Cloud Computing is steadily gaining strength and any business who wants to be current needs to know what it is and how to use it. There are many research articles available on the subject of cloud computing and it would pay for you to read those you can access in order to learn how it can be incorporated within your business.

It is often speculated that the next phase of growth for the outsourcing industry is in Cloud Computing. Instead of selling applications as products (such as Microsoft Office), clients can now get that application as a service. This way, users will only have to pay for the application that they need and only when they need it. The costs can be kept to a minimum and the service is guaranteed to be updated. Incoming updates are not usually charged to the client - which is a good thing.

To better understand the elements of Cloud Computing, this blog article will look at the 4 different cloud deployment tools that are most commonly used. You can identify which tool will work best for the type of business that you have.

The first is the Public Cloud. This is when cloud services are provided by a third party provider. This situation means the service is limited by the network bandwidths of the Internet. Even though it is termed as being” public”, that does not make it free. There may be some applications and trial period offers that are available free, but the applications and services are usually not as complete and sophisticated compared to a paid service. This type of resource is usually charged on a per-service basis. If you are questioning the security of this deployment tool, providers will usually have mechanisms in place to control and limit the access of the users if needed.

The second deployment tool is called the Private Cloud. It is basically the same as that of the public cloud but this time the services are managed within the organization. It is as flexible as the public cloud but the user has more direct control over security. There is also greater control of the service in general since governance is the direct responsibility of the user. Something that may not be as true with the public version.

The third deployment tool is the Hybrid Cloud. Hybrid meaning a combination of two or more things - in this case, the public and private cloud. This deployment tool is ideal for companies who have critical information that cannot be outsourced to a third party. As such, there can be a division of services where part of the function is outsourced to a public cloud while the more sensitive part is kept in house and managed by a private cloud.

The last deployment tool is known as the Community Cloud. This type of deployment is maintained and managed to service more than one organization. As similar as that may sound to a public cloud, the security and exclusivity makes the difference. The governance may be within the group of organizations or through a third party service provider.