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What Is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is a service that provides IT resources (such as computing power, RAM, disk space) from multiple devices (including servers, arrays, block drives), which are connected via a network.

This extensive, often geographically dispersed, physical infrastructure forms a single entity managed by a control plane. Users communicate with the control plane via a web interface, client command line interface, or application programming interface (API) to create and manage their virtual environments.

In a cloud computing environment, the data and resources of different customers are separated from each other to ensure privacy and security. This is achieved on several levels:

• Virtual environment: Each customer operates in their own isolated virtual environment, as if they were using a separate computer.
• Disk space: Customer data is stored in separate, dedicated disk space, which prevents other users from accessing it.
• Network communication: Each customer‘s network traffic is isolated using advanced techniques that protect data on the internal network. This ensures that information is transmitted independently and securely.

Types of Cloud Computing

Depending on whether resources are shared or kept separate between users, there are two basic types of cloud computing: public cloud and private cloud.

Additionally, there are solutions that combine private and public clouds, such as hybrid cloud and multicloud.

Private cloud resources are dedicated entirely to a single customer and are therefore separated from other customers’ resources both logically and physically.

This is the most secure, albeit expensive, cloud solution, as one organization (the customer) has exclusive use of the entire private cloud architecture, including the management layer (the control plane), dedicated computing nodes, data storage systems, network devices, and connections between all elements.

Advantages of a private cloud:

• Extremely high security thanks to complete resource separation
• Full availability of cloud resources, including networks, for a single organization
• Customization of cloud computing to the customer‘s needs: The customer decides on the characteristics of the physical components of the private cloud and shapes the configuration of cloud resources and services in the cluster.

Unlike a private cloud, a public cloud is used by multiple customers. The virtual resources of various organizations are launched on computing nodes. In unfavorable situations, these organizations must compete for computing resources. All physical components of the public cloud are shared, and customer separation occurs in the cloud cluster‘s logical layer.

The public cloud‘s main advantages are its lower price and immediate resource availability. There is no need to design a solution or create a physical cluster from scratch because physical resources are ready to host new customer virtual resources almost immediately.

Additionally, customers do not have to worry about the efficiency or adequacy of physical resources when using the public cloud. Public cloud providers ensure an adequate buffer of free resources and take appropriate action in the event of an overload or failure of computing nodes or other physical elements of the cloud.

Since the public cloud has to meet the common requirements of many customers, the sizes of virtual machines and types of disk devices are decided by the provider and cannot be changed by customers.

As its name suggests, a hybrid cloud is a combination of the basic types of cloud computing discussed above. In this virtual environment, customers use a combo of private and public cloud infrastructure. These clouds‘ resources are connected in a selected network layer to form a hybrid cloud.

Thanks to its architecture, a hybrid cloud combines the advantages of the two types of clouds:

• The immediate availability of resources, scalability, and lower costs — the advantages of a public cloud
• Higher security, the ability to customize hardware, and the ability to configure cloud services to individual requirements — the advantages of a private cloud.

Additionally, it is possible to connect clouds from different providers using VPN tunnels or special inter-operator connectors. With this solution, we can provide customers with services in the public cloud for testing or during periods of increased demand, as well as services requiring separation in a private cloud.

There are many ways to combine public and private clouds. For instance, to diversify your suppliers, you can use two or more public clouds to create your IT environment. Furthermore, you can create an infrastructure that includes resources from any number of public and private clouds, including those running locally in customer-managed colocation.

These multicloud solutions eliminate dependence on a single provider, provide geographic redundancy, and often reduce IT infrastructure costs.

Atman offers a private cloud computing service and access to two public clouds. As part of the public cloud, we offer two cloud services based on open-source OpenStack technology, as well as a cloud based on VMware technology using Broadcom licenses. We also create hybrid clouds tailored to customer requirements.

Some of the Advantages of Our Cloud Computing Services

• The infrastructure and data are maintained in Atman‘s Warsaw data centers, meaning the data of our cloud service customers has a specific location. These data centers also house disk arrays that are connected in metroclusters and operate in an active-active model. They replicate data in real time, which protects customers against data loss in the event of a failure.
• Unlike hyperscalers, we offer dedicated, customized solutions in the public cloud. For example, we can separate dedicated physical servers that host virtual resources for customers. We can also adapt the hardware platform to customers, including dedicated storage solutions.
• We treat each customer individually and offer top-class support in Polish and English at a standard service price. In the event of questions or technical problems, requests are handled directly by the engineers who created the cloud platform.
• Our Technical Support of Sales team provides comprehensive guidance on selecting suitable services, and our engineering team assists with advanced issues, such as migrating data from other virtualization solutions or physical servers.
• Our OpenStack-based cloud runs entirely on open-source solutions, allowing us to be independent of software vendors and changing licensing conditions. Additionally, our engineers are top-notch specialists with many years of experience working with this technology, allowing us to achieve complete independence in the daily operations and development of this product.

Extensive IT Environments with Cloud Computing

Thanks to Atman‘s comprehensive range of data center and network services, we can create complex, advanced IT environments for our customers.

One simple example is combining a cloud computing environment with (a) object storage to efficiently store large amounts of data and (b) automatic, fully manageable backup.

Atman‘s cloud computing service can also be integrated with:

• Dedicated servers used by the customer in Atman‘s or another provider‘s data center
• The customer‘s servers colocated in Atman‘s or another provider‘s data center
• The customer‘s infrastructure in their server room on-premises
• Another provider‘s cloud computing service

We can provide network connections to ensure stable, efficient, and secure data transmission for integration with environments outside Atman‘s data centers.

This also applies to connections to global cloud computing environments. Atman Cloud Connect facilitates the development of hybrid and multicloud solutions using resources from providers such as Amazon (AWS), Google (GCP), Microsoft (Azure), Oracle, IBM, Salesforce, and Alibaba Cloud in over 150 cloud regions.