Cloud Computing

The Future for Scale-Out Computing

Authors:
1. Anurag .V 2. Vinay Kumar. K
2/4 B.Tech 2/4 B.Tech
ECE CSE
rag_una@yahoo.com vinay2689@gmail.com
ph:9989097057 ph:9704448465

St. Martin’s Engineering College

Abstract:
Computers have become an indispensable part of life. We need computers everywhere,
be it for work, research or in any such field. As the use of computers in our day-to-day
life increases, the computing resources that we need also go up. For companies like
Google and Microsoft, harnessing the resources as and when they need it is not a
problem. But when it comes to smaller enterprises, affordability becomes a huge factor.
With the huge infrastructure come problems like machines failure, hard drive crashes,
software bugs, etc. This might be a big headache for such a community.
Cloud Computing offers a solution to this situation. Cloud computing is a
paradigm shift in which computing is moved away from personal computers and even the
individual enterprise application server to a ‘cloud’ of computers. A cloud is a virtualized
server pool which can provide the different computing resources of their clients. Users of
this system need only be concerned with the computing service being asked for. The
underlying details of how it is achieved are hidden from the user. The data and the
services provided reside in massively scalable data centers and can be ubiquitously
accessed from any connected device all over the world. Cloud computing is the style of
computing where massively scaled IT related capabilities are provided as a service across
the internet to multiple external customers and are billed by consumption. Many cloud
computing providers have popped up and there is a considerable growth in the usage of
this service. Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, IBM and Amazon have started providing cloud
computing services. Amazon is the pioneer in this field. Smaller companies like
SmugMug, which is an online photo hosting site, has used cloud services for the storing
all the data and doing some of its services. Cloud Computing is finding use in various
areas like web hosting, parallel batch processing, graphics rendering, financial modeling,
web crawling, genomics analysis, etc.
Introduction:
Cloud computing is a term used
to describe both a platform and type of
application. A cloud Computing
platform dynamically provisions,
configures, reconfigures, and
deprovisions servers as needed. Servers
in the cloud can be physical machines or
virtual machines. Advanced clouds
typically include other computing
resources such as storage area networks
(SANs), network equipment, firewall
and other security devices. Cloud
computing also describes applications
that are extended to be accessible
through the Internet. These cloud
applications use large data centers and
powerful servers that host Web
applications and Web services. Anyone
with a suitable Internet connection and a
standard browser can access a cloud
application.
What is a cloud?
A cloud is a pool of virtualized
computer resources. A cloud can:
Host a variety of different
workloads, including batch-style
back-end jobs and interactive,
user-facing applications
Allow workloads to be deployed
and scaled-out quickly through
the rapid provisioning of virtual
machines or physical machines
Support redundant, self-
recovering, highly scalable
programming models that allow
workloads to recover from many
unavoidable hardware/software
failures
Monitor resource use in real time
to enable rebalancing of
allocations when needed
Cloud computing environments
support grid computing by quickly
providing physical and virtual Servers
on which the grid applications can run.
Cloud computing should not be confused
with grid computing. Grid computing
involves dividing a large task into many
smaller tasks that run in parallel on
separate servers. Grids require many
computers, typically in the thousands,
and commonly use servers, desktops,
and laptops.
Clouds also support non-grid
environments, such as a three-tier Web
architecture running standard or Web 2.0
applications. A cloud is more than a
collection of computer resources because
a cloud provides a mechanism to manage
those resources. Management includes
provisioning, change requests, re-
imaging, workload rebalancing,
deprovisioning, and monitoring.
Benefits:
Cloud computing infrastructures
can allow enterprises to achieve more
efficient use of their IT hardware and
software investments. They do this by
breaking down the physical barriers
inherent in isolated systems, and
automating the management of the group
of systems as a single entity. Cloud
computing is an example of an
ultimately virtualized system, and a
natural evolution for data centers that
employ automated systems management,
workload balancing, and virtualization
technologies.
A cloud infrastructure can be a
cost efficient model for delivering
information services, reducing IT
management complexity, promoting
innovation, and increasing
responsiveness through real-time
workload balancing.
The Cloud makes it possible to
launch Web 2.0 applications quickly and
to scale up applications as much as
needed when needed. The platform
supports traditional Java™ and Linux,
Apache, MySQL, PHP (LAMP) stack-
based applications as well as new
architectures such as Map-Reduce and
the Google File System, which provide a
means to scale applications across
thousands of servers instantly.
Large amounts of computer
resource, in the form of Xen virtual
machines, can be provisioned and made
available for new applications within
minutes instead of days or weeks.
Developers can gain access to these
resources through a portal and put them
to use immediately. Several products are
available that provide virtual machine
capabilities, including proprietary ones
such as VMware, and open source
alternatives, such as XEN.
Working Of Cloud computing:
Cloud computing is Internet
based ("cloud") development and use of
computer technology ("computing").The
cloud is a metaphor for the Internet,
based on how it is depicted in computer
network diagrams, and is an abstraction
for the complex infrastructure it conceals
It is a style of computing in which IT
related capabilities are provided “as a
service”, allowing users to access
technology-enabled services from the
Internet ("in the cloud") without
knowledge of, expertise with, or control
over the technology infrastructure that
supports them Computing at the scale of
the cloud allows users to access
supercomputer-level power.
The trend of cloud computing
was compared to the development of
electricity Network a century ago. But in
time companies stopped producing own
electricity and instead plugged in to
national power grids.
How does cloud computing
work? The concept is fairly simple. First,
consider the traditional means of running
large applications (eg. ILSes): an
application appears to run on a dumb
terminal or, more likely these days, your
PC. In actuality, this is only the “front-
end” of the application .Your computer
is connected to a server that actually
runs the program and returns
information to your Personal Computer.
The server constitutes the “back-end”.
The dedicated server may be located in
the same building as you are or not. If
your library shares a catalog and other
components of an ILS with other
libraries in a system or other consortium
the server will probably be located at
your system’s headquarters or the
resource library.
Once desktop is connected via
the Internet to a server farm, a collection
of remote servers that runs many, many
applications at once. Which server or
servers an application runs on is
determined by the programs already
running on the machines-there is an
attempt to balance the load so that al of
the programs run optimally.
Enterprises strive to reduce
computing costs. Many start by
consolidating their IT operations and
later introducing virtualization
technologies. Cloud computing takes
these steps to a new level and allows an
organization to further reduce costs
through improved utilization, reduced
administration and infrastructure costs,
and faster deployment cycles.
The cloud is a next generation
platform that provides dynamic resource
pools, virtualization, and high
availability. There are a number of
companies that offer cloud computing
server farms. There are many startups
and established Internet services
companies that rent space and time on
these servers. Startups (and others) love
the low prices because they enable them
to set up a web presence without buying
or renting any of their own servers. They
only pay for the computing power they
need, Amazon offers something called
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
.EC2 allows users To purchase elastic
computing processing Power online.
Advantages of EC2:
Elastic: allows users to increase or
decrease hardware requirements within
minutes.
Flexible: users can choose a Dedicated server:
specification of each individual instance
of computing power purchased.
Inexpensive: not much capital is
required.
Reliable: because it uses Amazon data
centers and servers. So far, some
400,000 developers use EC2, with
10,000 more signing up monthly.
Google App. Engine:
Google recently weighed in with
its own cloud computing offering,
Google App. Engine. A big attraction of
the App Engine is that it’s free, within
some quite broad limits: “every Google
App Engine application can use up to
500MB of persistent storage and enough
bandwidth and CPU for 5 million
monthly page views” It is not as flexible
as EC2 because it currently will run only
applications written in a language called
python, but support for other languages
is promised. App Engine permits
developers to learn web applications
hardware requirements within minutes.
Clouds Vs Virtualization:
Cloud Computing and
Virtualization are the next hot hosting
platforms. It is important to keep in mind
that the term “Virtualization” can apply
to many things, not simply hosting, in
fact, Virtualization within the hosting
environment is comparable to Cloud
Computing. Virtualization has existed
for some time, but mainly within a host’s
computer (e.g., a desktop). But as
Parallels, VMWare, Xen and even
Microsoft’s Hyper-V gain momentum as
virtualized servers within a hosted
environment, this term will continue to
grow.
The Dedicated server term is
slowly starting to lose ground vs.
Virtualization and Cloud Computing, but
it is fairly obvious that it is still a term
that people know and look for. There are
always developers or companies who
will ONLY go with a dedicated server
for one reason or another. I predict,
though, that as they start getting on the
virtualization and cloud bandwagons,
that this term will continue to erode.
Another term “VPS” (Virtual Private
Server) is fairly common among hosting
solutions but differs from Virtualization
in many ways. With a VPS, you share
resources with the other clients on a
particular server, whereas Virtualized
servers (like Go Grid which is built on
top of Xen) dedicate RAM and CPU
usage to the predefined server instances
running on a particular node. To again
put it all into perspective, see the chart
below. VPS is one of the terms that seem
to be remaining steady as a searched
term. This is most likely due to the fact
that most of the main-stream hosting
providers offer VPS hosting as their
“bread & butter.”
 In general, these terms all seem
to be converging, which means only one
thing, confusion and clutter within the
marketplace. With so many options now
available, potential server customers are
presented with even more choices, and
these choices frequently can’t be directly
compared. One can look at RAM
allocation, Hard Drive sizes and CPU
speeds as sort of a rudimentary measure,
but that is where the simple comparisons
end. Now one is forced to choose
between scalability options, server and
data persistence, operating system
images, peripherals (like fire walling and
load-balancing), data storage, clone-
ability…the list goes on. Attempts are
being made to standardize these
comparisons with check-lists, but since
the market is so new and mutating with
new entrants and updated feature sets,
the IT Professional may be challenged
when making decisions.
Grid computing has been used in
environments where users make few but
large allocation requests. For example, a
lab may have a 1000 node cluster and
users make allocations for all 1000, or
500, or 200, etc. So only a few of these
allocations can be serviced at a time and
others need to be scheduled for when
resources are released. This results in
sophisticated batch job scheduling
algorithms of parallel computations.
Cloud computing really is about
lots of small allocation requests. The
Amazon EC2 accounts are limited to 20
servers each by default and lots and lots
of users allocate up to 20 servers out of
the pool of many thousands of servers at
Amazon. The allocations are real-time
and in fact there is no provision for
queuing allocations until someone else
releases resources. This is a completely
different resource allocation paradigm, a
completely different usage pattern, and
all this results in completely different
method of using compute resources.
Cloud Computing Architecture:
When talking about a cloud
computing system, it's helpful to divide
it into two sections: the front end and
the back end. They connect to each other
through a network, usually the Internet.
The front end is the side the computer
user, or client, sees. The back end is the
"cloud" section of the system.
The front end includes the
client's computer (or computer network)
and the application required to access the
cloud computing system. Not all cloud
computing systems have the same user
interface. Services like Web-based e-
mail programs leverage existing Web
browsers like Internet Explorer or
Firefox. Other systems have unique
applications that provide network access
to clients.
On the back end of the system
are the various computers, servers and
data storage systems that create the
"cloud" of computing services. In
theory, a cloud computing system could
include practically any computer
program you can imagine, from data
processing to video games. Usually,
each application will have its own
dedicated server.
A central server administers the
system, monitoring traffic and client
demands to ensure everything runs
smoothly. It follows a set of rules called
protocols and uses a special kind of
software called middleware. Middleware
allows networked computers to
communicate with each other.
If a cloud computing company
has a lot of clients, there's likely to be a
high demand for a lot of storage space.
Some companies require hundreds of
digital storage devices. Cloud computing
systems need at least twice the number
of storage devices it requires to keep all
its clients' information stored. That's
because these devices, like all
computers, occasionally break down. A
cloud computing system must make a
copy of all its clients' information and
store it on other devices. The copies
enable the central server to access
backup machines to retrieve data that
otherwise would be unreachable.
Making copies of data as a backup is
called redundancy.
Grids, Clouds and Utilities:
Cloud computing is closely related to
grid computing and utility computing. In a
grid computing system, networked
computers are able to access and use the
resources of every other computer on the
network. In cloud computing systems, that
usually only applies to the back end. Utility
computing is a business model where one
company pays another company for access
to computer applications or data storage.
Applications:
The applications of cloud
computing are practically limitless. With
the right middleware, a cloud computing
system could execute all the programs a
normal computer could run. Potentially,
everything from generic word processing
software to customized computer
programs designed for a specific
company could work on a cloud
computing system.
Why would anyone want to rely on
another computer system to run
programs and store data? Here are just a
few reasons:
• Clients would be able to access
their applications and data from
anywhere at any time. They
could access the cloud computing
system using any computer
linked to the Internet. Data
wouldn't be confined to a hard
drive on one user's computer or
even a corporation's internal
network.
• It could bring hardware costs
down. Cloud computing systems
would reduce the need for
advanced hardware on the client
side. You wouldn't need to buy
the fastest computer with the
most memory, because the cloud
system would take care of those
needs for you. Instead, you could
buy an inexpensive computer
terminal. The terminal could
include a monitor, input devices
like a keyboard and mouse and
just enough processing power to
run the middleware necessary to
connect to the cloud system. You
wouldn't need a large hard drive
because you'd store all your
information on a remote
computer.
• Corporations that rely on
computers have to make sure
they have the right software in
place to achieve goals. Cloud
computing systems give these
organizations company-wide
access to computer applications.
The companies don't have to buy
a set of software or software
licenses for every employee.
Instead, the company could pay a
metered fee to a cloud computing
company.
• Servers and digital storage
devices take up space. Some
companies rent physical space to
store servers and databases
because they don't have it
 available on site. Cloud
computing gives these companies
the option of storing data on
someone else's hardware,
removing the need for physical
space on the front end.
• Corporations might save money
on IT support. Streamlined
hardware would, in theory, have
fewer problems than a network
of heterogeneous machines and
operating systems.
• If the cloud computing system's
back end is a grid computing
system, then the client could take
advantage of the entire network's
processing power. Often,
scientists and researchers work
with calculations so complex that
it would take years for individual
computers to complete them. On
a grid computing system, the
client could send the calculation
to the cloud for processing. The
cloud system would tap into the
processing power of all available
computers on the back end,
significantly speeding up the
calculation.
Role of OPEN SOURCE in Cloud
computing:
Open source solutions played an
important role in the development of the
cloud. In particular, a Couple of projects
have been foundations for common
cloud services such as virtualization and
parallel processing. Xen is an open-
source virtual machine implementation
that allows physical machines to host
multiple copies of operating systems.
Linux operating languages offer
improved native support over alternative
platforms and increased reliability
through their evolved stability. Users
that opt for a Linux platform also benefit
from the availability of LAMP Stack
software. LAMP (Linux, Apache,
MySQL, PHP) is a’ solution stack’.
Hadoop, now under the Apache license,
is an open-source framework for running
large data processing applications on a
cluster. Using Hadoop, the cloud can
execute parallel applications on a
massive data set in a reasonable amount
of time. Furthermore, open source cloud
computing applications can utilize Ajax
(asynchronous JavaScript and XML) it
packages data in a way that maximizes
bandwidth efficiency. This is a key
attractiveness because cloud computing
involves a lot of data being passed back
and forth and low bandwidth.
Cloud Computing Concerns:
Perhaps the biggest concerns
about cloud computing are security and
privacy. The idea of handing over
important data to another company
worries some people. Corporate
executives might hesitate to take
advantage of a cloud computing system
because they can't keep their company's
information under lock and key.
Private Eyes are Watching You
There are a few standard hacker
tricks that could cause cloud computing
companies major headaches. One of
those is called key logging. A key
logging program records keystrokes. If a
hacker manages successfully to load a
key logging program on a victim's
computer, he or she can study the
keystrokes to discover user names and
passwords. Of course, if the user's
computer is just a streamlined terminal,
it might be impossible to install the
program in the first place.
The counterargument to this
position is that the companies offering
cloud computing services live and die by
their reputations. It benefits these
companies to have reliable security what an individual can achieve from
measures in place. Otherwise, the their own PC. It can connect work
service would lose all its clients. It's in colleagues as if they were in the same
their interest to employ the most office even when they are on opposite
advanced techniques to protect their sides of the world ultimately, it can
clients' data. deliver the flexibility to enable
enterprises to prosper and to empower
Privacy is another matter. If a individuals.
client can log in from any location to
access data and applications, it's possible
the client's privacy could be
compromised. Cloud computing
BIBILOGRAPHY:
companies will need to find ways to
1) ”The Big Switch” by Nicholas
protect client privacy. One way is to use
Carr.
authentication techniques such as user
2) Future Computing in Digit
names and passwords. Another is to
Magazine.
employ an authorization format -- each
3) Technology Review---
user can access only the data and
Magazine-Sep’08.
applications relevant to his or her job..
4) An Article on “Elastic Compute
Cloud (Amazon EC2)” in
CONCLUSION: http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/.
Cloud computing infrastructures 5) An article on” An A to Z of
are next generation platforms that can Cloud Computing” in
provide tremendous value to companies http://cloudcomputing.sys-
of any size. They can help companies con.com/node/650442.
achieve more efficient use of their IT 6) “The Future in the cloud” in
hardware and software investments and CHIP Feb’09 Magazine.
provide a means to accelerate the
adoption of innovations. Cloud
computing increases profitability by
improving resource utilization. Costs are
driven down by delivering appropriate
resources only for the time those
resources are needed. Cloud computing
has enabled teams an organizations to
streamline lengthy procurement
processes. Cloud computing enables
innovation by alleviating the need of
innovators to find resources to develop,
test, and make their innovations
available to the user community.
Innovators are free to focus on the
innovation rather than the logistics of
finding and managing resources that
enable the Innovation. By tapping into a
much more powerful central processor,
cloud computing dramatically increases
the scope for future IT applications and