Cloud services are services available via a remote cloud computing server rather than an on-site server. These scalable solutions are managed by a third party and provide users with access to computing services such as analytics or networking via the internet.

Cloud services offer powerful benefits for the enterprise, from greater productivity and enhanced efficiency to significant cost reductions and simplified IT management. Enterprise cloud computing can also enable the mobile services that employees increasingly use when accessing corporate data and applications.

Cloud services examples

The benefits of cloud services depend on the industry. Many enterprises may use the cloud in the following applications:

• Managing spikes with scalability

One of the main advantages of cloud services is their scalability, meaning enterprises can increase demand based on business need without adversely affecting performance. This is particularly helpful for enterprises whose usage may experience peaks and troughs.

Online video streaming services, for example, may experience large surges in user volumes, which could place additional strain on servers. By using cloud services, these companies do not have to place this stress on their in-house servers, thereby allowing for expanding customer bases without investing in infrastructure.

• Customer relationship management

Users can remotely manage their customer databases and update records using Software as a Service models. Several users can make changes to records at the same time, while keeping data secure and accessing it easily via a web browser.

• Backup and recovery

Enterprises can save significant costs on building infrastructure and maintenance by moving data storage to the cloud. A third-party cloud service provider is responsible for the data, and also ensures security plus compliance and legal matters. Cloud backup increases flexibility with on-demand backup and larger storage capability. Data can also be restored faster as it is stored over a network rather than in one physical location.

• Big data analytics

Data scientists may access any organization data for analysis using cloud computing. This is essential for making predictions and forecasting potential problems. Cloud solutions allow users to manage large amounts of data remotely with open source dig data tools.

Enterprises may also turn to cloud services for:

• Communication, from email calendars to messenger services and chatbots
• Remotely creating and updating documents such as word processing
• Application development for web and mobile
• Test and development for launching apps
• Social networking, for handling large volumes of data

Benefits of cloud services

Enterprises can reap the benefits of better efficiency with cloud services, which allow for:

• Higher Speeds. An intelligent software like the Akamai Intelligent Platform accelerates cloud services by overcoming problems such as unreliable networks, congestion, inefficient protocols and malicious attacks. Patented algorithms map users to the most optimal servers, shape content for the most efficient delivery and route traffic along the fastest paths.
• Better Security. Akamai cloud security solutions are built with the intelligence gathered from delivering 15 to 30% of the world’s web interactions every day. Our security experts continually analyze data from hundreds of millions of unique IP addresses and our distributed architecture deflects, absorbs and filters malicious requests close to the attack source.
• Flexible Scaling. The scale and capacity of our Intelligent Platform enable cloud services to keep pace with the increasing volume of web traffic, proliferation of devices, complexity of interactions and growth of cyber threats. Our technology for content delivery networks has helped us deliver streaming video for many of the world’s largest live events and to serve peak traffic conditions during heavy shopping seasons.

Many enterprises still struggle with the barriers of complexity, reliability and security when seeking to adopt cloud services. Rapidly evolving technology presents enormous technical challenges. User expectations for the web experience are sky high, even as popular technologies like online video and CDN streaming make it harder than ever to meet those expectations. And new threats that exploit the vulnerabilities of cloud services seem to emerge almost daily. For these reasons, it is important to choose a cloud service that can adapt to these ever-changing conditions.

Enable cloud services with Akamai

For enterprises seeking to take advantage of everything that cloud services have to offer, Akamai provides a leading suite of solutions that simplify, protect and enhance the performance of websites, web applications, media delivery and other cloud-based technologies.

Our solutions are built on the Akamai Intelligent Platform™, the world’s largest cloud-based platform for securely distributing and accelerating web content, enterprise applications and online video. Processing more than two trillion Internet transactions every day, our massively distributed platform provides businesses with significant advantages in terms of performance, cost, reliability and security of cloud services.

Akamai is a global leader in solutions that make the internet and cloud services fast, reliable and secure. Our technology is revolutionizing how businesses optimize consumer, enterprise and entertainment experiences for any device, anywhere in the world.

Learn more about cloud services, and about Akamai solutions for mobile CDN and DDoS protect.