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Thanks to cloud computing, any student or an aspiring entrepreneur can not only dream about being the next Zuckerberg but has the potential to become one. This is the power of cloud hosting technology, which can transform business prospects, bring in new innovations, or support faster development and marketing of products with its scalability and flexibility.
Importance of scalability
Every modern business needs to have the potential to scale up according to market demands with optimum resources that do not impact Return on Investment. According to IBM, the most lucrative attribute of cloud for businesses is its scalability.
According to Investopedia, scalability is the feature of any system that explains its ability to perform normally under greater or expanding workload. A scalable system can not only maintain the level of performance but it can even enhance the output in the face of challenging demands.
There are several examples of companies including Spotify or Netflix, that have moved their operations from traditional data center facilities to cloud based facilities in order to cope up with peak time demands.
Some of the most classical examples of companies who have been able to sustain their operations by adopting cloud computing to address issues of extremely high volumes of traffic are large ecommerce companies such as Amazon or Flipkart.
Festival times can be nightmares for operators of ecommerce companies. The sudden rise in traffic can bring entire ecommerce operations to a grinding halt with unexpected downtimes leading to irrecoverable loss of revenues. Cloud capabilities can provide these companies much needed resources with almost no impact on infrastructural investment.
Cloud adoption was not only able to support high demands during peak hours but it also helped them achieve economies of scale without altering or expanding their massive Cloud computing infrastructure. Cloud solutions enable organizations to implement scalable solutions at specific levels to meet their individual business requirements.
Scalability through different delivery models
In order to appreciate multiple levels of scalabilities provided by cloud, let us look at the different cloud delivery models.
Public cloud– Among all models of cloud, Public Cloud is the most economical and highly sought after cloud deployment solution. Public cloud is offered on a shared platform to multiple users who are able to access limited cloud computing features that are economical. It is the most ideal cloud offering for small enterprises or startups to that can be scaled up or down depending on resource needs. With pay-as-you-use method of payment, public cloud is considered to be a highly cost effective option that optimizes resource consumption.
Private cloud– Organizations with pronounced need to operate in private and more secure environments can adopt private cloud that provides extremely secure data storage and backup facilities to handle business critical data. Since this is a single tenant arrangement, scalability is a bit longer process and usually involves additional investment for hardware.
Hybrid cloud– If an organization needs to acquire combined features of private as well as public cloud, then the option of hybrid cloud can be the most ideal. Hybrid cloud facilitates storage of sensitive data in private cloud environments while opt for public cloud environment to manage its external operations that do not involve confidential data. Many organizations continue to depend on on-premise facilities to store mission critical information while shifting other workloads to cloud.
Network scalability
Cloud leverages a virtualized platform for provisioning of resources. In order to implement networking in virtualized platforms, Ethernet virtualization, overlay networks, or TCP/IP are used. If multiple VMs are being run per server, then datacenters are frequently required to scale network. This can be implemented by over provisioning of resources to manage incremental demands.
Scalability through cloud computing stack
PaaS- Application developers can use Platform as a Service or PaaS model of cloud to develop, test, and deploy applications much faster than traditional platforms. PaaS is also regarded to be highly cost effective and has an extendable architecture to develop modern platforms for faster application development.
IaaS– Organizations can adopt Infrastructure as a Service to manage their infrastructure, computing, networking, and storage. IaaS enables organizations to avoid costly hardware purchases by acquiring scalable and on demand resources that are supplied on pay-as-use basis.
SaaS– companies can acquire third party applications by leveraging Software as a Service that provides a user friendly interface. It supports scalability by enabling businesses to acquire wide range of applications to boost their business processes.
Multiple cloud services support scalability
Cloud computing also offers reactive and proactive scalability. If you are expecting large spikes in traffic volumes for a particular period, then proactive scaling can be provisioned for specific intervals of time. In contrast, reactive scaling is ideal for dealing with unexpected ups and downs in resource requirements.
You can leverages vast capabilities of cloud in terms of scalability, accessibility, cost efficiency, and flexibility. The multitude of scalable options provided by cloud computing can ensure that every organization can be benefited with any of these service offerings irrespective of the category or size of the business.
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