Overview of the IT-market of cloud solutions for business
Recently, I was approached by the head of a small newly established company with a request to orient it on the modern cloud computing market (or cloud computing). About the clouds like everyone heard, they know that it is fashionable and useful. But how to use the clouds in the daily work of an ordinary Russian company? When to use clouds and why?
Clouds appeared in IT as a reflection of the general trend of the economy of joint consumption, which is focused on using instead of ownership and which has already presented us with housing exchange , car sharing and even wedding dresses for rent. It is becoming more and more things and services that you can use and pay only for their actual use, without large capital expenditures on the acquisition of property.
In the case of IT infrastructure, capital costs can be significant, it treacherously quickly becomes obsolete and loses value, therefore, using it under a rental scheme is often justified.
There is a significant limitation: a stable Internet connection in the place where you want to use the cloud, because All "cloud magic" is delivered via the Internet. If there is no internet, there is no magic.
In addition to the possible savings in capital costs, there are other significant advantages:
Interesting? Then we go further.
To choose a cloud solution, you need to decide how much you want to control the work of the cloud yourself, and what you outsource to service by a third-party organization (and depend on it).
There are three main formats of cloud solutions for the service model.
Picture from Tadviser - Platform As A Service
The most understandable to the user of the cloud. You simply work in the necessary programs via the Internet (without installing them on your device).
Advantages:
+ technical details are completely hidden. Connect via the Internet and use the finished program. Updating, performance and other technical issues and problems are solved by the service provider.
+ As a rule, the minimum time available. Enough to order the service and can be used in a few minutes.
Disadvantages:
- Not all programs are available in this format for technical reasons.
- The ability to customize and change the program to your requirements is limited.
- Strong dependence on the service provider and the quality of its work.
- Often you have limited control over your own data.
- Often more expensive than other types of clouds / classic applications, especially for large customers.
As a rule, SaaS is provided by the developers of these applications. Finding a comprehensive solution to all the necessary programs from one supplier is problematic.
Microsoft Office 365
prices from 3400 rubles / year for 5
1C: Enterprise 8 users via the Internet
prices from 2472 rubles / month for 5 users
MySklad
from 1000 rubles / month for 2
Bitrix24 users
for free for 12 users
CNews Analytics - The largest SaaS providers in Russia 2017
You rent a computing platform consisting of virtual computing services (analogue of the central processor and server RAM), information storage services (analogous to the hard disk of the server), data transfer services (consumed traffic), etc. The golden mean of cloud services. You can design arbitrary virtual computers with a variety of system and user software. Suppliers - world leading IT companies - ensure the stable operation of these computers and programs. Solutions in this area are popular with corporate customers and developers.
Under small business, these solutions are poorly sharpened and it is inconvenient to use them in this context.
Benefits:
+ tremendous flexibility - you can assemble a computer of any capacity (from a micro server comparable in capacity with a smartphone to a cluster of hundreds of thousands of servers) and install various applications on it.
+ main suppliers have huge geographically distributed computer networks, which makes it easy to deploy fast, massive and fault-tolerant applications
+ there is an opportunity to additionally connect advanced services in which Oracle, Microsoft, Google have unique competencies - using artificial intelligence, analyzing large amounts of information, etc. .P.
+ It is possible to pay only for actually consumed resources.
Disadvantages:
- for use, you need to “assemble” the system from the virtual component parts. This requires specific knowledge and skills.
- each platform imposes its own restrictions on implementation, there
is no complete freedom in implementation - rather high base cost
These providers supply a full range of cloud services, but cloud platforms are central.
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Cost Calculator calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html
Windows Azure
Oracle Cloud Platform
Google Cloud Platform
The total cost of solutions is calculated as the cost of actually consumed computing resources (Compute), storage space, quantity data transmitted over the network (Network). Spent resources are periodically calculated and invoiced. Thus, an idle server is cheap.
Compliance services from different suppliers:
You rent a server / computing resources. The service provider is guaranteed to work at the server level (electronic server stuffing, Internet, power supply, etc.) / virtualization technologies (see below).
There are three formats for the provision of services:
Advantages:
+ “bury” money in the purchase of a server is not always reasonable, because it becomes obsolete with time. Renting a server, you can always change or upgrade it with minimal cost.
+ You can select and manage performance and server settings as you want
+ complete freedom in the implementation of the desired. You can install any operating system programs. Customize and use as desired.
+ low cents, good price / performance ratio
Disadvantages:
- a specialist is needed to set up and maintain software.
- Often there is a binding to specific characteristics of the server / virtualization technology and flexibility is lost a little.
Approximate prices (for conditionally comparable servers), check on
Hetzner sites
Dedicated servers from 45 € / month (3.4 thousand rubles / month)
Virtual servers from 19 € / month (1.4 thousand rubles / month, with performance, sufficient for a small company)
OVH
dedicated servers from 55 € / month
Virtual servers from 25 € / month
IT-GRAD
Ayhor
Dedicated servers from 4.1 thousand rubles / month
Virtual servers from 2 thousand rubles / month
FirstVDS
Virtual servers from 3 thousand .rub / month
CNews Analytics - IaaS came to the Russian market after SaaS
1. * “1. Keep the server abroad "(c) 9.5 rules for a safe business in Russia
2. TAdviser - Cloud computing
3. Cloud services or what is IaaS? Difference from SaaS and PaaS
4. Around the World instead of mortgage - how millenial choice changes the economy
The essence of cloud computing
Clouds appeared in IT as a reflection of the general trend of the economy of joint consumption, which is focused on using instead of ownership and which has already presented us with housing exchange , car sharing and even wedding dresses for rent. It is becoming more and more things and services that you can use and pay only for their actual use, without large capital expenditures on the acquisition of property.
In the case of IT infrastructure, capital costs can be significant, it treacherously quickly becomes obsolete and loses value, therefore, using it under a rental scheme is often justified.
There is a significant limitation: a stable Internet connection in the place where you want to use the cloud, because All "cloud magic" is delivered via the Internet. If there is no internet, there is no magic.
In addition to the possible savings in capital costs, there are other significant advantages:
- Speed. From leading suppliers you can get a cloud in a few minutes / hours.
- Flexibility. Due to visualization technologies, you can get as many computing resources as you need here and now. Miss and buy too slow server - not scary.
- Savings on associated costs. Uninterrupted power supply of the server, restriction of physical access to the server (+ the first rule of doing business in Russia * is easily followed), etc.
- In some cases - savings in maintenance personnel (below)
Interesting? Then we go further.
What clouds are
To choose a cloud solution, you need to decide how much you want to control the work of the cloud yourself, and what you outsource to service by a third-party organization (and depend on it).
There are three main formats of cloud solutions for the service model.
Picture from Tadviser - Platform As A Service
SaaS - Software as a Service
The most understandable to the user of the cloud. You simply work in the necessary programs via the Internet (without installing them on your device).
Advantages:
+ technical details are completely hidden. Connect via the Internet and use the finished program. Updating, performance and other technical issues and problems are solved by the service provider.
+ As a rule, the minimum time available. Enough to order the service and can be used in a few minutes.
Disadvantages:
- Not all programs are available in this format for technical reasons.
- The ability to customize and change the program to your requirements is limited.
- Strong dependence on the service provider and the quality of its work.
- Often you have limited control over your own data.
- Often more expensive than other types of clouds / classic applications, especially for large customers.
SaaS examples
As a rule, SaaS is provided by the developers of these applications. Finding a comprehensive solution to all the necessary programs from one supplier is problematic.
Microsoft Office 365
prices from 3400 rubles / year for 5
1C: Enterprise 8 users via the Internet
prices from 2472 rubles / month for 5 users
MySklad
from 1000 rubles / month for 2
Bitrix24 users
for free for 12 users
CNews Analytics - The largest SaaS providers in Russia 2017
PaaS - Platform as a Service
You rent a computing platform consisting of virtual computing services (analogue of the central processor and server RAM), information storage services (analogous to the hard disk of the server), data transfer services (consumed traffic), etc. The golden mean of cloud services. You can design arbitrary virtual computers with a variety of system and user software. Suppliers - world leading IT companies - ensure the stable operation of these computers and programs. Solutions in this area are popular with corporate customers and developers.
Under small business, these solutions are poorly sharpened and it is inconvenient to use them in this context.
Benefits:
+ tremendous flexibility - you can assemble a computer of any capacity (from a micro server comparable in capacity with a smartphone to a cluster of hundreds of thousands of servers) and install various applications on it.
+ main suppliers have huge geographically distributed computer networks, which makes it easy to deploy fast, massive and fault-tolerant applications
+ there is an opportunity to additionally connect advanced services in which Oracle, Microsoft, Google have unique competencies - using artificial intelligence, analyzing large amounts of information, etc. .P.
+ It is possible to pay only for actually consumed resources.
Disadvantages:
- for use, you need to “assemble” the system from the virtual component parts. This requires specific knowledge and skills.
- each platform imposes its own restrictions on implementation, there
is no complete freedom in implementation - rather high base cost
PaaS Examples
These providers supply a full range of cloud services, but cloud platforms are central.
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Cost Calculator calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html
Windows Azure
Oracle Cloud Platform
Google Cloud Platform
The total cost of solutions is calculated as the cost of actually consumed computing resources (Compute), storage space, quantity data transmitted over the network (Network). Spent resources are periodically calculated and invoiced. Thus, an idle server is cheap.
Compliance services from different suppliers:
| Google Cloud Platform | Amazon Web Services | Microsoft Azure | Oracle Cloud | Note |
| Google Compute Engine | Amazon EC2 | Azure Virtual Machines | Oracle Cloud Infra OCI | computing power |
| Google App Engine | AWS Elastic Beanstalk | Azure Cloud Services | Oracle Application Container | internet application hosting |
| Google Kubernetes Engine | Amazon EC2 Container Service | Azure Container Service | Oracle kubernetes service | container application hosting |
| Google Cloud Functions | AWS Lambda | Azure functions | Oracle cloud fn | serverless computing |
| Google bigquery | Amazon Redshift | Microsoft Azure SQL Database | Oracle Autonomous DataWarehouse | SQL databases |
| Google Cloud Bigtable, Google Cloud Datastore | Amazon DynamoDB | Azure Cosmos DB | Autonomous NoSQL | NoSQL database |
| Google Cloud Storage | Amazon S3 | Azure Blob Storage | Oracle Cloud Storage OCI | Semi-structured data repositories |
IaaS - Infrastructure as a Service
You rent a server / computing resources. The service provider is guaranteed to work at the server level (electronic server stuffing, Internet, power supply, etc.) / virtualization technologies (see below).
There are three formats for the provision of services:
- Dedicated server - dedicated server. Essentially, renting a separate physical server that only you can use (hence the name is dedicated). It has a relatively high cost, but it guarantees that all computing resources of the server are completely at your disposal. The provider provides full administrative access to the server and your specialist sets it up the way you want.
- Pure IaaS is a virtual data center. The supplier on one or several servers installs special virtualization programs, and then transfers access to the management interface of these programs to you. This approach is very flexible, since you can independently create and configure an arbitrary number of virtual servers for yourself.
- VPS / VDS - virtual private / dedicated server. This is when the provider configured IaaS from item 2 for you and transfers access only to virtual servers whose parameters you cannot change. Important differences here are the virtualization technology used (KVM / XEN / OpenVZ / Hyper-V / VMware), as well as guaranteed performance. VPS / VDSs are low cost, however, due to oversell, they may have low / unstable performance. Productivity at VDS is higher than at VPS with other things being equal. VPS / VDS market is rich and highly competitive, VPS search service
Advantages:
+ “bury” money in the purchase of a server is not always reasonable, because it becomes obsolete with time. Renting a server, you can always change or upgrade it with minimal cost.
+ You can select and manage performance and server settings as you want
+ complete freedom in the implementation of the desired. You can install any operating system programs. Customize and use as desired.
+ low cents, good price / performance ratio
Disadvantages:
- a specialist is needed to set up and maintain software.
- Often there is a binding to specific characteristics of the server / virtualization technology and flexibility is lost a little.
IaaS examples
Approximate prices (for conditionally comparable servers), check on
Hetzner sites
Dedicated servers from 45 € / month (3.4 thousand rubles / month)
Virtual servers from 19 € / month (1.4 thousand rubles / month, with performance, sufficient for a small company)
OVH
dedicated servers from 55 € / month
Virtual servers from 25 € / month
IT-GRAD
Ayhor
Dedicated servers from 4.1 thousand rubles / month
Virtual servers from 2 thousand rubles / month
FirstVDS
Virtual servers from 3 thousand .rub / month
CNews Analytics - IaaS came to the Russian market after SaaS
Additional materials
1. * “1. Keep the server abroad "(c) 9.5 rules for a safe business in Russia
2. TAdviser - Cloud computing
3. Cloud services or what is IaaS? Difference from SaaS and PaaS
4. Around the World instead of mortgage - how millenial choice changes the economy