The term Cloud Computing for Small Businesses Seattle can simply be explained as the means of storing and accessing data and programs in a virtual environment instead of storing in your computer’s hard drive. Cloud Computing is being used over the years by companies as it allows users to connect to the services over the internet. The company providing the internet server is known as the host. Extensively, in the environment where they control, these internet hosting companies provide room for customers to have their own cloud applications. More so, the hosting company set up a favourable pricing system for the benefit of their users in that the users only pay the amount as per usage thereby making it very easy. With this in place, both the cloud hosting companies and end users tend to optimize satisfaction.
There are three main variations of cloud computing:
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), this is a type of cloud computing where the company only pays for what they consume from the cloud infrastructure. Currently, it is the most widely form of cloud computing that is used by companies because when there is no usage there is no payment. Economically it helps the company to save more
Platform as a Service (PaaS), in this type of cloud computing, the cloud services does not host the applications but rather the application can be hosted somewhere else. The company selling cloud applications won’t sell it as expensive network equipment. In terms of popularity, the PaaS is second to IaaS and consumer adoption because there is no need for setup capital
Software as a Service (SaaS), this type of cloud computing is put in place for customers who could not afford to pay much for bulk software. In this form of service, the customer only pays for the software that is consumed. Although it is the least used cloud hosting service but it tends to benefit both the customer and the software company. The price is affordable as the customer is only liable for the software that is used. So it is when the software is used that the customer pays therefore high priced software licenses is avoided. More customers are attracted to the cloud software company. Simply put, the customer save money and the software company get more customers which mean that both are at the benefiting end.