From providing productivity tools such as email, calendars and conferencing to more complex applications that drive data-driven projects, cloud data services are changing how companies work. They alleviate the burden of maintaining internal infrastructure, updating applications and operating systems and decommissioning and disposing hardware and software when it becomes obsolete. Additionally, they offer access to specialist skills and resources that are difficult for smaller companies to afford or manage in-house.
Infrastructure as a Service is the most common cloud-based data service. IaaS vendors provide VM instances storage, storage, and application programming interfaces that allow customers to migrate and host production workloads in the cloud. IaaS is usually offered as a pay-as -you-go subscription to reduce upfront costs, and to allow IT to increase capacity as needed.
Other types of cloud data services include database-as-a-service. This allows organizations to store and retrieve massive amounts of structured data at any time with low latency. Some vendors also offer real-time data storage that is able to meet millisecond response time. Examples are Amazon DynamoDB and Google Bigtable, which are applied as high-performance databases in-process for data processing applications.
Cloud computing also makes it simpler for users to collaborate on files from multiple devices. Many companies rely on SaaS-based tools like Microsoft 365 or Google Docs to share presentations and documents. They can also use cloud-based videoconferencing services, such as Zoom to communicate with clients and employees in various locations.
