The Working Of Cloud Computing

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Information technology is continually evolving. New technology solutions appear while others mature and then decline in popularity. Some new technologies show early promise and are adopted quickly, whereas some move slowly into the mainstream. Stating IT can be in some fashion, only with time, IT executives know which emerging IT strategies have power and fall because of publicity.

This section will provide the IT organizations about different IT strategies and technologies. It provides how emerging technologies can be easily adopted and how established technologies penetrate the IT market and strategies are penetrating the market and how positive the economic experiences of early adopters are with each of these initiatives. By understanding the adoption trends and economic experience, executives are in a better position to assess the potential risks of investing in each of the initiatives.

4.1.1 IT Maturity Analysis

A description...

Fig. 6: IT Maturity Analysis

Figure 6 compares the technologies along two parameters, i) the current investment rate and ii) the current adoption rate. This assess how technology is reached, deployed and also assess the organizations using or going to use this technology. Taken together, these factors provide insight into how mature a technology is relative to other technologies in our study and into how quickly adoption is expanding.

The X-axis is "Percentage with Technology in Place" represents the rate of adoption. The vertical axis is labeled "Percentage Currently Investing" represents the rate of investment.

In this analysis, the words "low" and "high" are relative to the technologies, which are in study. From figure 7, a diagonal line representing technologies falling from low investment and adoption to high investment and adoption rate. Technologies fall in the upper right corner are more matured.

Figure 7 represents a chart with nine different sectors, like low, moderate and high rate of investment and low, moderate and high rate of adoption. Each technology falls in any one of the nine sectors:

High Rate of Investment/Adoption: ERP, Business intelligence systems, CRM systems and Enterprise collaboration falls in this sector.

Moderate Rate of Investment/High Rate of Adoption

Systems like Human resource management systems (HRMS) fall in this sector.

High rate of Investment/Moderate rate of Adoption

When there is an increase in investment then the adoption, it results in growth of technology. Windows 7 falls in this sector.

Moderate rate of Investment/Moderate rate of Adoption

Technologies such as Legacy system renewal, SaaS and unified communication fall in this section. This sector technologies will have a growth in slow and steady pace.

High rate of Investment/Low rate of Adoption

Mobile applications falls in this sector, which has high rate of investment, but adoption rate is minimal.

Low rate of Investment/Moderate rate of Adoption

Supply Chain Management technology fall in this sector.

Low rate of Investment/Low rate of Adoption

Technologies like virtualization (desktop), tablet, IaaS, environmental management solutions and PaaS fall in this sector. When an technology has more capability, but adoption rate is low, then organizations will not be interested to use these technologies.

Cloud computing technology changed its vision from industry to real world problems. The major trends emerged in cloud computing technology are i) Small, Medium Business and Micro-business, ii) supply chains management, media and digital content, and legacy systems, iii) on-the-fly access, vi) hybrid cloud model and v)Growth in stack-as-a-service.

4.1.2 Ten Technology Trends to Watch

1. Virtualization.

Virtualization encompasses infrastructure, applications, server, desktop, storage, network and hardware. Virtualization can provide additional muscle on demand and is compatible with today’s Green IT measures. For Small, Medium business (SMBs), moreover, virtualization affords incredible ease of migration.

Organizations need to review consolidation plans and check whether all virtualization bases are covered without delay. New client-side virtualization is also pressing IT to evaluate multiple options and deliver systems that can convey and store portable media. Based on hosted virtual desktops that create a "thick client" image via a "thin client" delivery model, New client virtualization is posed to create a long-term, flexible workforce that reduces operating complexity and streamlines standards in alignment, audit and control. 

2. Data Growth

According to Gartner, enterprise data growth is expected to grow more in the next five years and 80% will be unstructured. Due to this in IT the complexity will grow, despite continued budget constraints. More access will create more data, resulting in a growth of data that will require increased compliance, backup, audit and security. To stem the tide, organizations must virtualize storage quickly, prepare for reduplication, evaluate all data inputs, keep only what is essential, segment and prioritize data. Key technologies to manage the data growth will include thin provisioning, data reduplication, automated tiering, HSM (Heterogeneous Storage Management) principles and virtual tape.

3. Energy and Green IT

Power to Performance Effectiveness (PPE) will become a focal point, forcing a review of IT efficiency at the intersection between facilities and IT. As the power issue moves up the food chain, corporate social responsibility will also become a central concern.

 4. Complex Resource Tracking

This includes monitoring energy consumption, visualizing the power consumption of resources, automating energy usage to optimal levels and learning how dynamically to move workloads. Organizations will have to manage new KPI (Knowledge Power Infrastructures) based on power and a growing demand for new vendors and skills. According to Gartner, the critical timeframe for complex resource tracking will come in the next two years and will demand that organizations get to know their facilities team, begin market research and monitor.

5. Consumerization and Social Software

Social collaboration (wikis, blogs, Facebook, Twitter), social media (content sharing and aggregation) and social validation (social ratings, rankings and commentary) will continue to be a major force in shaping consumerisation and social software, compelling organizations to focus on early pattern detection and the "collective." In the next two years, organizations will need to respond to the distributed social web by establishing rules of engagement, monitoring and looking for signals, becoming active participants in the social web and adding a social dimension to internal and external websites. 

4.2 Cloud Service Models

A description...

Fig. 7: Cloud Service Models

Figure 7 shows that the various cloud service models such as i) software, ii) platform and iii) infrastructure. Service Models means type of services that can be suggested to customers. For different kind of operations and requirement, different models are needed to achieve business objectives. A cloud service can be replaced with any one of the following as Cloud * as a Service.

"Desktop, Data, Platform, IT, Infrastructure, Testing, Computing, Security, Software, Testing, Storage, Hardware, Database etc"

4.2.1 Service Models

SaaS (Software as a Service)

PaaS (Platform as a Service)

IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)

4.2.1.1 SaaS

Provider of this has full administrative rights for the application and responsible for activities such as deployment, maintenance and update. This kind of is suitable for the customers who want less management hassles and worries regarding installation of application, software and updating it.

The figure 8 shows the levels of rights between the subscriber and provider, i.e. SaaS Component Stack and Scope of Control. From the below figure, cloud provider has the total control over the hardware, middleware and operating system. Also has the admin control over the application residing in the server. Cloud subscriber, subscribes the service and has limited admin, user level control. Cloud users don’t have control over the OS or the hardware.  

A description...

Fig. 8: SaaS Component Stack and Scope of Control

SaaS subscribers can be i) ordinary users such as individuals, ii) users from organizations and iii) users from enterprises. When we want to focus and improve our business, we can opt for SaaS.

By opting SaaS, replacing of old hardware, maintaining the infrasturcutre will not there, hence time is not wasted and also cost towards hiring of new technical staff is also avoided.

Application which supports productivity and collaboration are best to opt, example is Google Apps. Other examples are

Online Project Management apps like Zoho Mail, Deskaway.

CRM apps like Salesforce.com, Impel CRM, and Microsoft Dynamics.

Cloud services like Skydrive, Google Docs and Dropbox.

Small, Medium Enterprises (SMEs) / Small, Medium Business (SMBs) can user services like EazeWork.

4.2.1.2 PaaS

PaaS is a platform as a service where application / software can be build, tested and deployed as a single unit. PaaS is very usefull for application builder, developers, deployers and testers.

A description...

Fig. 9: PaaS Component Stack and Scope of Control

The figure 9 depicts rights of control between the Subscriber and Provider i.e. PaaS Component Stack and Scope of Control. From the figure, cloud provider has the total control over the Hardware and Operating System. He has the admin control over middleware and no control over the application. Cloud subscriber, subscribes the service and has full admin rights over the application deployed and minimal rights over the middleware. Cloud users don’t have control over the OS or the hardware.  

PaaS consists of environment for developing applications, languages for writing programs, compilers and tools for testing it and deployment tools.

PaaS subscribers can be Third party Software Vendors, invididual developers and IT Service Providers.

User can opt for PaaS, when he wants to focus only on application development and to finish it before the deadline.

By opting PaaS, everything else (i.e. other than the application development) will be maintained by the provider.

Customers must choose the PaaS based on the platforms they work.

PaaS providers in India are Wolf Frameworks and OrangeScape. Developers working on PHP can choose PHP Fog or/and CloudControl.

4.2.1.3 IaaS

When the customer requires all kinds of infrastructures such as computer resources, storages and network, then they can opt for IaaS. The usage fee is billed as CPU hour, size (GB) of data accessed or stored/hour, bandwidth consumed etc., Figure 10 depicts the IaaS Component Stack and Scope of Control.

A description...

Fig. 10: IaaS Component Stack and Scope of Control

The figure 10 depicts the rights of control between subscriber and provider i.e. IaaS Component Stack and Scope of Control. From the figure, Cloud Provider has the total control only over the hardware and has admin rights for virtualization part i.e. Hypervisor. He has no control over Application, Middleware and Guest Operating System. Cloud Subscriber, subscribes the service and has full admin rights for the Application deployed, Middleware and OS. Cloud user can make requests to Hypervisor. Cloud users don’t have control over the hardware.  

Enterprises comprising of many servers can act as a IaaS providers such as Facebook, Orkut and Twitter.

IaaS is very useful for beginners who can’t able to predict the successfulness of their application. Using IaaS customers have choices in choosing different OS, Databases and Platforms.

Providers of IaaS are Amzon, Rackspace, Joyent, GoGrid, Verizon Teeremark and Rightscale. In India IaaS providers are NetMagic Solutions and InstaCompute (from Tata Communications)

4.2.2 Cloud Service Models

A description...I

Fig. 11: Cloud Service Models Comparison

The figure 11 gives us a visual representation of the levels of service provided by each service model.  Service models are categorized into 5 types, i) business as a service, ii) software as a service, iii) platform as a service, iv) infrastructure as a service and v) management as a service. There are a few things that could be pointed out in cloud service models they are:

Management is a part of the service provided by the Cloud Service Provider. In larger organizations, you will still require management functions to manage multiple services, service models and on-premise applications and systems.

If you purchase an infrastructure service from a cloud service provider, then you would build on top of your applications and services and if you require a development platform, you would build this on the infrastructure service as well.

If you purchase a platform service, then it includes the required infrastructure service to support this platform.

If you purchase an application (software) service, then the service includes all of the infrastructure and platform services to support your application.

Business process systems facilitate the development of business processes, including business process inventory, definition, development, deployment, management and measurement. 

Probably the most interesting part is the Service layers.  Services (Web Services or Business Services) are reusable technical components made available internally and/or externally to be consumed or to create new business process and its application.  Creating these reusable functions enables the business to be less reliant upon IT to modify existing systems in order to provide new functionality.  A new application can be created, using a service, which utilizes the existing applications to provide this new business functionality in the SaaS and/or BaaS layer.  This is the meaning of the Services layer represented in the figure 11, it is Web or Business Service which is reusable technical components.

4.3 Cloud Deployment Models

The term cloud is a metaphor for the Internet and is a simplified representation of the complex, internetworked devices and connections that form the Internet. Private and public clouds are subsets of the Internet and are defined based on their relationship to the enterprise. Private and public clouds may also be referred to as internal or external clouds the differentiation is based on the relationship of the cloud to the enterprise.

The public and private cloud concepts are important because they support cloud computing, which enables the provisioning of dynamic, scalable, virtualized resources over Internet connections by a vendor or an enterprise IT organization to customers for a fee. The end users, who use the services offered via cloud computing may not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure that supports them.

4.3.1 Cloud Computing Deployment Models

Many types of cloud deployment models are available they are private, public and hybrid models as shown in Figure 12. Private cloud is an on-premises or internal cloud setup, whereas public cloud is off-premises or external one. Both private and public cloud setup may provide the three different services, i.e. SaaS, PaaS and IaaS. NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) provides the standard definition for cloud computing and its models.

fig4.7.TIF

Fig. 12: Cloud Deployment Models

Public cloud is widely used model where infrastructure comprising of hardware systems, network, storage and applications are provided and owned by the provider. When the organization needs some kind of security for their applications, data then they jump to private cloud, which is behind the firewall and accessed only by customers belonging to that organization. Hybrid cloud solution is combination of both public and private clouds.

4.4 Pros and Cons of Cloud Computing

4.4.1 Risks in the Cloud

Cloud computing has many benefits and also it has many risks. One should consider these risks while using cloud computing in their business.

For the IT organizations privacy and security are two main concerns. This should be considered and checked thoroughly while moving to cloud, whether as a consumer or vendor. Instances are there regarding security concerns in cloud computing, eg., are epic.org, Salesforce.com and Google Docs.

As of now, no standards are there for interoperability between various cloud providers. Cloud consumers must be aware of these issues while moving to cloud ecosystem.

4.4.2 Cloud Storage as Service: Pros and Cons

Storage services based on cloud computing does cost cutting, but increase in data transfer (bandwidth) is the main concern. Usage of bandwidth and its charge exceeds the cost spend for storage. Although there are public clouds offering storage as a free service, because of security, IT organizations are not using it. Some cloud services charge less than 4cents/GB, where as providers offering Storage as a Service offer less than the former service.

4.5 Cloud Computing and Services: Pros and Cons

Cloud computing which started with a big buzz word is slowly turning into a reality now. This is also evident as big companies like Google has already started gearing up for this upcoming boom and have launched their first cloud based device named Google Chrome book. However, as the cloud computing and cloud devices are becoming a common terminology in the web world, people have already started exploring, what is in it for them. They are more keen to understand this new technology from all the possible pros and cons perspective. Like any other technique, even cloud computing has its own advantages and some big risks. As and when cloud computing and cloud based devices start penetrating into common household, the real picture will emerge. Till then, it is more or less based on the anticipations and speculations. Let us try to understand the top 5 most important pros and cons of cloud computing and cloud based devices.

4.5.1 Centralized Data Storage in Cloud Computing

Pros: All of your data, applications and software reside on centralized big servers, which can be accessed from anywhere, any time and from any device.

Cons: Everyone may not be comfortable to give all their confidential data and applications on some third party server. Moreover, one cannot access the data if the internet connection is not working. They just don’t have an option to work offline in case of unavailability of connectivity. Also, there could be limits to the amount of data a customer can store on these servers specially for majority ones who may be using shared servers. The speed and bandwidth usage will also adds to the existing issues for these shared server users.

4.5.2 Cloud Servers Maintenance and Security

Pros: If one can be an end user don’t have to maintain the hardware, software and all the security and antivirus software updates. This is totally the responsibility of your service provider.

Cons: The fact the whole loads of data, applications of such a huge customer base lies on just at one place, makes it more prone to cyber attacks, hackers who only have to figure out way to enter just once and have access to everything at one place.

4.5.3 Data Access and Network Connectivity

Pros: It will enable the end users to enjoy the utmost mobility without bothering about carrying their loads of data from one place to another using any hardware. You can leave your document editing half way in your office and then resume from the same place from your home or even while traveling in car or any other vehicle.

Cons: The unavailability of connectivity may make users jobless with nothing to do as they will lose access to all the latest data and applications for the time the connection remains down.

4.5.4 Cost Factor

Pros: Thinking in terms of big companies and corporate, it will benefit them more than anyone else as they can save substantial on their operation costs, which they spend on buying, maintaining and upgrading newer hardware and software. Similarly, they get to save a lot on hiring huge manpower and technical experts, who provides the hardware and software supports.

Cons: It may requires a detailed analysis to understand the real cost saving, if any. This is because of the fact, the big corporate and companies have all the more concern about the speed to access the data, security and availability. This would mean that they will have to look for dedicated servers kind of options rather than shared servers which will only add to the cost rather than cutting it down. Hence, it may be too premature to conclude that it would be a cost saving option even for big companies. It may be even otherwise.

4.5.5 Cloud Servers Data Backup and Availability

Pros: Backing up the data is also your service provider’s responsibility which means you only have to bother about working on your data and applications without ever bothering about losing anything due to missed routine backups.

Cons: Centralized backups again add to the complexity of the issues. The obvious risks could be the backup schedule will vary as per customer’s plan which means there will be chances of losing the data updated during the period of taking two consecutive backups. Furthermore, since the same operator has the backup responsibility, what if there have been hiccups in their backup process as such which can prove quite fatal to their customer who would be relying only on their service operators for availability of data.

Summary

An emerging technology, cloud computing, has shown up demanding attention and is quickly changing the direction of the technology landscape. Cloud computing promises to increase the velocity with which applications are deployed, increase innovation and lower cost, all while increasing business agility. Cloud computing is not a revolution. It is an evolution that has been ongoing for well over a decade. Benefits of using cloud computing is it offers a different ways for IT businesses to increase their functionality without adding extra infrastructure, IT personnel and software. We lay the foundation needed to understand what Cloud Computing is and introduced a set of fundamental concepts related to cloud computing, such as basics in cloud computing, moving to cloud, types of cloud and working in the cloud. The material in Chapter 1 discusses about Cloud Computing Basics, History, its importance and characteristics. Chapter 2 to 4 spans a wide cross-section of topics that are in the mainstream of cloud computing. However, although the topics covered are varied, the discussion in those chapters follows the same basic theme of how to use cloud computing, types and working on it.