Whether you are a successful business or a simple private citizen, cloud services are changing the way the world works. Rather than requiring a large amount of physical infrastructure to run services, instead they are provided through a variety of services via the cloud. While most people understand the cloud by now, not everyone is taking full advantage of cloud services.
Part of the reason they are under-utilized is that many people aren’t even aware of what kind of services are available. There’s a number of different items which people can use to make their business and personal lives better. This article is going to look at several of the cloud services offered. It should be noted that these are just a small number of the huge number of different cloud services available.
1 - Cloud Phone Services
People may not realize, but cloud phone services were one of the earliest cloud services that were available at a near mass level. Cloud phone systems bypass traditional infrastructure and host their telephone services online. Many of these services have been referred to as VoIP. This is a “voice over internet protocol” system. What’s great about cloud phone systems is they can still be used through your standard phone devices. They are also incredibly scalable. So they can be picked up by an individual, or they can go big and expand to an entire business of hundreds or thousands.
2 - Cloud Data Backup Services
In a world where disasters can happen, having data backup services is crucial to any business. Losing months or years of data can completely crush a company. Cloud data backup ensures that servers will always have a recent backup. This is typically done daily or weekly depending on the service. There are two main threats to servers these days. The first is natural disasters. Earthquakes, hurricanes and other natural disasters can cause legitimate problems and destroy company infrastructure. The other danger comes from scammers and hackers who may use ransomware or viruses to gain control of a server and keep it back.
3 - Cloud Server Hosting
In the past, companies would simply host their own websites and applications on their own servers. Nowadays it’s far more likely that a company will turn to one of the cloud hosting giants to manage their server needs. Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle and IBM (among others) all offer excellent cloud server hosting for large business websites. Amazon web services are very popular currently, but all of those mentioned have very good cloud server hosting options.
4 - Cloud Security
Cloud security ensures that people using cloud services have them properly protected from potential threats like hackers and viruses. Cloud security is usually included as an additional service when using something else like server hosting. Cloud security allows you to take advantage of advanced security that is constantly being updated to fight the latest threats. Cloud security can also add extra layers to your own security through methods like two factor authentication to ensure you remain safe.
5 - Cloud Software
Cloud software is a bit of a different service as it can come in two forms for businesses. On one side you can subscribe to a variety of different software offerings for your business that are run from a cloud hosted location. The other option is to host your own software that you distribute out to other users. This is a variation of the cloud server hosting mentioned earlier.