One of the most important technical aspects of business and innovation today is the idea of a centralized data platform. With the ability to hold a business’ key information, communicate with other platforms, and run applications, this centralized network is a huge step in efficiency and productivity.
This centralized computing platform can be known as a business model – not necessarily a new technology. Instead of creating new and unheard-of concepts, this centralized platform simply combines pre-existing technologies in an ordered and combined way to ensure an efficient, groundbreaking, and performance-oriented product.
Let’s see the different layers of this computing platform and how it works.
The Four Layers of Cloud Computing
Users need to know the four layers of cloud computing before utilizing this business model in their company. By taking note of the theory behind this concept, users can choose a specific cloud management program that fits their needs, like Snowflake Data Cloud. Selecting the cloud data platform for your business ensures the program has enough data storage, applications, and outsourcing possibilities that will benefit your company.
Infrastructure as a service
The fundamental layer of cloud computing is the infrastructure, which is the hardware and network. The most essential characteristics of this layer are scalability and virtualization, meaning the quantity and the software.
- Infrastructure platforms scale huge quantities of data into smaller packages to add more storage to the cloud. For example, Google built data centers to help users obtain more free storage. Without these data centers, users would not be able to obtain free storage, meaning each package for Google drive would cost money – which is not widely accessible or practical to every online user.
- Virtualization lets the infrastructure platform utilize its resources to a very high level, compared to companies that lack productivity and efficiency.
Platform as a service
The second layer of cloud computing is the platform as a service, providing resources to compile and run applications.
- This platform lets third parties add software to help develop and deploy applications.
Software as a service
The third layer is the cloud software, a web-based and widely accessible feature that anyone can access.
- The key to using the software as a service is widespread availability. If your product is not available on a global scale, users will go with a more extensive option that has thousands of user reviews.
Business process outsourcing
The top layer of cloud computing is business process outsourcing, the only layer of the cloud that focuses on the business model and consumption of the product.
- This layer focuses on outsourcing to vendors to sell their products, enhancing the efficiency of their business and company by increasing capital gain.
Conclusion
Using cloud-based data platforms is vital for businesses to stay organized, connected, and secure in today’s world. With technology ever-changing, the cloud data model uses the best technologies in an organized set-up to help companies increase their data storage space, add software to help develop applications, create widely available software, and outsourcing to vendors to help sell their product.