What is a cloud service provider?

While IaaS requires users to supply their own applications, PaaS provides the tools that businesses can use to create and deploy applications, making development, testing, and deployment of applications a simple, cost-effective process. PaaS may incorporate operating systems, middleware, and runtime environments. The apps developed using IaaS solutions also generally inherit valuable cloud characteristics, including availability, scalability, and multi-tenancy. PaaS also handles essential hardware and other infrastructure-related assets, and manages the scaling needed to match cloud resources to a business' changing needs.

With PaaS, users can better address their need for custom applications, reducing the need for coding expertise and helping to automate important processes.

Representing the largest—and fastest growing—cloud market, SaaS is a step up from PaaS in terms of complete service. SaaS manages nearly every responsibility associated with cloud computing. SaaS cloud service providers handle the hardware, operating systems, virtualization, scaling, and functions, and provide ready-to-use software applications designed to fill specific business functions. While some SaaS solutions require specific plug-ins, most can be accessed directly through any standard web browser.

SaaS allows businesses to take full advantage of the cloud, maintaining only minimal resources on site.

There are certainly costs associated with working with a cloud service provider, and the more services being used, the higher the price. That said, in most cases the costs of outsourcing cloud services are less than the cost of hiring, training, and supporting a full-time, inhouse IT department and all the related hardware and software (including security, repair, and upkeep). CSP solutions take over several vital responsibilities, significantly reducing the necessary investment. Firms simply rent out the services and software they need, and only pay for it as long or as much as they use it.

Unexpected IT demands, scaling, and maintenance issues can represent a large amount of unforeseen costs for an organization. Outsourcing cloud services from cloud service providers circumvents these unexpected expenses; businesses can decide ahead of time what their budget will be, and then pay a consistent monthly bill. Any outages, repairs, maintenance, or other issues are addressed by the provider at no additional charge to the user.

Technology is not static; it’s constantly evolving. Updating inhouse systems and training IT personnel to keep up with technological advances can be extremely difficult and time consuming. To remain competitive, CSPs must be up to date and well versed in all new relevant technologies and need to ensure that these technologies are available and usable for their customers. By working with cloud service providers, businesses can future proof the systems and tools they depend on.

In-house network and database solutions tend to be spread out across multiple locations and silos, making a comprehensive view very difficult to achieve. CSP centralizes all services and software in a single data center. Users can access and analyze important information, employ vital tools, and more, secure in the knowledge that everything is fully integrated and in one place.

Local disasters and other emergencies can interrupt in-house network services. Cloud-based solutions, maintained offsite, are essentially immune to these kinds of emergent events. At the same time, cloud service providers depend on proven redundancy and resilience plans to ensure business continuity even when facing the most extreme disruptions. This means faster recovery and minimal downtime.

Many CSPs offer proactive monitoring as part of their services. Likewise, by keeping all relevant data and resources in a single, cloud-based data center, users can more easily identify issues as they arise. In both cases, this allows for faster response times, and less likelihood of major disruption.

Managed private clouds are single-tenant services offered by specific CSPs. Software is deployed, managed, and configured by the third-party provider, but is only usable by the client organization. Resources are not shared between multiple users.

• Cost
  Public cloud resources are usually charged using the pay-as-you-go model, based upon either hours or bytes used. Managed private clouds may instead employ fixed contracts, with provisions for addressing spikes in activity.
• Location
  Public clouds generally allow user access from anywhere in the world, while the specific, unique cloud infrastructure of managed private clouds may necessitate more local support and maintenance staff.
• Security
  Although most public cloud providers are better suited to securing data and preventing or responding to breaches than individual organizations, there is still some risk associated with not owning or managing the systems that house vital data and functions. Managed private clouds depend on hiring and partnering with proven providers who are up to speed on all potential security and compliance issues.
• Reliability
  Public cloud providers need to be able to guarantee a specific percentage of up time to fulfill the terms of their contracts. Service-level agreements may also dictate terms of service restoration and change requests. By maintaining a single cloud infrastructure dedicated to one client, managed private clouds are less able to spread computing loads across many servers, and thus may be more likely to suffer from physical hardware-related issues.
• Technical Specifications
  Public cloud providers are responsible for obtaining certification to run relevant operating systems middleware, storage, etc., and ensuring that the cloud resources and tools integrate well with the client’s existing systems. On the other hand, managed private cloud users must be individually certified.
• Support
  Public cloud providers often rely on standard support contracts designed for applicability across a range of users and industries. These contracts may include validating active software subscriptions, resolving issues, maintaining security, and deploying patches. Private cloud contracts are less standardized and are more customizable to the specific support needs of the client.