Cloud Computing

 

What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is a set of pooled computing resources and services which are delivered over the web. It is often provided “as a service” over the internet. The customer needs nothing but a PC and internet access. Customers no need to raise the capital to purchase hardware, maintenance, operational costs, software licenses and power so on. Instead customer can pay what they use.  

National institute of standards and technology defines the characteristics of cloud computing.

v  On-demand self service:  This means there should be some form of self service portal with service catalog that can automatically trigger workflows for routing, approvals and automated provisioning.

v  Broad network access:   Service is accessible via internet or company network (private cloud) using various devices such as thick/ thin clients, laptops and mobile devices.

v  Resource pooling:  This implies timesharing of abstracted IT resources (compute, storage, and network) from underlying hardware via various enabling technologies such as virtualization.

v  Rapid elasticity:  This requires one to dynamically increase or decrease IT resources provisioned, according to changing demands, where possible, automatically.

v  Measured service:  This means that capacity and utilization is being monitored and reported for capacity planning, demand and forecasting. It also includes monitoring and reporting service usage for the purpose of chargeback.

Deployment models of cloud computing

v  Public cloud: A public cloud sells services to anyone on the Internet

v  Private cloud: A private cloud is a proprietary network or a data center that supplies hosted services to a limited number of people

v  Hybrid cloud: A private cloud is a proprietary network or a data center that supplies hosted services to a limited number of people

v  Community cloud: Community cloud is a network shared by the same type of organizations.

 

Service models of cloud computing

v  Infrastructure as a service (IAAS): Hardware related services are provided which include storage and virtual servers.

v  Platform as a service (PAAS): Pass offering may include facilities for application design, development, testing, deployment, and hosting. It is an integrated version over the web.

v Software as a service (SAAS): It is complete software offering on the cloud. They are accessed

by the customers on pay per use basis.

 

 

 

Global Cloud computing Service providers

Company	Type of cloud	Type of service	Offerings
Amazon	Public Cloud	IaaS	EC2, S3, SimpleDB and MapReduce
Google	Public Cloud	SaaS, PaaS	Google Apps and Google App Engine
IBM	Public Cloud	SaaS, PaaS	Lotus Live and IBM WebSphere CloudBurst Appliance
Microsoft	Public Cloud	SaaS, PaaS and IaaS	Online Services, Windows Azure Platform and Windows Server Hyper-V
Salesforce.com	Public Cloud	SaaS, PaaS	Salesforce.com CRM and force.com
VMware	Public Cloud	IaaS	VSphere

 

India based Cloud computing Service providers

Company	Location	Offering	Type of service
Zenith InfoTech	Mumbai	PROUD	IaaS
Wolf Frameworks	Bangaluru	Wolf PaaS	Paas
OrangeScape	Chennai	OrangeScape Cloud	PaaS
TCS	India	ITaaS	IaaS+SaaS
Cynapse India	Mumbai	Cyn.in	IaaS + on Demand SaaS
Wipro Technologies	India	Wipro w-SaaS	SaaS
Netmagic Solutions	Mumbai	CloudNet	IaaS
Reliance Data Center	India	Reliance Cloud Computing Services	IaaS+SaaS+PaaS
Infosys Technologies	Bangalore	Cloud based Solution for Auto Sector	SaaS
Synage	Mumbai	DeskAway	SaaS
Zenith InfoTech	Mumbai	PROUD	IaaS
Wolf Frameworks	Bangaluru	Wolf PaaS	Paas
OrangeScape	Chennai	OrangeScape Cloud	PaaS
TCS	India	ITaaS	IaaS+SaaS

 

How to choose the correct service?

Saas: The Service Provider has administrative control on the application and is responsible for update, deployment, maintenance and security. For example, Gmail is a SaaS where Google is the provider and we are customers. We have very limited administrative and user level control over it, although there is a limited range of actions, such as enabling priority inbox, signatures, undo send mail, etc.

It is opt for

v  Mail, Chat, Docs, Project

v  CRM apps

v  Cloud based Storage and Sharing services

 

Paas: Developers may download development environment and use them locally in the developer’s infrastructure, or the developer may access tools in the provider’s infrastructure through a browser. Everything will be taken care of by the platform.

It is opt for hard-core developers

v  Existing .Net developers can easily move up to the Azure platform and create their own scalable Cloud.

v  Java and Python developers can use Google Apps Engine to deliver cloud apps.

v  OrangeScape and Wolf PaaS are on-demand browser based platforms for rapidly designing and delivering multi-tenant Cloud apps.

 

Iaas: It is a combination of virtual computers, cloud storage, network infrastructure components such as firewalls and configuration services. Usage fees are calculated per CPU hour, data GB stored per hour, network bandwidth consumed, network infrastructure used per hour, value added services used.

It is opt for multiple choices of Operating System, Platforms, Databases and Content Delivery Network (CDN) – all in one place.

v  Amzon is the pioneer of IaaS. Other leading providers are Rackspace, GoGrid, Joyent, Rightscale and Terremark (bought by Verizon)

v  For India based IaaS providers: NetMagic Solutions, InstaCompute (from Tata Communications)

 

Virtualization Vs Cloud computing

Virtualization is the creation of a virtual (rather than actual) version of something, such as a hardware platform, an operating system, a storage device or a network resource. Simply stated, Virtualization is a technique that allows you to run more than one server (or another infrastructure component) on the same hardware.  For example, one server is the host server and controls the access to the physical server’s resources. One or more virtual servers then run within containers provided by the host server.

The hypervisor software (which controls access to the physical hardware) may run on “bare metal” allowing a user to run multiple operating systems on the same physical hardware, or the hypervisor may run on top of a host operating system, allowing other operating systems to run within this host OS, and so on the same physical hardware. The latter inherently gives lower performance, since it has to go through more layers of software to access the physical resources.

Cloud Computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a metered service over a network (typically the Internet). Cloud Computing may look like Virtualization because it appears that your application is running on a virtual server detached from any reliance or connection to a single physical host. However, Cloud Computing can be better described as a service where Virtualization is part of a physical infrastructure.

Cloud Computing builds on top of a virtualized infrastructure (compute, storage, network) by using standardization and automated delivery to provide service management. This makes monitoring the virtualized resources and the responsible deployment of these resources possible.

 

Cloud computing trends in India

v  The government with its renewed focus on e-governance projects. An example is the Unique ID Authority of India’s (UIDAI) UID project which aims to provide a biometric validated identity to every Indian. Once implemented this will be the largest cloud-based service in the world and provide “Identity As A Service.”

v  The SMBs do not need private clouds or even Infrastructure as a Service, but can reduce costs and manage growth better with the use of public clouds. The focus for this group will be the Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings. The large number of SMBs in fast-moving markets like India can make SaaS offerings economical for both the provider and the consumer. Here is the challenge: SaaS offerings will succeed in these markets if they can get the pricing right, develop wide, low-cost sales networks, and build long-term relationships with customers. This is, of course, in addition to the traditional cloud computing challenges of security and reliability.

v  Enterprises, specially the telecom and manufacturing sectors. India is a one of the fastest-growing telecom markets and the agility offered by cloud environments is a major enabler for businesses. These enterprises are setting up their private clouds but are also relying on public clouds for scaling and supporting their distributed operations. As an example, most telecom providers had to add the option for per-second billing in a very short time span after one provider started marketing this option. The move from per-minute to per-second billing necessitated the quick addition of new infrastructure, which works well in cloud environments compared with traditional environments. Other sectors, like healthcare and education, will soon require a major infusion of infrastructure, which will lead to even greater cloud adoption.

 

Cloud computing terminologies

v  Advertising-based pricing model : A pricing model whereby services are offered to customers at low or no cost, with the service provider being compensated by advertisers whose ads are delivered to the consumer along with the service.

v  Amazon EC2: Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud Web service, which provides resizable computing capacity in the cloud so developers can enjoy great scalability for building applications.

v  Amazon S3: Amazon Simple Storage Services — Amazon’s cloud storage service.

v  CDN: Content delivery network — A system consisting of multiple computers that contain copies of data, which are located in different places on the network so clients can access the copy closest to them.

v  Cloud: A metaphor for a global network, first used in reference to the telephone network and now commonly used to represent the Internet.

v  Cloud broker: An entity that creates and maintains relationships with multiple cloud service providers. It acts as a liaison between cloud services customers and cloud service providers, selecting the best provider for each customer and monitoring the services.

v  Cloud operating system: A computer operating system that is specially designed to run in a provider’s datacenter and be delivered to the user over the Internet or another network. Windows Azure is an example of a cloud operating system or “cloud layer” that runs on Windows Server 2008. The term is also sometimes used to refer to cloud-based client operating systems such as Google’s Chrome OS.

v  Cloud Oriented Architecture: A term coined by Jeff Barr at Amazon Web Services to describe an architecture where applications act as services in the cloud and serve other applications in the cloud environment.

v  Cloud portability: The ability to move applications and data from one cloud provider to another. See also Vendor lock-in.

v  Cloud provider: A company that provides cloud-based platform, infrastructure, application, or storage services to other organizations and/or individuals, usually for a fee.

v  Cloud storage: A service that allows customers to save data by transferring it over the Internet or another network to an offsite storage system maintained by a third party.

v  Cloudsourcing: Replacing traditional IT services with cloud services.

v  Cloudstorming: Connecting multiple cloud computing environments.

v  Cloudware:Software that enables creating, deploying, running, or managing applications in the cloud.

v  Cluster: A group of linked computers that work together as if they were a single computer, for high availability and/or load balancing.

v  Consumption-based pricing model: A pricing model whereby the service provider charges its customers based on the amount of the service the customer consumes, rather than a time-based fee. For example, a cloud storage provider might charge per gigabyte of information stored. See also Subscription-based pricing model.

v  Customer self-service: A feature that allows customers to provision, manage, and terminate services themselves, without involving the service provider, via a Web interface or programmatic calls to service APIs.

v  Disruptive technology: A term used in the business world to describe innovations that improve products or services in unexpected ways and change both the way things are done and the market. Cloud computing is often referred to as a disruptive technology because it has the potential to completely change the way IT services are procured, deployed, and maintained.

v  Elastic computing: The ability to dynamically provision and de-provision processing, memory, and storage resources to meet demands of peak usage without worrying about capacity planning and engineering for peak usage.

v  External cloud: Public or private cloud services that are provided by a third party outside the organization.

v  Google App Engine: A service that enables developers to create and run Web applications on Google’s infrastructure and share their applications via a pay-as-you-go, consumption-based plan with no setup costs or recurring fees.

v  Google Apps: Google’s SaaS offering that includes an office productivity suite, email, and document sharing, as well as Gmail, Google Talk for instant messaging, Google Calendar and Google Docs, spreadsheets, and presentations.

v  HaaS: Hardware as a service; see IaaS.

v  Hosted application: An Internet-based or Web-based application software program that runs on a remote server and can be accessed via an Internet-connected PC or thin client. See also SaaS.

v  Hybrid cloud: A networking environment that includes multiple integrated internal and/or external providers.

v  IaaS: Infrastructure as a service — Cloud infrastructure services, whereby a virtualized environment is delivered as a service over the Internet by the provider. The infrastructure can include servers, network equipment, and software.

v  IBM Smart Business: IBM’s cloud solutions, which include IBM Smart Business Test Cloud, IBM Smart Analytics Cloud, IBM Smart Business Storage Cloud, IBM Information Archive, IBM Lotus Live, and IBM LotusLive iNotes.

v  Internal cloud: A type of private cloud whose services are provided by an IT department to those in its own organization.

v  Mashup: A Web-based application that combines data and/or functionality from multiple sources.

v  Microsoft Azure: Microsoft cloud services that provide the platform as a service (see PaaS), allowing developers to create cloud applications and services.

v  Middleware: Software that sits between applications and operating systems, consisting of a set of services that enable interoperability in support of distributed architectures by passing data between applications. So, for example, the data in one database can be accessed through another database.

v  On-demand service: A model by which a customer can purchase cloud services as needed; for instance, if customers need to utilize additional servers for the duration of a project, they can do so and then drop back to the previous level after the project is completed.

v  PaaS: Platform as a service — Cloud platform services, whereby the computing platform (operating system and associated services) is delivered as a service over the Internet by the provider.

v  Pay as you go: A cost model for cloud services that encompasses both subscription-based and consumption-based models, in contrast to traditional IT cost model that requires up-front capital expenditures for hardware and software.

v  Private cloud: Services offered over the Internet or over a private internal network to only select users, not available to the general public.

v  Public cloud: Services offered over the public Internet and available to anyone who wants to purchase the service.

v  SaaS: Software as a service — Cloud application services, whereby applications are delivered over the Internet by the provider, so that the applications don’t have to be purchased, installed, and run on the customer’s computers. SaaS providers were previously referred to as ASP (application service providers).

v  Salesforce.com: An online SaaS company that is best known for delivering customer relationship management (CRM) software to companies over the Internet.

v  Service migration: The act of moving from one cloud service or vendor to another.

v  Service provider: The company or organization that provides a public or private cloud service.

v  SLA: Service level agreement — A contractual agreement by which a service provider defines the level of service, responsibilities, priorities, and guarantees regarding availability, performance, and other aspects of the service.

v  Subscription-based pricing model: A pricing model that lets customers pay a fee to use the service for a particular time period, often used for SaaS services. See also Consumption-based pricing model.

v  Utility computing: Online computing or storage sold as a metered commercial service in a way similar to a public utility

v  Vendor lock-in: Dependency on the particular cloud vendor and difficulty moving from one cloud vendor to another due to lack of standardized protocols, APIs, data structures (schema), and service models.

v  Vertical cloud: A cloud computing environment that is optimized for use in a particular industry, such as health care or financial services.

v  Virtual private data center: Resources grouped according to specific business objectives.

v  VPC: Virtual private cloud — A private cloud that exists within a shared or public cloud, e.g., the Amazon VPC that allows Amazon EC2 to connect to legacy infrastructure on an IPsec VPN.

v  Windows Live Services: Microsoft’s cloud-based consumer applications, which include Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Photo Gallery, Windows Live Calendar, Windows Live Events, Windows Live Skydrive, Windows Live Spaces, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Writer, and Windows Live for Mobile.

Conclusion

v  Cloud computing reduces costs, allowing capital expenditure to be converted into more manageable operating expenses on a “pay as you grow” model

v  It is highly automated and therefore more efficient

v  It offers unmatched flexibility and agility

v  The cloud provides increased storage options

v  It permits IT to focus on revenue-generating projects rather than performing endless maintenance on legacy systems.