What is Cloud Storage?
Cloud storage service is a new model for data storage, used by both businesses and individuals,
where digital information is stored in a secure data center instead of on a local server or hard
drive.
Service providers operate networks of servers located at data centers, accessible from anywhere
in the world with an internet connection.
These providers will offer maintenance, management, regular backups and encryption for your
data stored on their servers, helping to reduce demands on the IT department of your business.
Solutions can range from free, public services, such as Google Drive and Dropbox, to more
sophisticated and custom storage solutions for small to enterprise-level businesses.
Benefits and uses of Cloud storage
Cloud services have geared up for being the most suitable option for storing data online
digitally. In the earlier times, most of the companies used to depend on the in-house servers for
storing their growing collection of data and online files; but today storing data online on cloud
servers is the next big thing as it allows unlimited storage. The best thing about storing all the
data in the cloud is that it ensures affordability and the data can be easily accessed from
anywhere in the world.
Here are 10 biggest benefits of online data storage in the cloud:
Usability and Accessibility
Users can easily drag and drop the files in the cloud storage. It is easy to save all the files and
data in the cloud, no technical knowledge is required for this purpose. The stored files can be
easily accessed from anywhere in the world with just a few clicks and an internet connection.
Disaster Recovery
It is recommended for every business to have a backup plan in case of an emergency. After all,
losing important business data can cause huge losses to any business. Cloud storage is the perfect
backup plan for businesses. It creates a backup of the files stored. These files are stored at a
remote location and they can be retrieved and accessed at any time.
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Security
Business owners can be sure that once the data is stored in the cloud, it is safe. The best thing
about using cloud storage is that server data is distributed across redundant servers and the data
stored in the cloud is safeguarded against any type of hardware failure. Cloud servers also
provide automated backups and snapshots in order to make sure that your data is safe.
Cost Savings
Businesses and organizations can reduce annual operating costs by utilizing cloud storage.
Affordability can be ensured if data is stored online in the cloud. Users can ensure additional cost
savings because internal power and resources are not required separately for storing the data.
Easy Sharing
Data stored in cloud storage can be easily shared with clients and colleagues in an easy and
secure way. You can easily share access to a particular cloud environment or to the complete
account with some other user.
Automation
One of the biggest issues that most of the business owners face is creating data backups and
scheduling the backup in a way so that the daily operations don’t get hampered. With cloud
storage technology, the tedious task of data backups is simplified through automation. You
simply have to select what you want to backup and when you want to backup and your cloud
environment will take care of the rest.
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Collaboration
Online cloud storage is also an ideal platform for collaboration purposes. A cloud environment
enables multiple people to access, edit and collaborate on a single file or document. People can
access the cloud environment from anywhere in the world and collaborate in real time.
Scalable Service
Cloud hosting enables vertical as well as horizontal scaling and the best thing about cloud
hosting is that you only pay for the resources that you actually use. You can scale your cloud
hosting environment whenever required and you can also define the attributes of scaling the
cloud. This ensures more flexibility and large storage space.
Synchronization
While using local file storage you can only access your data from a certain location. With cloud
storage, the daily devices can be your access points like your PC and your smartphone.
Accessing files and synchronizing them can be done easily with any device through an internet
connection. Therefore, the stress of transferring the documents from one device to another is
reduced as it can get complicated at times. Moreover, the files stored in the cloud storage remain
the same across all the devices and they can be automatically updated after making any changes.
You can always view the latest version of the updated file through cloud storage.
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Convenience
The amount of convenience and peace of mind offered by cloud storage system is amazing! Even
if you store data on transportable devices like external hard drives or flash drives, some kind of
manual intervention and physical handling is required. The data that is stored in a cloud is
backed up online and it can be accessed from anywhere. Information is automatically saved as it
streams in. There is no need for you to save, label or track information. The convenience of
online cloud storage enables you to completely concentrate on your work without getting
stressed about data loss
Conclusion:
Online cloud storage and backup are beneficial for all types of businesses. Cloud storage is a
great platform that does not require any huge investment and it can be actively used for
connecting and collaborating with clients and employees. If you opt for a cloud environment,
you are entitled to supreme benefits like faster information deployment, less management and
less supervision; thus you have more time to give for achieving your business goals
Top 7 most common uses of cloud computing
1. Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS)
When it comes to IaaS, using an existing infrastructure on a pay-per-use scheme seems to be an
obvious choice for companies saving on the cost of investing to acquire, manage and maintain an
IT infrastructure.
2. Private cloud and hybrid cloud
Among the many incentives for using cloud, there are two situations where organizations are
looking into ways to assess some of the applications they intend to deploy into their environment
through the use of a cloud (specifically a public cloud).
3. Test and development
Probably the best scenario for the use of a cloud is a test and development environment. This
entails securing a budget, setting up your environment through physical assets, significant
manpower and time.
4. Big data analytics
One of the aspects offered by leveraging cloud computing is the ability to tap into vast quantities
of both structured and unstructured data to harness the benefit of extracting business value.
5. File storage
Cloud can offer you the possibility of storing your files and accessing, storing and retrieving
them from any web-enabled interface.
6. Disaster recovery
This is yet another benefit derived from using cloud based on the cost effectiveness of a disaster
recovery (DR) solution that provides for a faster recovery from a mesh of different physical
locations at a much lower cost that the traditional DR site with fixed assets
7. Backup : Backing up data has always been a complex and time-consuming operation.
Reference
https://www.milesweb.com/blog/hosting/cloud/10-benefitsdata-storage-cloud/
https://www.ibm.com/blogs/cloudcomputing/2014/02/06/top-7-most-common-uses-of-cloudcomputing/