7 Best Cloud Computing Services Used by Industry Professionals
Businesses are moving away from on-premise servers towards cloud computing. This migration is because it's far easier to manage digital operations on cloud space rented from external companies than to manage the servers yourself.
Cloud computing is in vogue in this era. Businesses are steadily moving away from on-premise servers towards cloud computing. This migration is because it's far easier to manage digital operations on cloud space rented from external companies than to manage the servers yourself. Cloud computing lets you rent just as much computing power you need and scale as you go. Running operations on external cloud services gives companies more room to focus on their core business, so it's no surprise they're mainly doing that.
We want to talk about the best cloud computing services adopted by professionals in various industries. They include:Amazon Web Services
You can't talk about cloud computing without talking about Amazon Web Services (AWS). AWS is the cloud computing division of Amazon, the e-commerce giant. You may not know this, but cloud computing brings in far more profit for Amazon than its mammoth e-commerce operations. In figures, Amazon reported $19 billion in operating income on $62 billion in revenue from AWS in 2021 compared to $6,3 billion in operating income on $408 billion in revenue from e-commerce.
AWS is the cloud provider of choice for many online websites and applications. You can't go through a day without visiting a property hosted on AWS. For example, you watch movies on Netflix, hitch a ride on Uber, and check out a job posting on LinkedIn. You just visited three web properties hosted on AWS.
AWS was the first mover in the cloud computing market in 2006 and has remained dominant since then. Enterprises across the globe prefer AWS because it's the cloud computing platform with the highest number of data centers spread worldwide. It spans 84 Availability Zones within 26 geographic regions around the world. Hence, companies serving global users favor AWS because it is the fastest and most reliable option to host their content.Microsoft Azure
Microsoft Azure is the second-largest cloud computing provider after Amazon Web Services (AWS). Microsoft, the famous technology company, launched the Azure platform in 2010, four years after Amazon Web Services. Thanks to Microsoft's expertise in the tech industry, it managed to scale and become the second leading cloud provider worldwide.
According to the Synergy Research Group, Microsoft Azure had a 21% market share in the cloud market as of 2021, compared to 33% for AWS. Microsoft Azure is available in 52 regions around the world. This widespread availability, only beaten by AWS, makes it a desirable choice.
Save for widespread availability, other reasons enterprises prefer Microsoft Azure include:
Security. Microsoft has implemented sophisticated security protocols and measures on Microsoft Azure and constantly delivers updates and new features to keep up with the rapidly changing cybersecurity world. Azure follows the DADSC approach to security: detect, assess, diagnose, stabilize, and close. Pairing this approach with built-in security protocols like multi-factor authentication and application passwords gives you robust security.
Cost-Effective. Microsoft Azure is pay-as-you-go. You only purchase the amount of cloud space you need when you need it. This cost-effectiveness makes it desirable to IT professionals wanting a good bang for their buck. With Azure, you shed the burden of managing and maintaining in-house servers. Why run your servers when Azure can do it for you at a fraction of the upfront cost?
Hybrid Infrastructure. Azure lets you run a hybrid cloud infrastructure. Hybrid refers to a computing infrastructure that combines an on-premises data center (also called a private cloud) with a public cloud like Azure.
Azure supports hybrid cloud infrastructure, with features for its public-facing cloud also available for on-premise servers. Companies migrating away from on-premise servers towards the cloud often start with a hybrid cloud infrastructure before moving all their operations to a public cloud. Azure is suitable for this purpose.Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
Google Cloud Platform is the cloud platform owned by tech giant Google. It's the third-largest global cloud provider after Azure and AWS. It has 74 availability zones across 24 regions worldwide. Enterprises prefer GCP for a myriad of reasons, including;
Good Prices. GCP offers a good bang for the buck. Its pricing plan is pretty convoluted, so we won't go into many details here. Just note that it's competitive compared to other cloud providers.
Easy Integration with Google Services. Many individuals or enterprise teams already use Google services. For example, G Suite for business communication or collaboration and App Engine for developers. Google Cloud has existing integrations with all other Google services, so it's preferred by businesses that already have much of their operations running on them.
Extensive Documentation. Google Cloud has extensive documentation for each of its features. We're talking hundreds of pages collectively, including a detailed API reference guide. This comprehensive documentation makes it easy for developers to know what they're doing and use the platform as best as possible. Every developer would need to refer to the documentation at certain times because no one can remember everything. We can say that Google Cloud is the cloud platform built by developers for developers with such a feature.
Google Cloud has some disadvantages, and they include no free support & complex pricing.Niche Providers
Save for the big names like AWS, Azure, and GCP, there are many other niche cloud providers within the ecosystem. These niche providers serving a significantly smaller market are crucial to the cloud ecosystem, even though they don't have as much name recognition as the more prominent players.OVHcloud
OVHcloud is a French cloud hosting provider which offers VPS, dedicated servers, and other web services. It's Europe's largest cloud hosting provider and primarily serves businesses in the continent. It provides cloud infrastructure with a competitive price-to-performance ratio. Its features include;
Based on solid-state drive (SSD) technology. Hence, it offers excellent read/write performance.
Shared Hosting - Suppose you can't afford to rent a dedicated server, no problem. OVHcloud lets you share servers with other customers for a smaller fee.
Reseller Hosting - You can resell the server space you purchase on OVHcloud to other vendors.
CMS Support - OVHcloud supports various content management systems for your websites. You can install the CMS tools in "one-click."
OVHcloud has 32 data centers worldwide.MQL5 Cloud Network
MQL5 Cloud Network is a niche cloud hosting provider for the finance industry, specifically online traders. It's a distributed computing network, a system whose components are located on different networked computers that coordinate and communicate their actions by passing messages to each other.
It gives traders ample computing power to test their models and strategies on an enormous set of historical data before applying them in actual trading. The main area of application of the network is testing ready-made trading solutions, which are then published by developers on the MQL5.community Marketplace and generate income.
The MQL5 Cloud Network is powered by spare computing space from the MQL5.community members. You can join the network and sell excess computing power from your PC. The MQL5 Cloud Network is desirable because of its distributed computing model. With over 34,000 cores worldwide as of January 2022, it has widespread availability worldwide.DigitalOcean
DigitalOcean allows developers to deploy and scale applications running concurrently on multiple computers. It offers virtual private servers called "Droplets" that host online applications. Its servers are powered by Linux or Unix software.
DigitalOcean targets developers as its primary customer base rather than big corporations. Unlike many competitors, its pricing structure is straightforward. The platform is best suited for running applications with a relatively small user base. For example, developers can test apps or run back-end data-crunching applications with it. It's a hosting provider that's cornered a niche part of the cloud market for itself.
DigitalOcean currently has over 600,000 customers, most of them small-time developers. It brought in $318 million in revenue in 2020.Rackspace
Rackspace is a multi-cloud solutions provider, that is, it lets you merge multiple cloud computing and storage services into one single architecture. An organization may have different cloud computing needs for various functions and thus use multiple cloud providers. Rackspace helps you manage these cloud services in one architecture to avoid confusion.
Overall, Rackspace is a robust niche cloud hosting provider. In addition to multi-cloud management, it also provides additional services such as artificial intelligence and machine learning tools. It also offers cloud consulting services to enterprises that need them.
A cloud hosting provider can make or break your business, so ensure that you choose the right one. There are many more providers to select from, but the ones we listed are among the best out there. You can always bank on them to fulfil your cloud hosting needs and give you as much room as possible to focus on your core business.
