them as you may want.
- Unique business requirements, such as having to maintain a legacy application, might be hard to meet.
Private cloud
A private cloud refers to cloud computing resources used exclusively by a single business or organization. A private cloud can be physically located in the company’s on-site datacenter. Some companies also pay third-party service providers to host their private cloud. A private cloud is one in which the services and infrastructure are maintained on a private network.
In a private cloud, you create a cloud environment in your own datacenter and provide self-service access to compute resources to users in your organization. Private cloud offers a simulation of a public cloud to your users, but you remain responsible for the purchase and maintenance of the hardware and software services.
This approach has several advantages:
- You can ensure the configuration can support any scenario or legacy application.
- You have control and responsibility over security.
- Private clouds can meet strict security, compliance, or legal requirements.
Some reasons teams move away from a private cloud are:
- You have some initial costs and must purchase the hardware for startup and maintenance.
- Owning the equipment limits the agility to scale as you must buy, install, and setup new hardware.
- Private clouds require IT skills and expertise.
Hybrid cloud
Hybrid clouds combine public and private clouds, bound together by the technology that allows them to share data and applications. The hybrid cloud gives your business greater flexibility, more deployment options, and helps optimize your existing infrastructure, security, and compliance.
Hybrid clouds are helpful when you have things that can't be put in the cloud, maybe for legal reasons. For example, you may have some specific pieces of data—such as medical data—that can't be exposed publicly and need to be held in your private datacenter. Another example is one or more applications that run on old hardware that can't be updated. In this case, you can keep the old system running locally, and connect it to the public cloud for authorization or storage.
Some advantages of a hybrid cloud are:
- You can keep any systems running and accessible that use out-of-date hardware or an out-of-date operating system.
- You have flexibility with what you run locally versus in the cloud.
- You can take advantage of economies of scale from public cloud providers for services and resources and supplement with your own equipment when appropriate.
- You can use your own equipment to meet security, compliance, or legacy scenarios where you need to completely control the environment.
Some concerns you'll need to watch out for are:
- It can be more expensive than selecting one deployment model since it involves some cost up front.
- It can be more complicated to set up and manage.
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