From the course: Cloud Security Considerations for General Industry

Cloud computing key drivers

From the course: Cloud Security Considerations for General Industry

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Cloud computing key drivers

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- [Instructor] Cloud computing is the use of internet-based computing resources, typically as a service to internal or external customers, where scalable and elastic IT capabilities are provided. There are various definitions of what cloud computing means, from NIST, Gardener, and many of the leading standards bodies. The NIST definition, shown here, is the most common, and is cited globally by professionals and non-professionals alike, to clarify what the term cloud means. A key driver for cloud computing is the shift from capital expenditure model, or CapEx, where organizations had to invest larges sums of money to build and operate information technology infrastructures, to an operational expenditure, or OpEx, model, which enables companies to pay per use and avail themselves of pricing structures similar to monthly or quarterly leasing agreements. Additional drivers include IT scalabilty, where users have access to a large number of resources that scale based on user demand. Elasticity, that describes an operating environment that transparently manages a user's resource utilization, based on dynamically changing needs. Virtualization, which enables each user to have a single view of the available resources, independent of how they are arranged in terms of physical devices. Reduced cost, using the pay-per-usage model, that allows an organization to only pay for the resources they need, with basically no investment in the physical resources available in the cloud. Mobility for users, so that they can have the ability to access data and applications from around the globe. Collaboration between users that use the cloud as a way to work simultaneously on common data and information. And risk reduction, because users can leverage the cloud to to test ideas and concepts before making major investments in technology.

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