Cloud technology: advantages of cloud services for SMEs

[jrineakter]

The emergence of cloud services is changing the way companies work for the better. According to Eurostat, 21% of European companies used cloud services in 2016. However, only 18% of Spanish companies used cloud technologies in the same year, below the European average.

These data indicate that in Spain there are still many companies that do not fully see the benefits of the cloud. In this post we explain what cloud services are and what advantages they offer to SMEs.

Do you remember when, to work from home with work files, you either took your laptop home, or you had to save the files on a CD or pendrive to be able to work with them from your personal computer?

Anyone who worked in the mid-nineties will surely remember this. However, this method of working is now a thing of the past since the advent of cloud services.

What are cloud services?
Cloud services, also known as cloud computing , are basically all types of computing services that are offered through a network of interconnected servers. This network is the Internet.

The Internet is made up of a global infrastructure of servers and data centers, which is where information is stored and processed.

Any company or person that stores iceland number data their data, files, photos or any type of archive in the cloud can access that information and work with it at any time, from any place and through any device.

The term cloud first came into use in the mid-1990s, when this network of interconnected computers began to take the form of a cloud. In fact, the first to use the term “ cloud computing ” were engineers from the Compaq company in 1996.

Types of cloud services
There are 3 types of cloud services.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS )
This is the physical infrastructure – hardware – that is needed to provide cloud services. When we talk about IaaS, we are talking about servers, data storage, and network components. These are basically the services that a cloudinfrastructure service provider provides.
Platform as a Service (PaaS ) When contracting a platform as a service , what is contracted is not only the physical infrastructure (IaaS) but also the operating systems. In this way, the company does not have to worry about software maintenance or expanding server capacity when the business grows, but only has to focus on implementing and managing its own applications.
Software as a Service (SaaS )
Software as a serviceis the final product, ready to use. If a company decides to hire a SaaS service, it does not have to worry about anything, it only has to learn how to use the service. Email services such as Gmail or accounting and invoicing software such asHoldedfall within the SaaS category.