Do not confuse cloud elasticity for scalability. Learn more about how cloud elasticity helps in resolving the issues of resource provisioning.
Ask any business which has adopted a cloud computing framework recently, they are rewarded with several gains that a cloud ecosystem brings. These advantages can range from secondary ones like the ease of access, centralized infrastructure to primary ones like cost efficiency, and no need for physical repairs. All these benefits are useful for projects, but most of them can also be found in other technologies. However, Cloud Computing exclusively holds one card up its sleeve, cloud elasticity.
So what is Cloud elasticity?
It is the dynamic allocation of cloud resources to projects, workflows, and processes. Elasticity in cloud computing is the ability to promptly expand or decrease computer memory, processing, and storage resources to meet fluctuating demands. You can do this without worrying about capacity planning and engineering for peak usage. It essentially revolves around understanding how a cloud provider will provide resources to an enterprise based on the needs of its processes. The cloud users will be given enough power to run their workflows without incurring unnecessary expenditure on any supplied resources they don't need.
Every application needs a specific environment to run. This includes computing power, virtual machines (VMs), and storage space. Now, as the cloud is elastic, users will only be given the need-based assets to run that application. If more VMs are required to run different applications, those instances will be given when implementing the new applications, but not beforehand.
Provisioning flaws
Cloud elasticity helps in resolving the issues of resource overprovisioning and underprovisioning. Providing an end-user with too much or too little computing power has adverse consequences. If an enterprise has too many resources, they'll be paying for unutilized assets which dents their operating or usage expenditures. If they have too few resources to work with, they can't run their processes smoothly. Elastic systems can detect changes in workload and processes in the cloud. Thus, allowing them to automatically correct resource provisioning to adjust for updated user projects and tasks.
Cloud elasticity & scalability
Cloud elasticity is sometimes confused with cloud scalability because these terms are often used interchangeably or talked about in the same sentence.
As explained earlier, with changing workload requirements, cloud elasticity sees the resources allocated at any given point in time adjusted to meet that demand. Cloud elasticity works well in e-commerce and retail, mobile, Dev Ops, and other environments with ever-changing needs of infrastructure services.
Scalability, on the other hand, allows the cloud infrastructure to remain the same while resources are added or removed to meet demand.
It captures the capability of a system, network, or process to handle the increasing workload or its potential to be enlarged to accommodate that growth. There are two types of Cloud Scaling Strategies in play
- The first one is Horizontal Scaling. It aims to appends or removes more nodes to a system, such as adding a new computer to a distributed software application.
- Next is Vertical Scaling, which adds or removes resources to/from a single node in a system, essentially involving the addition of CPUs or memory to a single machine.
Industry Analysis
Cloud elasticity plays an essential role in pay-per-use or pay-as-you-go services as it allows resources to be built out dynamically. It can be a more affordable option for startups as the business does not pay for more infrastructure than it needs to begin. Or, in another scenario, elasticity can prove valuable to an organization that has spiked demand such as an e-retailer handling seasonal sales.
Scalability allows businesses to possess an infrastructure with a certain degree of room to expand built-in from the outset. This lets the organization increase or decrease its workload size using the existing cloud infrastructure without negatively impacting performance.
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