Introduction

"Cloud Computing," to put it simply, means "Internet Computing." The Internet is commonly
visualized as clouds; hence the term “cloud computing” for computation done through the Internet.
With Cloud Computing users can access database resources via the Internet from anywhere, for as
long as they need, without worrying about any maintenance or management of actual resources.
Besides, databases in cloud are very dynamic and scalable.
The term cloud computing probably comes from (at least partly) the use of a cloud image to
represent the Internet or some large networked environment. We don’t care much what’s in the cloud
or what goes on there except that we depend on reliably sending data to and receiving data from it.
Cloud computing is now associated with a higher level abstraction of the cloud. Instead of there
being data pipes, routers and servers, there are now services. The underlying hardware and software
of networking is of course still there but there are now higher level service capabilities available used
to build applications. Behind the services are data and compute resources. A user of the service
doesn’t necessarily care about how it is implemented, what technologies are used or how it’s
managed. Only that there is access to it and has a level of reliability necessary to meet the application
requirements.
Cloud computing is unlike grid computing, utility computing, or autonomic computing. In fact, it is a
very independent platform in terms of computing. The best example of cloud computing is Google
Apps where any application can be accessed using a browser and it can be deployed on thousands of
computer through the Internet.
Let's say you're an executive at a large corporation. Your particular responsibilities include making
sure that all of your employees have the right hardware and software they need to do their jobs.
Buying computers for everyone isn't enough -- you also have to purchase software or software
licenses to give employees the tools they require. Whenever you have a new hire, you have to buy
more software or make sure your current software license allows another user. It's so stressful that
you find it difficult to go to sleep on your huge pile of money every night.
Soon, there may be an alternative for executives like you. Instead of installing a suite of software for
each computer, you'd only have to load one application. That application would allow workers to log
into a Web-based service which hosts all the programs the user would need for his or her job.
Remote machines owned by another company would run everything from e-mail to word processing
to complex data analysis programs. It's called cloud computing, and it could change the entire
computer industry. In a cloud computing system, there's a significant workload shift. Local
computers no longer have to do all the heavy lifting when it comes to running applications. The

1
network of computers that make up the cloud handles them instead. Hardware and software demands
on the user's side decrease. The only thing the user's computer needs to be able to run is the cloud
computing system's interface software, which can be as simple as a Web browser, and the cloud's
network takes care of the rest. If you have an e-mail account with a Web-based e-mail service like
Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail or Gmail, then you've had some experience with cloud computing. Instead of
running an e-mail program on your computer, you log in to a Web e-mail account remotely. The
software and storage for your account doesn't exist on your computer -- it's on the service's computer
cloud.

History

The underlying concept of cloud computing dates back to the 1960s, when John McCarthy opined
that "computation may someday be organized as a public utility." The actual term "cloud" borrows
from telephony in that telecommunications companies, who until the 1990s primarily offered
dedicated point-to-point data circuits, began offering Virtual Private Network (VPN) services with
comparable quality of service but at a much lower cost. By switching traffic to balance utilization as
they saw fit, they were able to utilize their overall network bandwidth more effectively. The cloud
symbol was used to denote the demarcation point between that which was the responsibility of the
provider from that of the user. Cloud computing extends this boundary to cover servers as well as the
network infrastructure. The first scholarly use of the term “cloud computing” was in a 1997 lecture
by Ramnath Chellappa.
Amazon played a key role in the development of cloud computing by modernizing their data centers
after the dot-com bubble, which, like most computer networks, were using as little as 10% of their
capacity at any one time, just to leave room for occasional spikes. Having found that the new cloud
architecture resulted in significant internal efficiency improvements whereby small, fast-moving
"two-pizza teams" could add new features faster and more easily, Amazon initiated a new product
development effort to provide cloud computing to external customers, and launched Amazon Web
Service (AWS) on a utility computing basis in 2006. n 2007, Google, IBM and a number of
universities embarked on a large scale cloud computing research project. In early 2008, Eucalyptus
became the first open source AWS API compatible platform for deploying private clouds. In early
2008, Open Nebula, enhanced in the RESERVOIR European Commission funded project, became
the first open source software for deploying private and hybrid clouds and for the federation of
clouds. By mid-2008, Gartner saw an opportunity for cloud computing "to shape the relationship
among consumers of IT services, those who use IT services and those who sell them" and observed

2
that "organizations are switching from company-owned hardware and software assets to per-use
service-based models" so that the "projected shift to cloud computing will result in dramatic growth
in IT products in some areas and significant reductions in other areas."

What is Cloud Computing?

Many people are confused as to exactly what cloud computing is, especially as the term can be used
to mean almost anything. Roughly, it describes highly scalable computing resources provided as an
external service via the internet on a pay-as-you-go basis. The cloud is simply a metaphor for the
internet, based on the symbol used to represent the worldwide network in computer network
diagrams. Economically, the main appeal of cloud computing is that customers only use what they
need, and only pay for what they actually use. Resources are available to be accessed from the cloud
at any time, and from any location via the internet. There’s no need to worry about how things are
being maintained behind the scenes – you simply purchase the IT service you require as you would
any other utility. Because of this, cloud computing has also been called utility computing, or ‘IT on
demand’. This new, web-based generation of computing utilizes remote servers housed in highly
secure data centers for data storage and management, so organizations no longer need to purchase
and look after their IT solutions in house.
In essence this is distributed computing. An application is built using the resource from multiple
services potentially from multiple locations. At this point, typically you still need to know the
endpoint to access the services rather than having the cloud provide you available resources. This is
also known as Software as a Service. Behind the service interface is usually a grid of computers to
provide the resources. The grid is typically hosted by one company and consists of a homogeneous
environment of hardware and software making it easier to support and maintain. Once you start
paying for the services and the resources utilized, well that’s utility computing.
Cloud computing really is accessing resources and services needed to perform functions with
dynamically changing needs. An application or service developer requests access from the cloud
rather than a specific endpoint or named resource. What goes on in the cloud manages multiple
infrastructures across multiple organizations and consists of one or more frameworks overlaid on top
of the infrastructures tying them together. Frameworks provide mechanisms for:
• self-healing
• self monitoring
• resource registration and discovery
• service level agreement definitions

3
Cloud Computing can be visualized as a pyramid consisting of three sections:
• Cloud Application
• Cloud Platform
• Cloud Infrastructure

Cloud Application
This is the apex of the cloud pyramid, where applications are run and interacted with via a web
browser, hosted desktop or remote client. A hallmark of commercial cloud computing applications is
that users never need to purchase expensive software licenses themselves. Instead, the cost is
incorporated into the subscription fee. A cloud application eliminates the need to install and run the
application on the customer's own computer, thus removing the burden of software maintenance,
ongoing operation and support.
Cloud Platform
The middle layer of the cloud pyramid, which provides a computing platform or framework as a
service. A cloud computing platform dynamically provisions, configures, reconfigures and de-
provisions servers as needed to cope with increases or decreases in demand. This in reality is a
distributed computing model, where many services pull together to deliver an application or
infrastructure request.
Cloud Infrastructure
The foundation of the cloud pyramid is the delivery of IT infrastructure through virtualization.
Virtualization allows the splitting of a single physical piece of hardware into independent, self
governed environments, which can be scaled in terms of CPU, RAM, Disk and other elements. The
infrastructure includes servers, networks and other hardware appliances delivered as Infrastructure
“Web Services”, “farms” or "cloud centers". These are then interlinked with others for resilience and
additional capacity.

4
Architecture

The two most significant components of cloud computing architecture are known
• Front End
• Back End
The front end is the part seen by the client, i.e. the computer user. This includes the client’s network
(or computer) and the applications used to access the cloud via a user interface such as a web
browser. The back end of the cloud computing architecture is the ‘cloud’ itself, comprising various
computers, servers and data storage devices.
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. 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.

5
Types
There are basically three types of cloud computing:
• Public Cloud
Public cloud (also referred to as ‘external’ cloud) describes the conventional meaning of cloud
computing: scalable, dynamically provisioned, often virtualized resources available over the
Internet from an off-site third-party provider, which divides up resources and bills its customers
on a ‘utility’ basis. An example is Think Grid, a company that provides a multi-tenant
architecture for supplying services such as Hosted Desktops, Software as a Service and Platform
as a Service. Other popular cloud vendors include Salesforce.com, Amazon EC2 and Flexi scale.

• Private Cloud
Private cloud (also referred to as ‘corporate’ or ‘internal’ cloud) is a term used to denote a
proprietary computing architecture providing hosted services on private networks. This type of
cloud computing is generally used by large companies, and allows their corporate network and
data centre administrators to effectively become in-house ‘service providers’ catering to
‘customers’ within the corporation. However, it negates many of the benefits of cloud computing,
as organizations still need to purchase, set up and manage their own clouds.

6
• Hybrid Cloud
It has been suggested that a hybrid cloud environment combining resources from both internal and
external providers will become the most popular choice for enterprises. For example, a company
could choose to use a public cloud service for general computing, but store its business-critical data
within its own data centre. This may be because larger organizations are likely to have already
invested heavily in the infrastructure required to provide resources in-house – or they may be
concerned about the security of public clouds.

Services Provided

1. Saas
Software as a service (SaaS typically pronounced sometimes referred to as "software on
demand," is software that is deployed over the internet and/or is deployed to run behind a firewall
on a local area network or personal computer. With SaaS, a provider licenses an application to
customers either as a service on demand, through a subscription, in a "pay-as-you-go" model, or
(increasingly) at no charge when there is opportunity to generate revenue from streams other than
the user, such as from advertisement or user list sales. This approach to application delivery is
part of the utility computing model where all of the technology is in the "cloud" accessed over
the Internet as a service.
Advantages
• Accessible from anywhere with an internet connection
• No local server installation
• Pay per use or subscription based payment methods
• Rapid scalability
• System maintenance (backup, updates, security, etc) often included in service

7
• Possible security improvements, although users with high security requirements (e.g., large
corporations) may find Saas a security concern
• Reliability

2. Paas
Platform as a Service (Paas) is the delivery of a computing platform and solution stack as a
service. Paas offerings facilitate deployment of applications without the cost and complexity of
buying and managing the underlying hardware and software and provisioning hosting
capabilities, providing all of the facilities required to support the complete life cycle of building
and delivering web applications and services entirely available from the Internet. Paas offerings
may include facilities for application design, application development, testing, deployment and
hosting as well as application services such as team collaboration, web service integration and
marshalling, database integration, security, scalability, storage, persistence, state management,
application versioning, application instrumentation and developer community facilitation. These
services may be provisioned as an integrated solution over the web. Prime examples include
Salesforce.com's Force.com, Coghead and the new Google App Engine. For extremely
lightweight development, cloud-based mashup platforms abound, such as Yahoo Pipes or
Dapper.net.
Advantages
• PaaS offerings typically provide some level of support to ease the creation of user
interfaces, either based on standards such as HTML and JavaScript or other Rich Internet
Application technologies like Adobe Flex, Flash and AIR.
• The ability to form and share code with ad-hoc or pre-defined or distributed teams
greatly enhance the productivity of PaaS offerings.
• Integration with web services and databases.

8
 • PaaS offerings provide developers insight into the inner workings of their
applications, and the behavior of their users.

3. Iaas
The foundation of any cloud computing stack begins with its infrastructure. Infrastructure as a
service (IaaS) cloud computing is the delivery of computing on demand as a shared service,
avoiding the cost of investing in, operating and maintaining the hardware. In order to be fully
functional, the infrastructure must be reliable and flexible to allow easy implementation and
operation of applications running within the cloud. Other characteristics of infrastructure as a
service include:
Advantages
• Infrastructure as a service offered in a cloud computing environment allows
developers to entirely control the provisioning, configuration and deployment of virtual
machines. The IaaS cloud’s is used for everything from building and validating new
applications to operating production environments that require scalability
• Expedient’s IaaS cloud computing enables our customers to run their workloads on
our infrastructure rather than their own. This is a great advantage to many organizations
because it helps drive down IT costs and increase efficiencies of the organization. For IT
developers, the real value of IaaS cloud computing comes to light with increased
developer productivity and improved time-to-market of services.
• Expedient offers IaaS cloud computing services to help your organization run more
cost effectively and efficiently.
• Expedient offers managed services including dedicated cloud computing, colocation
and storage area network management. Our cloud computing services provide you with a

9
 quick and affordable way to provision servers. With our dedicated cloud computing
solutions, your data is accessible, secure and monitored at all times.

Companies using Cloud Computing

10
Pros and Cons of Cloud Computing
Cloud Computing focuses on providing access for users to services, applications or storage without
actually having to reveal any of the underlying technology and science behind how the elements are
made to work. There are numerous pros and cons for the use of Cloud Computing, with different
pros and cons applying to different applications and usages. Cloud computing is not for everyone, so
understanding the pros and cons is important in determining how it can impact your business.

Pros of Cloud Computing

• Removal / reduction of capital expenditure

Customers can avoid spending large amounts of capital on purchasing and installing their IT
infrastructure or applications by moving to the cloud model. Capital expenditure on IT reduces
available working capital for other critical operations and business investments. Cloud computing
offers a simple operational expense that is easier to budget for month-by-month, and prevents
money being wasted on depreciating assets. Additionally, customers do not need to pay for
excess resource capacity in-house to meet fluctuating demand.
• Reduced administration costs
IT solutions can be deployed extremely quickly and managed, maintained, patched and upgraded
remotely by your service provider. Technical support is provided round the clock by reputable
providers like ThinkGrid for no extra charge, reducing the burden on IT staff. This means that
they are free to focus on business-critical tasks, and businesses can avoid incurring additional
manpower and training costs. IT giant IBM has pointed out that cloud computing allows
organizations to streamline procurement processes, and eliminates the need to duplicate certain
computer administrative skills related to setup, configuration, and support.
• Improved resource utilization
Combining resources into large clouds reduces costs and maximizes utilization by delivering
resources only when they are needed. Businesses needn’t worry about over-provisioning for a
service whose use does not meet their predictions, or under-provisioning for one that becomes
unexpectedly popular. Moving more and more applications, infrastructure, and even support into
the cloud can free up precious time, effort and budgets to concentrate on the real job of exploiting
technology to improve the mission of the company. It really comes down to making better use of
your time – focusing on your business and allowing cloud providers to manage the resources to
get you to where you need to go. Sharing computing power among multiple tenants can improve
utilization rates, as servers are not left idle, which can reduce costs significantly while increasing

11
 the speed of application development. A side effect of this approach is that computer capacity
rises dramatically, as customers do not have to engineer for peak loads.
• Scalability on demand
Scalability and flexibility are highly valuable advantages offered by cloud computing, allowing
customers to react quickly to changing IT needs, adding or subtracting capacity and users as and
when required and responding to real rather than projected requirements. Even better, because
cloud-computing follows a utility model in which service costs are based on actual consumption,
you only pay for what you use. Customers benefit from greater elasticity of resources, without
paying a premium for large scale.
• Quick and easy implementation
Without the need to purchase hardware, software licenses or implementation services, a company
can get its cloud-computing arrangement off the ground in minutes.
• Anywhere Access
Cloud-based IT services let you access your applications and data securely from any location via
an internet connection. It’s easier to collaborate too; with both the application and the data stored
in the cloud, multiple users can work together on the same project, share calendars and contacts
etc. It has been pointed out that if your internet connection fails, you will not be able to access
your data. However, due to the ‘anywhere access’ nature of the cloud, users can simply connect
from a different location – so if your office connection fails and you have no redundancy, you
can access your data from home or the nearest Wi-Fi enabled point. Because of this, flexible /
remote working is easily enabled, allowing you to cut overheads, meet new working regulations
and keep your staff happy!

12
Cons of Cloud Computing

• Lock-In
Many of the currently emerging platforms for cloud computing are proprietary in nature, and
what this means is that interoperability and portability are both going to be issues for many
businesses. I believe the next big talk will be not about cloud computing but about how to
connect different clouds without any hassle or they are already connected for the customers, and
the customer will have a choice to switch between any cloud computing vendor.
• Security Issues
While in some situations security is improved in cloud computing over other similar
technologies, this is not always the case. There are concerns regarding loss of control over data
that is sensitive, as well as concern over the lack of security over stored kernels. While security is
being improved overtime, leaking out confidential data and information through the cloud
computing system can cause great loss and risks to the company. Thus, security issues is another
major demerit of cloud computing.
• Budget
When the cloud computing system goes down, business managers can find themselves feeling
completely helpless because they suddenly have no visibility of the infrastructure. Cloud
computing can provide somewhat of a feeling of lack of control, where business owners find
themselves having to rely on someone much higher up to find and rectify the issue.
• Reliability
While cloud computing may be suitable for disaster recovery and business continuity, some
major cloud computing services have experienced outages, and sometimes little can be done
when businesses are affected.
• Disaster
Another risk is the possibility that the information won't be readily available due to disasters or
even because there could be confusion about the whereabouts of certain information.

13
Future

Technology experts and stakeholders say they expect they will ‘live mostly in the cloud’ in 2020 and
not on the desktop, working mostly through cyberspace-based applications accessed through
networked devices. This will substantially advance mobile connectivity through Smartphone’s and
other internet appliances. Many say there will be a cloud-desktop hybrid. Still, cloud computing has
many difficult hurdles to overcome, including concerns tied to the availability of broadband
spectrum, the ability of diverse systems to work together, security, privacy, and quality of service.

Conclusion

When your business grows, your IT needs grow too. The scalability and speed of deployment offered
by cloud computing means you can expand your IT provision instantly to meet increased
requirements, and you can also scale it down again whenever you want. Security is typically greatly
enhanced, along with resilience, and the flexibility and responsiveness of cloud-based IT services
mean that you can react quickly to a changing business environment. Waste (of both time and
resources) is reduced, allowing you to effectively do more with less. This provides you a leaner,
more efficient IT model, available on demand.

14
References

• www.cloudcomputing.com
• www.infoworld.com
• www.howstuffworks.com
• www.slideshare.net
• www.whatis.com
• www.docstoc.com
• www.dictionary.com
• www.wikiepedia.org
• www.technosailor.com

15