1. Article 2: Horizontech.com BASIC INFORMATION ON CLOUD HOSTING Today, cloud hosting is a term which everyone is familiar with. The work practices of people around the world have changed to favour mobility and portability of everything. This has led to the conversion of tangible assets into intangible, like digitization of documents. Nearly every work there is to be done in companies, organizations and other businesses has shifted online. Unless it is some deliverable that has to exist in physical form necessarily, nothing that needs to be carried in person except for a laptop and an Internet connection. This flexibility and mobility has been made possible by cloud hosting providers. Business is being saved through having all the data online and being unfazed upon forgetting storage media at home. Other than storage, cloud solution has brought us the gift of three different types of service models: SaaS, PaaS and IaaS. SaaS stands for Software as a Service. In this service, entire software can be hosted on a cloud, which can be accessed by users through an Internet connection. SaaS applications can be accessed from web browsers, through paid accounts or free depending on the SaaS companies. Very popular examples of SaaS are Facebook, Twitter, etc. which people use every day. PaaS stands for Platform as a Service. This service is for the customers that look for more than just software to meet their needs. Where everything is based on customized requirement, Platform as a Service offers everything from network connection to hardware for the customer to design his own applications. Flexibility is available at each stage of development so that comprehensive but compact software can be developed by the user. Iaas Stands for Infrastructure as a Service. As the name suggests, this service caters to the need of pooling everything at one place, including servers, storage, networking hardware, etc. The facility to develop and install one’s own software is also available in this cloud model. This was just a snapshot of the cloud models available in the market. There are various methods which are used to deploy these models. One is the public cloud, wherein the service provider allows access to computing resources through Internet. This cloud is owned by companies. These companies also operate and manage the cloud. This method does not require purchasing the hardware. Second is the private cloud, where the owner maintains a separate set of infrastructure for their private cloud. The management responsibility may be handled by a third party if company policies allow. This model offers better control over resources. Third type is the hybrid cloud. A third party cloud service provider could be utilized to have access to cloud infrastructure while not owning it, and still avail the benefits it has to offer. To know more about cloud SaaS, visit horizontech.com. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Tony Rogers is an expert in modern computing and related services who likes to write many interesting articles and blogs, helping people to understand the nuances of the industry. He recommends horizontech.com as the best name to trust for the most reliable cloud computing services.