The cloud is a term that is thrown around a lot, and career professionals are creating new advancements every day, but many people have no idea what “the cloud” is. To put it simply, the “cloud” is simply a metaphor for the Internet itself, and it has many uses. For example, one thing you may have heard of is “cloud storage.” This is simply storage space that you connect to via the Internet rather than having to store the data on a local hard drive. The second most common thing you will hear about regarding the cloud is cloud computing. Cloud computing is a way to take advantage of computational power that is not at your location through an Internet connection. If you hear the word cloud, just think of the Internet.
Now, with a conceptual grasp of what the cloud actually is, let’s talk about something called cloud management. Cloud management is a way to exercise administrative control over cloud storage and cloud computing in the same way you would exercise traditional administrative authority over localized computer systems. There are plenty of reliable cloud hosting providers out there that offer management of your cloud storage.
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Cloud Management Tools
Certain tools are required for effective cloud management. Quest offers a whole suite of simple IT management tools related to Data Protection, Database Management, Microsoft Migrations/Consolidations, NetVault Backup, support for every single platform, and more.
Public cloud providers typically develop the necessary orchestration tools for analysis, cost management, security, and whatever other needs suit their particular suite of services. For example, AWS (Amazon Web Services) allows users to access a CLI (command line interface) to manage the cloud. Users are able to run specific commands and scripts through this CLI. GCP (Google Cloud Platform) provides an analysis logic tool called Google Stackdriver. This logging tool offers monitoring data for VMs (virtual machines) and applications that function on GCP and AWS. Microsoft Azure allows administrators to automate the replication of VMs with something they call the “Azure Site Recovery Tool.” Choosing the right VPS Host can make your site look like millions of other sites out there because they offer many different things. Apart from choosing a VPS host, you must also think of migrating your server to a dedicated rental space, especially a colocation data center, for saving cost on server maintenance. This is where a company like “Dataknox” can provide you with all the necessary help in migrating your existing data storage facility or server to their dedicated rack space, at a very nominal rental fee. This saves you from the hassles of server maintenance, as well as high operating cost.
This management is typically broken down into three distinct parts: self-service, workflow automation, and cloud analysis.
1. Self-Service in Cloud Management
Self-service cloud capabilities help to mitigate the traditional needs and processes associated with localized IT resource provisioning. Users and/or administrators can access public, private, and hybrid clouds to review what is currently being done in the cloud to monitor and make changes if needed. Current cloud computing instances can be created or modified through the cloud directly. Costs and utilization can be fully monitored, and resource allocation can be adjusted easily as needed. This type of reporting lets users and administrators track cloud budgets to make it possible to reduce or remove unnecessary operations to lower expenses.
2. Workflow Automation
Cloud management makes it possible to take advantage of something referred to as workflow automation. This automation allows users and organizations to directly translate policies into any actionable steps required to create or manage various cloud computing instances. This can be done in an entirely automated fashion, saving human users and administrators time and potential wage costs.
3. Cloud Analysis
Ongoing monitoring and analysis of workload and computing tasks are enabled by proper cloud management. Private cloud environments allow organizations and administrators to verify that all of their infrastructures work properly. This will, in turn, provide a system for tasks and workload balancing and planning. Public clouds offer similar benefits in reference to performance metrics for latency and/or downtime to facilitate compliance with cloud provider service-level agreements. Metrics provided through cloud analysis also help the consumer to decide when and if they would like to change cloud providers or migrate work instances from public to private clouds or vise versa.
The Future of Cloud Computing
Innovations are made every day, and there is no sign of “the cloud” shrinking anytime soon. Every day there seems to be yet another invaluable use for the cloud. Soon the idea of living without taking advantage of cloud computing or cloud management will be just as foreign to the modern world as living life without an Internet connection or a smart device. Older server computing and storing methods seem to get more and more outdated every day despite the advancement in the actual hardware and software that fuels them. More and more people seem to be choosing to use the cloud. More and more people are choosing to embrace the future that cloud computing can bring.
