Cloud Computing

An Over View of Cloud Computing

Anandhakrishnan K 1/16/2012

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Contents
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................................................ 3 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................... 4 WHAT IS CLOUD COMPUTING? ............................................................................................................................ 5 Grid Computing................................................................................................................................................ 5 Cloud Computing ............................................................................................................................................. 6 Characteristics of Cloud Computing.................................................................................................................. 6 CLOUD MODELS ................................................................................................................................................... 7 A. A. B. Software As A Service (SAAS) .................................................................................................................... 7 Platform as a Service (Paas) ...................................................................................................................... 8 Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas) ............................................................................................................... 8

CLOUD COMPUTING ARCHITECTURE .................................................................................................................. 10 Types of cloud computing environments............................................................................................................ 11 I. II. III. IV. Public clouds .......................................................................................................................................... 11 Private clouds ......................................................................................................................................... 11 External clouds ................................................................................................................................... 12 Hybrid clouds...................................................................................................................................... 12

INFRASTRUCTURES ............................................................................................................................................ 12 Cloud Computing Benefits.................................................................................................................................. 14 Cloud Computing Challenges.............................................................................................................................. 15 Future of Cloud Computing. ............................................................................................................................... 16 CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................................................................... 17 References ......................................................................................................................................................... 18

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ABSTRACT
Resource sharing in a pure plug and play model that dramatically simplifies infrastructure planning is the promise of cloud computing. The two key advantages of this model are ease-of-use and cost-effectiveness. Though there remain questions on aspects such as security and vendor lock-in, the benefits this model offers are many.This overview gives the basic concept, defines the terms used in the industry, and outlines the general architecture and applications of Cloud computing. It gives a summary of Cloud Computing and provides a good foundation for understanding.

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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. 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.

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WHAT IS CLOUD COMPUTING?
Cloud computing is a computing paradigm, where a large pool of systems are connected in private or public networks, to provide dynamically scalable infrastructure for application, data and file storage. With the advent of this technology, the cost of computation, application hosting, content storage and delivery is reduced significantly. Cloud computing is a practical approach to experience direct cost benefits and it has the potential to transform a data center from a capital-intensive set up to a variable priced environment. The idea of cloud computing is based on a very fundamental principal of reusability of IT capabilities'. The difference that cloud computing brings compared to traditional concepts of grid computing, distributed computing, utility computing, or autonomic computing is to broaden horizons across organizational boundaries. Forrester defines cloud computing as: A pool of abstracted, highly scalable, and managed compute infrastructure capable of hosting end-customer applications and billed by consumption. Cloud computing provides the facility to access shared resources and common infrastructure, offering services on demand over the network to perform operations that meet changing business needs. The location of physical resources and devices being accessed are typically not known to the end user. It also provides facilities for users to develop, deploy and manage their applications on the cloud, which entails virtualization of resources that maintains and manages itself.

Grid Computing
Grid computing is a form of distributed computing and parallel computing, whereby a 'super and virtual computer' is composed of a cluster of networked, loosely coupled computers acting in concert to perform very large tasks.

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Cloud Computing

Characteristics of Cloud Computing

A cloud service has three distinct characteristics that differentiate it from traditional hosting. It is sold on demand, typically by the minute or the hour; it is elastic -- a user can have as much or as little of a service as they want at any given time; and the service is fully managed by the provider (the consumer needs nothing but a personal computer and Internet access). Significant innovations in virtualization and distributed computing, as well as improved access to high-speed Internet and a weak economy, have accelerated interest in cloud computing.

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Some generic examples include: Amazons Elastic Computing Cloud (EC2) offering computational services that enable people to use CPU cycles without buying more computers Storage services such as those provided by Amazons Simple Storage Service (S3) Companies like Nirvanix allowing organizations to store data and documents without adding a single on-site server SaaS companies like Salesforce.com delivering CRM services, so clients can manage customer information without installing specialized software

CLOUD MODELS
A. Software As A Service (SAAS)
SaaS is a model of software deployment where an application is hosted as a service provided to customers across the Internet. In this model, a complete application is offered to the customer, as a service on demand. A single instance of the service runs on the cloud & multiple end users are serviced. On the customers side, there is no need for upfront investment in

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servers or software licenses, while for the provider, the costs are lowered, since only a single application needs to be hosted & maintained. Saas is generally used to refer to business software rather than consumer software, which falls under Web 2.0. By removing the need to install and run an application on a users own computer it is seen as a way for businesses to get the same benefits as commercial software with smaller cost outlay SaaS can alleviate the burden of software maintenance and support but users relinquish control over software versions and requirements.Today SaaS is offered by companies such as Google, Salesforce, Microsoft, Zoho, etc.

A. Platform as a Service (Paas)

Here, a layer of software, or development environment is encapsulated & offered as a service, upon which other higher levels of service can be built. The customer has the freedom to build his own applications, which run on the provider s infrastructure. To meet manageability and scalability requirements of the applications, PaaS providers offer a predefined combination of OS and application servers, such as LAMP platform (Linux, Apache, MySql and PHP), restricted J2EE, Ruby etc. Google s App Engine, Force.com, etc are some of the popular PaaS examples.

B. Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas)

IaaS provides basic storage and computing capabilities as standardized services over the network. Servers, storage systems, networking equipment, data centre space etc. are pooled and made available to handle workloads. The customer would typically deploy his own software on the infrastructure. Some common examples are Amazon, GoGrid, 3 Tera, etc.

4. CLOUD STORAGE Over time many big Internet based companies (Amazon, Google) have come to realise that only a small amount of their data storage capacity is being used. This has led to the renting out of space and the storage of information on remote servers

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or "clouds". Information is then temporarily cached on desktop computers, mobile phones or other internet-linked devices. Amazons Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Simple Storage Solution (S3) are the current best known facilities. Data Cloud Along with services the cloud will host data. There has been some discussion of this being a potentially useful notion possibly aligned with the Semantic Web, though it could result in data becoming undifferentiated .

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CLOUD COMPUTING ARCHITECTURE
Cloud computing architecture, just like any other system, is categorized into two main sections: Front End and Back End. Front End can be end user or client or any application (i.e. web browser etc.) which is using cloud services. Back End is the network of servers with any computer program and data storage system. It is usually assumed that cloud contains infinite storage capacity for any software available in market. Cloud has different applications that are hosted on their own dedicated server farms. Cloud has centralized server administration system. Centralized server administers the System, balances client supply, adjusts demands,monitors traffic and avoids congestion. This server follows protocols, commonly known as middleware. Middleware controls the communication of cloud network among them. Cloud Architecture runs on a very important assumption, which is mostly true. The assumption is that the demand for resources is not always consistent from client to cloud. Because of this reason the servers of cloud are unable to run at their full capacity. To avoid this scenario, server virtualization technique is applied. In sever virtualization, all physical servers are virtualized and they run multiple servers with either same or different application. As one physical server acts as multiple physical servers, it curtails the need for more physical machines. As a matter of fact, data is the most important part of cloud computing; thus, data security is the top most priority in all the data operations of cloud. Here, all the data are backed up at multiple locations. This astoundingly increases the data storage to multiple times in cloud compared with a regular system. Redundancy of data is crucial, which is a must-have attribute of cloud computing 6. CHARACTERISTICS OF CLOUD COMPUTING Cloud computing, typically entails: High scalability Cloud environments enable servicing of business requirements for larger audiences, through high scalability Agility The cloud works in the distributed mode environment. It shares resources among users and tasks, while improving efficiency and agility (responsiveness) High availability and reliability Availability of servers is high and more reliable as the chances of infrastructure failure are minimal Multi-sharing With the cloud working in a distributed and shared mode, multiple users and applications can work more efficiently with cost reductions by sharing common infrastructure Services in pay-per-use mode SLAs between the provider and the user must be defined when offering services in pay per use mode. This may be based on the complexity of services offered Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) may be offered to the users so they can access services on the cloud by using these APIs Support for all service oriented applications 7. COMPARISON WITH RELATED TECHNOLOGIES Several technologies are related to cloud computing, and the cloud has emerged as a convergence of several computing trends. It seeks to address certain key aspects that may have been lacking in each of these trends, individually. The features of each of these related technologies and how they compare with cloud computing has been outlined in the table.

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Types of cloud computing environments
The cloud computing environment can consist of multiple types of clouds based on their deployment and usage.

I.

Public clouds

This environment can be used by the general public. This includes individuals, corporations and other types of organizations. Typically, public clouds are administrated by third parties or vendors over the Internet, and services are offered on pay-peruse basis. These are also called provider clouds. Business models like SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) and public clouds complement each other and enable companies to leverage shared IT resources and services. Public clouds are owned and operated by third parties; they deliver superior economies of scale to customers, as the infrastructure costs are spread among a mix of users, giving each individual client an attractive low-cost, Pay-as-you-go model. All customers share the same infrastructure pool with limited configuration, security protections, and availability variances. These are managed and supported by the cloud provider. One of the advantages of a Public cloud is that they may be larger than an enterprises cloud, thus providing the ability to scale seamlessly, on demand. Example New York Times archive project which used 100 Amazon EC2 instances and 5.5TB of S3 storage to generate PDFs of 11 million articles for the papers archives, at a small fraction of traditional costs Advantages Public clouds are widely used in the development, deployment and management of enterprise applications, at affordable costs. Allows organizations to deliver highly scalable and reliable applications rapidly and at more affordable costs Limitations Security is a significant concern in public clouds.

II.

Private clouds

This cloud computing environment resides within the boundaries of an organization and is used exclusively for the organizations benefits. These are also called internal clouds. They are builtt primarily by IT departments within enterprises who seek to optimize utilization of infrastructure resources within the enterprise by provisioning the infrastructure with applications using the concepts of grid and virtualization. Private clouds are built exclusively for a single enterprise. They aim to address concerns on data security and offer greater control, which is typically lacking in a public cloud. There are two variations to a private cloud: - On-premise Private Cloud: On-premise private clouds, also known as internal clouds are hosted within one s own data center. This model provides a more standardized process and protection, but is limited in aspects of size and scalability. IT departments would also need to incur the capital and operational costs for the physical resources. This is best suited for applications which require complete control and configurability of the infrastructure and security. - Externally hosted Private Cloud: This type of private cloud is hosted externally with a cloud provider, where the provider facilitates an exclusive cloud environment with full guarantee of privacy. This is best suited for enterprises that don t prefer a public cloud due to sharing of physical resources. 11

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Advantages They improve average server utilization, allow usage of low-cost servers and hardware while providing higher efficiencies; Thus reducing the costs that a greater number of servers would otherwise entail High levels of automation, reducing operations costs and administrative overheads. Limitations IT teams in the organization may have to invest in buying, building and managing the clouds independently.

III.

External clouds

This cloud computing environment is outside of the boundaries of the organization, though it is not necessarily a public cloud. Some external clouds make their cloud infrastructure available to specific other organizations, but not to the general public.

IV.

Hybrid clouds

Hybrid Clouds combine both public and private cloud models. With a Hybrid Cloud, service providers can utilize 3rd party Cloud Providers in a full or partial manner thus increasing the flexibility of computing. The Hybrid cloud environment is capable of providing on-demand, externally provisioned scale. The ability to augment a private cloud with the resources of a public cloud can be used to manage any unexpected surges in workload. This is a combination of both private (internal) and public (external) cloud computing environments. Variations of clouds Clouds can be classified as: Infrastructures Platforms Applications

INFRASTRUCTURES
Salient features Known also as IaaS (Infrastructure-asa-Service), acknowledged as the most potent cloud Provides access to shared resources on need basis, without revealing details like location and hardware to clients Provides details like server images on demand, storage, queuing, and information about other resources, among others Vendors who provide this type of service enable cloud platforms and cloud applications. Some may even leverage others within the space to provide competitive viability as well Offers full control of server infrastructure, not limited specifically to applications, instances and containers Example Amazons EC2, through which users can request Linux Virtual Machine instances that are created on the fly and billed based On actual usage Limitations Service providers may demand higher prices for services offered Issues pertaining to resource and server down time

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Platforms: Salient features Known also as PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) Empowers developers to deploy, deliver and manage their applications. They can build applications, upload (deploy) the same into the cloud platform and simply run and test them. Developers can also leverage additional benefits like authentication and data access provided by the platform. This cloud takes away the concept of servers, while providing an application centric environment. While creating this kind of cloud computing platform, a vendor builds cloud platform first and then develops applications that run on it(OR) develops a hostable application and then plugs it into the cloud. But considering the advantages and disadvantages, the latter would be the better approach Limitations Significant dependency on cloud infrastructure providers Applications: Salient features Companies host applications on the Internet and users sign up and use them, without concerning themselves about its maintenance and whereabouts. This is also called as SaaS (Software-as-a- Service) Advantages Mostly free, very easy to use, feature rich, easy to access and promises good consumer adoption Limitations User can only use the application and would not know the technology leveraged to develop the application; thereby user has little control over application development.

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Cloud Computing Benefits
Enterprises would need to align their applications, so as to exploit the architecture models that Cloud Computing offers. Some of the typical benefits are listed below: 1. Reduced Cost There are a number of reasons to attribute Cloud technology with lower costs. The billing model is pay as per usage; the infrastructure is not purchased thus lowering maintenance. Initial expense and recurring expenses are much lower than traditional computing. 2. Increased Storage With the massive Infrastructure that is offered by Cloud providers today, storage & maintenance of large volumes of data is a reality. Sudden workload spikes are also managed effectively & efficiently, since the cloud can scale dynamically. 3. Flexibility This is an extremely important characteristic. With enterprises having to adapt, even more rapidly, to changing business conditions, speed to deliver is critical. Cloud computing stresses on getting applications to market very quickly, by using the most appropriate building blocks necessary for deployment.

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Cloud Computing Challenges
Despite its growing influence, concerns regarding cloud computing still remain. In our opinion, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks and the model is worth exploring. Some common challenges are:
1. Data Protection

Data Security is a crucial element that warrants scrutiny. Enterprises are reluctant to buy an assurance of business data security from vendors. They fear losing data to competition and the data confidentiality of consumers. In many instances, the actual storage location is not disclosed, adding onto the security concerns of enterprises. In the existing models, firewalls across data centers (owned by enterprises) protect this sensitive information. In the cloud model, Service providers are responsible for maintaining data security and enterprises would have to rely on them.
2. Data Recovery and Availability

All business applications have Service level agreements that are stringently followed. Operational teams play a key role in management of service level agreements and runtime governance of applications. In production environments, operational teams support Appropriate clustering and Fail over Data Replication System monitoring (Transactions monitoring, logs monitoring and others) Maintenance (Runtime Governance) Disaster recovery Capacity and performance management If, any of the above mentioned services is under-served by a cloud provider, the damage & impact could be severe.
3. Management Capabilities

Despite there being multiple cloud providers, the management of platform and infrastructure is still in its infancy. Features like Auto-scaling for example, are a crucial requirement for many enterprises. There is huge potential to improve on the scalability and load balancing features provided today.
4. Regulatory and Compliance Restrictions

In some of the European countries, Government regulations do not allow customer's personal information and other sensitive information to be physically located outside the state or country. In order to meet such requirements, cloud providers need to setup a data center or a storage site exclusively within the country to comply with regulations. Having such an infrastructure may not always be feasible and is a big challenge for cloud providers. With cloud computing, the action moves to the interface that is, to the interface between service suppliers and multiple groups of service consumers. Cloud services will demand expertise in distributed services, procurement, risk assessment and service negotiation areas that many enterprises are only modestly equipped to handle.

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Future of Cloud Computing.
Top 10 Cloud Computing Service Providers of 2010 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Amazon Verizon/Terremark IBM Salesforce.com CSC Rackspace Google BlueLock Microsoft Joyent

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CONCLUSION
After so many years, Cloud Computing today is the beginning of network based computing over Internet in force. It is the technology of the decade and is the enabling element of two totally new computing models, the Client-Cloud computing and the Terminal-Cloud computing. These new models would create whole generations of applications and business. Our prediction is that it is the beginning to the end of the dominance of desktop computing such as that with the Windows. It is also the beginning of a new Internet based service economy: the Internet centric, Web based, on demand, Cloud applications and computing economy.

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References
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/ http://www.gartner.com/ http://www.google.com/support/forum/ http://web2.sys-con.com/ http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/ http://www.sun.com/cloud/ http://microsoft.com/ http://www.wikipedia.org/

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