What Is Cloud In Cloud Computing

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Abstract

Cloud Computing is a term that describes means of delivering computing power, computing infrastructure, applications, business processes and personal collaboration to end users as service whenever and wherever they need it. In this theoretical review paper, I am going to descript about some important significance and concepts of Cloud Computing terms, "Cloud" in cloud computing, Cloud components, Cloud Models, benefits & limitations, Cloud computing Barriers and potential useful area to applications following with conclusion and references.

Introduction

Establish the topic and its significance:

What is "Cloud" in cloud computing?

Answer of this question would be the cloud in cloud computing is a collection of software, hardware and network related services which associated to provide computing as a service. So from the this explanation, we can derive cloud computing definition as a cloud computing is a construct which are stored on cloud and provides relevant services as per clients need such as Software as a Service, Platform as a Service and Hardware as a Service(Newton, Jack 2010).

Figure (http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/what-is-cloud-computing.html)

2.2 Need of present research:

In today’s world, everything is mobilize, everyone using smart phones and the main problem is accessibility of data on the mobile devices. As statistics shows that in today’s world majority of the market is covered by the mobile technologies so that IT companies are also transferring their services on cloud so that it will be available to everywhere.

Ongoing researches:

Currently researchers are researching on how they can manage cloud services over the internet. Basically they are dividing cloud into three different models, Public, Private and Hybrid (Thierry Huche et al, 2012).

Cloud Models: Public

Third party company provides cloud service to the client over an Internet

Public does not mean it is freely available or inexpensive

Doesn’t mean that data is publically visible (there is access control mechanism)

Companies which provides public cloud model:

Amazon

Rackspace

GoGrid

Cloud Models: Private

Usually private clouds are created inside the company’s security access such as firewall.

Private cloud facilitate better security and resiliency inside the organization because network access and client access are restricted.

Cloud Models: Hybrid

Hybrid cloud is a mixture of private and public cloud.

In this architecture client restrict business’s critical information and data in their control by using private cloud and publish non-business data on the public cloud.

Hybrid cloud model provide both the solution, control and reliability of software infrastructure and scalability and convenience of public cloud.

Problem Statement:

There are four major Barriers of cloud computing (Marston, Sean R. 2011).

Security - data security (physical data is not known, security handled by external entity)

Governance and compliance - Quality of Service a major concern, not all cloud providers have well defined Service Level agreements (SLA)

Integration and Interoperability - lack of availability of APIs for legacy systems to be integrated with cloud services

Application is suitable of not for cloud deployment - if offline data is all that is required. For example QA application that monitors automatic production using some sensors also, app that would have very heavy data upload/download etc.

Figure (http://www.google.com/images)

2.5. Research paper goal:

Explanation of Could Computing technology

Clients of could computing

Cloud models

Barrier of Could computing

Advantages and Disadvantages of Cloud Computing

Current status or practical usage of cloud computing

2.6. Research Questions:

Does cloud computing decreases the costs of traditional hardware?

Does cloud computing provides secure data communication?

Does cloud computing provides Just-in-time infrastructure?

Is there any facility available for the disaster recovery and business continuity?

Theory and Literature Review

This section covers detail description and examples of the cloud computing concept including architecture, components, first mover and providers (Bandyopadhyay et al 2010).

3.1. Architecture of cloud computing and components:

There are three cloud components

Clients

The datacenter

Distributed servers

Picture1.jpg

Figure (http://www.google.com/images)

Clients

Usually clients are the devices which users use to communicate/share the information on the cloud.

There are three types of clients

Mobile: It included the users who access the mobile gadgets such as smartphones, iPAD, iPhones, Laptops etc.

Thin Clients: Thin clients are the computers which do not have hard drives. However, in this kind of infrastructure, usually server manages all the work and it just displays information on the screen.

Thick Clients: Thick Clients are the computers which do have hard drives and they uses web browsers such as Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari to commute to the cloud.

Datacenter:

Datacenter is usually located into the basement of the structure, mostly restricted for the authorized persons only.

Datacenter has different types of servers, cooling and fire supporting devices, back-up power supplies and data communication channels.

Mostly datacenter looks like computer house with huge storage systems.

Distributed Servers:

Distributed Servers are usually stored in different location throughout the globe. However, user do not realize about this fact. For them, it just works like they are located next to each other. For example Amazon’s OfAmazon distributed servers

Dividing a single server into different virtual servers based on your infrastructure’s need is called virtualization. User can establish any OS on this virtual servers.

First Mover on Cloud:

Amazon- Amazon was the first public cloud provider

Google- After the Amazon, Google also provides online cloud based services such as MS document and spreadsheet and online software on Google App Engine

Microsoft- Microsoft also provides cloud computing solution is called Windows Azure.

Discussion

Advantages:

Other companies host your applications

Figure (http://www.google.com/images)

Installing software in each PC using CD/DVD is a tedious task or your service provides will install software for you on the server.

Licensing Cost- As software is installed on server, you do not need to purchase individual Licenses

Cloud computing - another company bears the cost of application, the cost of hosting them on servers and electricity to power and cool them.

The service provider manages the software updates so you do not need to worry about updates. The less you demand the less you pay for the service

Convenient for telecommuters and travelling remote workers

Disadvantages:

The following illustration shows potential points of failure.

What if the Internet fails? There should be a possibly when you have internet problem, at that time you may be disconnected with your application and cannot do your work.

What if an application you are using on cloud has problems?

For Example: In July 2008, Amazon’s S3 cloud storage service went down for the second time that year. A lot of applications were hosted by the company and all those services could not be accessed until techs could fix the problem. Some applications were down for eight hours.

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Figure (http://www.google.com/images)

Implications (Current Status)

Currently there are lot of cloud based services are available however mainly this services are categorize into three different categories (Jez Wain 2010).

1. Software as a Service (SaaS)

SaaS is the service which provides cloud based application setup as a service for the client who uses it through an Internet.

No need to manage any hardware or software as service is run on an internet

Service delivered through a browser

Advantages of SaaS

As client uses application through internet, they do not need to worry about the operating system requirement or platform.

Client does not need to worry about the maintenance or support for the application as your service provides took all the responsibility of it.

Client does not need to worry about the important upgrades as service provide also took this responsibility.

Smaller Staff

- SaaS Examples

IT service management

Web analytics

Web content management

Financial Planning

Word processing

Google Apps

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

As the name stands, PaaS provides all the facility to build a platform for any application on the internet. As a client you do not need to install or download software.

Other services PaaS provides:

team collaboration

web service integration

database integration

security, scalability, storage, state management

versioning

Your business apps cannot be designed by others , So that is where PaaS is useful

Examples:

Google App Engine

AWS: S3

IBM Smart Business Development and Test Cloud is an example of PaaS

Infrastucture/Hardware as a Service (IaaS)

IaaS is divided into different parts:

Service level agreements – Service level agreements are done between the client and their provider which provides an assurance about terms and conditions which are associated with the service.

Computer hardware - These are the components whose resources will be rented out. Service providers often have this set up as a grid for easier scalability.

Network – This part is associated with the networks hardware and tools such as switch and routers.

Internet connectivity

Utility computing billing – Usually billing is based on how much services a client can use.

Conclusion

From this detail literature review, we can say that cloud computing is one of the most widely used emerging technology. The motto of the cloud computing is accessibility of data or information at anywhere, on any platform. In cloud computing, service provides facilitate all the useful services to their client so that clients do not need to worry about installing software, upgrading software, security, data availability etc. as all data stored on cloud. Moreover, they can also access all their data from anywhere in the world.

However there are still few questions asked regarding security and reliable accessibility because you are directly connected with your service provider via internet. There are two possibly drawback are possible, first if the internet would not be available, in this situation client would completely lost the connection with their applications or services. And second, if there is problem with the service provider’s server. Service provider is the one who promise their client for a reliable service and if their server would not works then there is not much their client can do. So as a final thought, there are still more research need to overcome this drawbacks.