International Journal of Innovative Technology and Exploring Engineering (IJITEE) ISSN: 2278-3075, Volume-8, Issue- 9S2, July 2019 386 Published By: Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering & Sciences Publication Retrieval Number: I10830789S219/19©BEIESP DOI : 10.35940/ijitee.I1083.0789S219 Abstract— Cloud computing is constantly evolving with innovations. So, the cloud service providers are investing big in finding solutions for the challenges confronted by the business organizations in the ever-changing technological world. However, still, there is a little reluctance among the organizations to ultimately adopt the public cloud because the mission-critical applications and the mission-critical data require high-level security and availability which are questionable in the equally growing hacking technology. The hacker's comfort zone is Internet, and the Internet is the primary medium for communication between enterprises and cloud service providers. So, the cloud service providers come up with a solution called Direct-Cloud which bypasses the internet and establishes a private connection between the enterprise and cloud service provider. The primary objective of this paper is to familiarize the terminology direct-cloud as it makes a massive move in Cloud Computing. So, this paper presents a study that describes direct-cloud, its architecture, benefits, the comparison between different direct-cloud solutions and the guidelines to choose a suitable direct-cloud solution. Also, the terminologies Multi-Cloud and Connected- Cloud are gaining attention among the enterprises to meet the growing needs of the business. Hence the paper further explores the direct-cloud deployment in the multi-cloud and connected-cloud environment. Index Terms— Direct-Cloud, Multi-Cloud, Connected- Cloud, Private Connection, Cloud Service Provider, Public Cloud, Private Cloud I. INTRODUCTION Cloud computing is a technology that can provide storage, infrastructure, and software applications on demand to the enterprises thereby reduce the cost of application development, infrastructure set up, storage devices and maintenance [27], [37]. The technologies and tools provided by the cloud computing for the parallel applications are inexpensive when compared to traditional parallel computing technologies [27]. The characteristics of cloud computing are reliability, scalability, security, flexibility, mobility, improved performance, increased productivity, reduced cost, on- demand service, and maintenance [18], [27]. Also, Bigdata, Mobile, Systems Management, Back-up, Help Desk, and Security are the fastest areas of growth in Cloud Computing [16]. The enterprises can set up their private cloud, or they can utilize the services from the public cloud. Amazon AWS, IBM Cloud, Oracle Cloud, Google cloud and Revised Manuscript Received on July 18, 2019. Deivanai Gurusamy, College of Informatics, Bule Hora University, Bule Hora, Ethiopia. (E-mail: deivanaiguru@gmail.com) Tucha Kedir Elemo, College of Informatics, Bule Hora University, Bule Hora, Ethiopia. (E-mail: tuchakedir@gmail.com) Microsoft Azure are some of the promising cloud service providers. They contribute to the business world by providing the cloud in various forms like Software as a Service, Platform as a Service and Infrastructure as a Service [12], [27], [43]. Besides these services, the cloud service provides further facilitates the computing world with the services such as Desktop as a Service, Recovery as a Service, Database as a Service, Mobile Back-end as a Service [12]. The businesses understand their customer, and they change their business methods and procedures according to their needs. When growing needs are addressed by cloud computing, it is well received by the enterprises to compete in the global business. The driving factors scalability, agility, and cost are the main reasons for the adoption of cloud computing by the organizations [16]. According to IDG Communications, 73% of IT buyers are using the cloud at least for one application [44]. However, availability and security are significant concerns in cloud computing, and many organizations are still not ready to take their mission-critical applications to the public cloud [1], [2], [12]. As the Internet is the medium for communication between cloud service providers and enterprises, the risks of having Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) is high. This kind of attack is a significant threat to cloud computing technology, and it makes the service unavailable. According to the Cloud Survey conducted in 2018, 77% of people consider security as the major challenge in adopting the cloud [51]. Nevertheless, it is essential to make the mission-critical data and application available all the time. So, the cloud service providers are highly investing in developing the technologies that make the cloud services highly available, secure, and cost-efficient with better performance. One noticeable technology from them is direct-cloud, which helps to optimize business services with enhanced security. This paper presents a study on direct-cloud and related concepts. Also, the paper discusses two more evolutions in cloud computing technology, Multi-Cloud, and Connected-Cloud. These two technologies enable the organizations to get services from more than one service providers and more than one type of cloud. However, connectivity becomes a significant issue, and direct-cloud solution tries to deal with these issues. Direct-Cloud, Multi-Cloud, and Connected- Cloud – Terminologies Make a Move in Cloud Computing Deivanai Gurusamy, Tucha Kedir Elemo