Besides Google Drive what is the other cloud computing software you have used so far

Cloud computing has been credited with increasing competitiveness through cost savings, greater flexibility, elasticity and optimal resource utilization. As a technology, cloud computing is much more than the sum of its parts. It opens doors to cloud-native technologies, supports more efficient ways of working and enables emerging capabilities in machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI).

Here’s how organizations are putting cloud computing to work to drive business value.

1. Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) delivers fundamental compute, network and storage resources to consumers on-demand, over the Internet and on a pay-as-you-go basis. Using cloud infrastructure on a pay-per-use scheme enables companies to save on the costs of acquiring, managing and maintaining their own IT infrastructure. Plus, the cloud is easily accessible. Most major cloud service providers — including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, IBM Cloud and Microsoft Azure — offer IaaS with their cloud computing services.

Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) provides customers a complete cloud platform — hardware, software and infrastructure — for developing, running and managing applications without the cost, complexity and inflexibility of building and maintaining that platform on-premises. Organizations may turn to PaaS for the same reasons they look to IaaS; they want to increase the speed of development on a ready-to-use platform and deploy applications with a predictable and cost-effective pricing model.

2. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)

While Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is similar to the IaaS and PaaS uses described above, it actually deserves its own mention for the undeniable change this model has brought about in the way companies use software. SaaS offers software access online via a subscription, rather than IT teams having to buy and install it on individual systems.

SaaS providers, like Salesforce, enable software access anywhere, anytime, as long as there’s an Internet connection. These tools have opened access to more advanced tools and capabilities, like automation, optimized workflows and collaboration in real-time in various locations.

3. Hybrid cloud and multicloud

Hybrid cloud is a computing environment that connects a company’s on-premises private cloud services and third-party public cloud services into a single, flexible infrastructure for running critical applications and workloads. This unique mix of public and private cloud resources makes it easier to select the optimal cloud for each application or workload and then move the workloads freely between the two clouds as circumstances change. With a hybrid cloud infrastructure, technical and business objectives are fulfilled more effectively and cost-efficiently than could be achieved with a public or private cloud alone.

The video "Hybrid Cloud Explained" provides a more in-depth discussion of the computing environment:

Multicloud takes things a step further and allows organizations to use two or more clouds from different cloud providers. This type of cloud computing can include any mix of IaaS, PaaS or SaaS resources. With multicloud, workloads can be run in different cloud environments to match unique needs. This also means that companies can avoid vendor lock-in.

To learn more about how these options compare, see "Distributed Cloud vs. Hybrid Cloud vs. Multicloud vs. Edge Computing."

4. Test and development

One of the best use cases for the cloud is a software development environment. DevOps teams can quickly spin up development, testing and production environments tailored for specific needs. This can include, but is not limited to, automated provisioning of physical and virtual machines.

To perform testing and development in-house, organizations must secure a budget and set up the testing environment with physical assets. Then comes the installation and configuration of development platform. All this can often extend the time it takes for a project to be completed and stretch out the milestones. Cloud computing speeds up this process with cloud-based development tools that make creating apps and software faster, easier and more cost-effective.

One of the top benefits of cloud computing is how it facilitates the DevOps process, CI/CD pipelines, and cloud-native advancements (e.g., microservices, serverless and containerization). These technologies have led to rapid acceleration and innovation, but also require a self-sustaining cloud infrastructure to support the hundreds of services.

5. Big data analytics

By leveraging the computing power of cloud computing, companies can gain powerful insights and optimize business processes through big data analytics.

There is a massive amount of data collected each day from corporate endpoints, cloud applications and the users who interact with them. Cloud computing allows organizations to tap into vast quantities of both structured and unstructured data available to harness the benefit of extracting business value.

Retailers and suppliers are now extracting information derived from consumers’ buying patterns to target their advertising and marketing campaigns to a particular segment of the population. Social networking platforms are providing the basis for analytics on behavioral patterns that organizations are using to derive meaningful information. Businesses like these and more are also able to harness deeper insights through machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI), two capabilities made possible with cloud computing.

Learn more about the intricacies of these technologies by reading "AI vs. Machine Learning vs. Deep Learning vs. Neural Networks."

6. Cloud storage

Cloud data storage enables files to be automatically saved to the cloud, and then they can be accessed, stored and retrieved from any device with an Internet connection.  Rather than maintaining their own data centers for storage, organizations can only pay for the amount of cloud storage they are actually consuming and do so without the worries of overseeing the daily maintenance of the storage infrastructure. The result is higher availability, speed, scalability and security for the data storage environment.

In situations where regulations and concerns about sensitive data are at play, organizations can store data either on- or off-premises, in a private or hybrid cloud model, for added security.

7. Disaster recovery and data backup

Yet another benefit derived from using cloud is the cost-effectiveness of a disaster recovery (DR) solution that provides for faster recovery from a mesh of different physical locations at a much lower cost than a traditional DR site.

Building a DR site and testing a business continuity plan can be an extremely expensive and time-consuming task with fixed assets. When built in the cloud, however, organizations can replicate their production site and constantly replicate data and configuration settings, saving considerable time and resources.

Similarly, backing up data has always been a complex and time-consuming operation. Cloud-based backup, while not being the panacea, is certainly a far cry from what it used to be. Organizations can now automatically dispatch data to any location with the assurance that neither security, availability, nor capacity are issues.

While these top seven uses of cloud computing are not exhaustive, it shows the clear incentives for using the cloud to increase IT infrastructure flexibility, while also making the most of big data analytics, mobile computing and emerging technologies.

IBM Cloud

IBM Cloud offers the most open and secure public cloud platform for business, a next-generation hybrid multicloud platform, advanced data and AI capabilities, and deep enterprise expertise across 20 industries. IBM Cloud hybrid cloud solutions deliver flexibility and portability for both applications and data. Linux®, Kubernetes and containers support this hybrid cloud stack, and they combine with RedHat® OpenShift® to create a common platform connecting on-premises and cloud resources.

Learn how IBM Cloud solutions can help your organization with the following:

To get started, sign up for an IBM ID and create your IBM Cloud account.

Cloud computing has become essential for many companies that want agile ways to store and manage complex data without it being tied to a local device.

• Software-as-a-Service (Saas): Salesforce
• Infrastructure-as-a-Service (Saas): DigitalOcean
• Platform-as-a-Service (Saas): AWS
• File Sharing + Data Storage: Dropbox
• Big Data Analysis: Civis Analytics
• Data Governance: Carbonite
• Cybersecurity: Forcepoint

For example, Netflix migrated all of its databases to the cloud in 2016. As a result, the streaming giant can now produce more content, onboard more customers and easily handle sharp increases in usage spikes (typically when a new show is made available). The company can also add or reduce storage amounts in real time based on its current viewers.

Cloud computing examples have since multiplied in various industries, and the cloud has become the standard for storing, managing and securing data.

We’ve rounded up 25 cloud computing examples that are finding faster ways to manage data and extract insights.

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Cloud Computing Examples

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) products distribute data online and are accessible from a browser on any device, which allows those companies to continue to host the software. The ease of use, lowered costs and upfront, subscription-based pricing make SaaS one of the most attractive sectors in all of business and tech. Below are four industry leaders in cloud SaaS products.

Location: San Francisco, California

A well-known SaaS provider, Salesforce is a CRM tool that helps businesses manage customer relations and generate sales leads. The Sales Cloud combines AI and customer data to help sales teams identify potential leads and close sales faster. The platform also has separate clouds for customer service and marketing.

Location: San Jose, California

Zoom is a cloud-based software platform for audio and video conferencing that records meetings and saves them to the cloud so users can have access to them anytime, anywhere. Teams can also access the Zoom Developer Platform to create apps and integrations. Ally Financial, Dropbox and the University of Miami are a few of the customers that have benefitted from Zoom’s collaborative technology.

Location: Fully Remote

As the successor to Apache Pulsar, StreamNative descends from a tradition that has helped build Yahoo! into an efficient machine. The cloud system is set to support more communities with solutions for accessing data at a record pace. Businesses can choose between a host of tailored solutions that harness the capabilities of the cloud and make data sets more flexible and accessible.

Location: San Francisco, California

Slack is a collaboration tool for teams and companies. Slack channels are essentially group messages and can be organized by individual, team, project or topic to ensure that everyone is on the same page when it comes to communication. The cloud SaaS company even features video chatting and PDF file sharing and integrates other cloud companies like DropBox and Salesforce.

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) Cloud Computing Examples

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) provides a virtualized computing infrastructure managed entirely over the Internet. IaaS is typically used in a few different ways, including as a testing environment for app development, as a website host and even as a platform for big data analysis. IaaS is becoming a popular cloud option because of its business continuity and its efficiency in delivering apps.

Location: Armonk, New York

IBM IaaS servers can be deployed in minutes to a few hours, depending on the cloud type. The tech giant’s bare metal servers take a few hours to deploy and can accommodate projects up to three terabytes. The virtual servers deploy in a matter of minutes and are useful for scalable projects that require flexibility.

Location: New York, New York

DigitalOcean’s app platform helps product teams deploy, manage and scale new products. Under the IaaS platform, users can create multiple virtual machines in seconds, and they can even scale based on data storage and incoming traffic. Cerebrus, Unicodemy and DSRV are customers that have used DigitalOcean’s platform to deploy and scale their products.

Location: San Francisco, California

Finix is a platform that allows software companies, independent software vendors and marketplaces to streamline the process of bringing payments in-house through gateway or tokenization, merchant onboarding, reporting, settlement and chargeback tools and solutions embedded within a single platform.

Location: Palo Alto, California

VMware is a cloud and software company that has expanded its disaster recovery-as-a-service (DRaaS) products with the acquisition of Datrium. The move enables VMware to further its efforts in building hybrid clouds that offer more cost-effective onboarding and secure data storage. Onboarding and recovery services also come in different tiers, so customers can select the plan that meets their specific workloads.

Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) Cloud Computing Examples

Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) is a cloud computing model that provides users with hosted development kits, applications management capabilities and database tools — the virtual resources companies need to build, deploy and launch their software applications. By outsourcing hosting, database security and data storage, companies avoid long-term investments (saving them lots of money).

Location: Fully Remote 

By offering cloud and machine learning capabilities, PagerDuty helps businesses proactively respond to and resolve incidents. Companies can monitor incidents in real time, collect data and distribute tasks across expert teams that work to provide quick solutions. After resolving an incident, teams can also conduct analytics to figure out ways to improve their responses the next time around.

Location: Boston, Massachusetts

The Acquia Cloud is built specifically for Drupal 8 sites and applications. The PaaS technology is designed to be developer-friendly, with APIs, command line tools and integrations to streamline the development workflow. Johnson & Johnson, T-Mobile and Energizer have worked with Acquia’s products.

Location: Chicago, Illinois

Saggezza (acquired by the Apexon-Infostretch family) provides companies with full-stack solutions to help them tackle their largest challenges, offering consulting, UX, analytics, cloud and IT optimization services to give them a better advantage through technology. The company works within the Salesforce ecosystem to help manage relationships and streamline business processes, improving both customer and employee experiences.

Location: Seattle, Washington

AWS Lambda lets developers run code for any application or backend service without provisioning or managing servers. The pay-as-you-go model continuously scales along with a business to accommodate for real-time shifts in data storage and usage. Well-known companies in many diverse industries use AWS Lambda, including Toyota, Liberty Mutual Insurance, the Coca Cola Company and Siemens.

Location: San Francisco, California

Heroku is a multi-language cloud app platform that lets developers deploy, scale and manage their applications. The flexibility of Heroku’s PaaS allows them to work in languages like Ruby, Java, Python, Perl and other popular languages. Giving developers the ability to code in a comfortable language reportedly speeds up app development.

File Sharing and Data Storage Cloud Computing Examples

File sharing and data storage account for lots of cloud use, with individuals and businesses sharing large files through cloud-based software and outsourcing their data storage to off-premises data centers.

Pay-as-you-go models help businesses manage and scale data sharing and storage based on current needs. Best of all, there’s no limit on either one.

Location: Mountain View, California 

Google has become a force in cloud computing with its cloud-based platform Google Drive. The platform integrates with other Google tools and Microsoft Office files, making collaboration easier for team members. As projects pile up, features such as search chips allow individuals to quickly locate specific files. Drive also encrypts files and removes those suspected of containing cyber threats, allowing businesses to secure their data on the cloud.

Location: Fully Remote

Because Dropbox lets users share large files, it facilitates collaboration. Got a large Powerpoint, Photoshop or Sketch project that needs your team’s input but can’t fit in an email? Dropbox it. Dropbox now allows the full integration of collaborative apps, like DocuSign and Vimeo, so users can upload contracts, videos and other materials for team collaboration.

Location: Redwood City, California

Box lets anyone, anywhere securely manage, share and access files. Companies can fully-integrate Box into their custom business apps, and the platform allows them to share their content (regardless of size) for collaboration purposes. Major universities like Cornell, Penn State, Yale and UC Berkeley have deployed Box as a tool for collaborating and safeguarding content.

Location: Mountain View, California

Egnyte’s platform allows for secure file sharing and content governance. The SaaS company lets teams upload their files from anywhere to collaborate and work on projects. Teams can use Egnyte’s platform to detect internal and external threats, taking steps to protect and recover any lost data.

Big Data Analytics Cloud Computing Examples

Because big data companies require massive amounts of storage and processing power for analysis purposes, lots of them turn to the cloud for greater amounts of both — plus enhanced security for business records.

Location: New York, New York

Datadog allows organizations to take a deeper dive into their products and technology to better understand what is helping them grow and what can be optimized for better customer experiences. The scalable cloud monitoring platform is compatible with any stack, application or ecosystem, providing key insights on everything from network security to real user experiences for robust monitoring capabilities.

Location: New York, New York

Collibra helps big data companies manage their cloud-based apps by providing frameworks for handling large amounts of data and automating processes to ensure that quality data is being ingested. Belgium’s largest telecommunications company Proximus chose Collibra to help manage its data governance using the company’s cloud-based regulatory technologies.

Location: Fully Remote

Civis Analytics builds custom consumer analytics software for companies seeking better insights into customer habits. The company provides consumer research, social science and predictive modeling using cloud-stored data. Teams can also process data in their preferred programming language and develop automated data workflows with Civis Analytics’ platform.

Location: Chicago, Illinois

SPINS uses the cloud to store the big data it collects for brands, retailers and CPG companies in the natural products industry that seek better insights into everything from consumer trends to day-to-day store operations. The company features a business intelligence platform, SATORI, which gives brands and retailers an in-depth look at nutrition and allergen information for natural food products via the cloud.  

Data Governance and Cybersecurity Cloud Computing Examples

Data storage is only one aspect of cloud computing. As cloud-based security companies attempt to outmaneuver hackers and stay ahead of cyber attacks, it’s also an increasingly secure way to protect sensitive data from cyber marauders.

Location: Santa Clara, California

Palo Alto Networks offers several cloud-based cybersecurity solutions for IaaS and PaaS technologies. The VM-Series protects private and public cloud deployments, while the company’s Traps protect clouds against zero-day threats. Palo Alto Networks also features cloud platforms like AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.

Location: San Jose, California

Zscaler operates a zero-trust platform with the power to connect any user, device or application over any network, supporting cross-industry collaboration and remote work. The platform oversees 200 billion transactions per day and intercepts 100 million threats over the same time period, making Zscaler a world leader in enterprise-level cloud protection.

Location: Boston, Massachusetts

The Carbonite cloud protects a company’s information from data loss and ransomware. By safeguarding critical business data endpoints, Carbonite can limit the number of security breaches that occur within the cloud. Businesses can install Carbonite Safe on laptop or desktop computers, hard drives, servers and other devices. The software then backs up folders, files, systems and other data to the cloud for secure storage.

Location: Austin, Texas

The Forcepoint cloud platform acts as a cybersecurity safeguard for data, users and networks. The company integrates cybersecurity tools that help businesses integrate SaaS products, safely operate on the public cloud and even reduce security endpoints, so cyber criminals have less of a chance of infiltrating cloud data. Huisman, one of the world’s leading construction companies, tapped Forcepoint to create cloud-based cybersecurity tools to store and protect its intellectual property.