Explain 5 pillers in Cloud computing?

The 5 pillars of cloud computing are:

1. Cost Optimization: Cost optimization is about using cloud resources efficiently to achieve the best value for money. Cloud services provide flexible pricing models, allowing users to pay only for what they use. To optimize costs, cloud users should regularly monitor resource usage, choose the right instance types, utilize spot instances or reserved instances, and employ scaling mechanisms to match resource demand.

2. Reliability: Reliability ensures that cloud services are available and perform consistently as expected. Cloud providers offer redundancy and fault-tolerant infrastructure to minimize downtime. Implementing backup and disaster recovery strategies, distributing resources across multiple Availability Zones, and using auto-scaling to handle traffic fluctuations are essential practices to enhance reliability.

3. Performance Efficiency: Performance efficiency aims to deliver maximum performance with minimal resource utilization. Cloud users should optimize their applications for responsiveness, latency, and throughput. This can involve selecting the appropriate storage types, using content delivery networks (CDNs) to serve content, and leveraging caching mechanisms.

4. Security: Security is of utmost importance in cloud computing, as data and applications are hosted on shared infrastructure. Cloud providers implement robust security measures, but users must also take responsibility for securing their data and applications. This includes using encryption, access controls, identity and access management, and regular security audits.

5. Operational Excellence: Operational excellence focuses on streamlining processes and using best practices to manage cloud resources effectively. Cloud users should automate tasks, adopt DevOps principles, and monitor the performance of their applications and infrastructure. Continuous monitoring and improvement are critical for achieving operational excellence.

1. Cost optimisation

The best way for an organisation to get the most value from its cloud infrastructure is to eliminate unused components and refine suboptimal processes. This begins by knowing exactly what elements have been put in place and how much they cost.

One way to achieve this is to create a way to visualise the infrastructure. The right cloud visualisation solution will work seamlessly with all the tier-one cloud vendors and build an inventory of all components being used. Then, through automation, a diagram can be created that allows the IT team to see all the relationships between resources and make it easier to
identify where to cut costs.

2. Reliability

Once the extent of the cloud resources being used is understood, an organisation should work to ensure they effectively support all workloads and users. A good way to increase reliability in a cloud environment is to set key performance indicators (KPIs) that allows the IT team to both monitor the resources and be alerted if something within the architecture fails.

Using a cloud visualisation platform to filter cloud diagrams and create different visuals of current, optimal and potential cloud infrastructure allows you to compare what is currently happening in the cloud to what should be happening.

3. Operational excellence

Striving for operational excellence means creating an environment where cloud resources constantly function at their best. If the IT team neglects to upgrade products or processes to help the environment function at higher levels, a ceiling limits the level an organisation can ascend to.

It’s important to undertake constant research to see where and how to improve your cloud infrastructure and environment. Then, when changes are needed, it doesn’t have to be via a massive overhaul but rather through continuous, smaller improvements.

4. Performance efficiency

Many factors can impact cloud performance, such as the location of components, latency, load, instance size, and monitoring. If any of these factors become a problem, it’s essential to have procedures in place that result in minimal deficiencies in performance.

For example, it might be wise to have resources in different locations. This means that if one suffers an outage, other resources can continue to be used as normal. If an organisation has a comprehensive and dynamic view of its entire cloud environment, it will better understand where each dependency is and how disruption can be minimised.

5. Security

Each cloud platform and service being used needs to be able to protect the confidentiality and integrity of an organisation’s systems and data. A robust and proactive approach to security will also ensure that an organisation maintains compliance with all government regulations and cloud security standards.

This is another place where cloud visualisation can play a critically valuable role. With real-time visuals, it’s possible to stay on top of cloud security, cloud compliance, and internal best practices by visualising and overlaying security metadata in the context of the overall infrastructure diagram. Such metadata may include instance names, security groups, IP
addresses and more.