Background

Today, cloud computing plays a key role in delivering and managing highly scalable and reliable applications, and there are many types of delivery and deployment models of cloud computing by using the services that are made available to the end customer to integrate or use.

I have written this article considering the newcomers, so let's start from the basic steps and concepts so everyone gets to know these terms. Let's start with the deployment models.

What is Cloud Deployment Model?

The cloud deployment model is the strategy that decides on which type of network the set of cloud services can be accessed. The idea behind this type of deployment is to fully fulfill the needs of every business use case. Some industries, such as banking and government, require high levels of data and network security, and some businesses may need to use multiple network services because their operations are spread across geography or an application must be made available outside the organization's network boundaries.

Taking into account previously mentioned scenarios and requirements, the cloud has the following deployment models.

What is a Private Cloud?

The term "private cloud" refers to a cloud platform developed for an organisation whose services are only used within that organisation over a private network. Private cloud services are only used within the organisation or its dedicated customer behind the firewall, but services are never exposed over the public network. The private cloud has organization-specific data centers and is mostly considered for confidential applications where customers or organisations don't want to exchange the data over the public network.

The following diagram demonstrates the private cloud

Cloud Deployment and Services Delivery Models

Private Cloud Key Points

Private clouds are mostly used in banking, defense, and medical domain applications where confidentiality of data and information has priority.

What is Public Cloud?

Public cloud services are exposed over the public network, and anyone can subscribe to and use the public cloud services. These services are available for multiple organisations and data centers spread across geographical regions. The public cloud has ready-to-use and quick-setup services which help application development without worrying about the underlying infrastructure setup.

The following diagram demonstrates the public cloud

Cloud Deployment and Services Delivery Models

An Example of Public Clouds

Public Cloud Key Points

What is Hybrid Cloud?

When the combination of private and public cloud services is used by an organisation, it is termed a hybrid cloud. It's often that either of the clouds does not provide the capability to deliver a certain application requirement, then an organisation chooses to use both the cloud services to build the applications. The following diagram demonstrates the hybrid cloud

Cloud Deployment and Services Delivery Models

Hybrid Cloud Key Points

I hope the preceding explanation helped to understand the public, private, and hybrid cloud deployment models. Now let's learn about the cloud services delivery model.

What is the cloud service delivery model?

The cloud provider groups or categories the services based on the type of business requirement fulfilled by the services. The following are the three types of services delivery models typically used by any cloud provider, such as Microsoft, Google, and Amazon.

The following diagram demonstrates the service delivery model layers.

Cloud Deployment and Services Delivery Models

Now let's visualise the following tree diagram to make it easier to understand the service delivery models.

Cloud Deployment and Services Delivery Models

Let's take a look at each service delivery model.

What is Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)?

In the IaaS cloud computing service delivery model, cloud providers offer the compute resources that are required for application development, such as virtual machines, storage, virtualization, networking, etc. The IaaS model provides the flexibility to use the infrastructure as a service based on a pay as you go or fixed rate model without worrying about the underlaying setup complexity and without purchasing the high-cost physical servers and hardware.

IaaS ensures the faster setup of infrastructure without worrying about the maintenance, security, scalability, and installation process. The end user has only the responsibility to manage the infrastructure in terms of access restrictions to users etc. The Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) model saves the huge amount of money that is required to setup, maintain, and manage the resources.

Examples

What is Platform as a Service (PaaS)?

Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) provides the environment to build, test, and manage an application without worrying about the underlaying infrastructure. Platform as a service lets organisations focus on their application or product development without worrying about the environment required to run, scale, and secure their applications. Cloud users can use the services on a pay as-go or fixed pay model.

The cloud user's only responsibility is to manage the data and create resources. The rest of the process is managed by the cloud provider. Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) provides a variety of services as given in tthe following example

Examples

What is Software as a Service (SaaS)?

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) delivers complete application software as a service via a pay-as-you-go or fixed-fee model, eliminating the need to build, deploy, and manage the application. The software building, testing , deployment, database server management, etc. are taken care of by the cloud provider, and the end user is allowed to access services via a web browser.

Examples

Summary

I hope you found this article helpful in understanding Cloud Deployment and Service Delivery Models. If you have any questions, then let me know using the comment box.

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