Cloud Computing

What is Cloud Computing?

• The term cloud refers to a network or the internet. It is a
technology that uses remote servers on the internet to
store, manage, and access data online rather than local
drives. The data can be anything such as files, images,
documents, audio, video, and more.
• Cloud computing consists of multiple servers that host
web services and data storage. This technology allows
companies to eliminate the need for expensive and
powerful computers.
• The information and data of the company can store
at low-cost servers and workers can easily access that data
via a common network.
Roots of Cloud Computing

• There are mainly four roots of cloud computing

• Internet Technologies,
• Distributed Computing,
• Hardware, and
• System Management.
• These roots help computers to extend their capacities and
make them more powerful.
Cloud computing provides 3 types of services
• SaaS – Software as a service,
• IaaS – Infrastructure as a Service, and
• PaaS – Platform as a Service.
• Cloud computing technology is significantly advanced and
contributes to the business to the next level.
• In the traditional system, the company owns and
maintains physical hardware which also costs much
higher, while cloud computing delivers a virtual platform.
• In a virtual platform, each server hosts applications, and
data are powered by a separate provider. Hence, you just
have to pay them for the services.
• The growth of cloud computing has been tremendous with
the advances in internet technologies. However, it is still a
relatively new concept for lower capitalization
companies.
• Besides that, most companies are switching to cloud
computing as it’s providing flexibility, accuracy, speed,
and lower cost.
• Cloud computing has many applications like
infrastructure management, application execution,
and data access management.

• In addition, central management of virtual systems,

business intelligence tools, desktop services, real-time
processing, and rich content delivery.
Internet Technologies:

• The first root is Internet Technologies from the roots of

cloud computing which contains service-oriented
architecture (SOA), web 2.0, and web services.

• Internet technologies are widely accessible to the public.

People can access the content and run applications that
depend on the network connection.
• Cloud computing relies on the network, centralized
storage, and bandwidth. However, the internet isn’t just a
network – it’s also very complex and requires centralized
management.
• Hence, a person can host any website anywhere in the
world. In addition, because of the network servers, anyone
can create lots of different websites.
• Service-oriented Architecture or SOA is a self-
contained module specially designed for business
functionalities.
• It is provided for business handling, event logging, and
authentication services which are saving lots of
paperwork and time.
• Web Services like XML and HTTP are providing web
delivery services by using common mechanisms. It is a
universal concept of web service all over the world.
• WEB 2.0 Services are more convenient for the users, as
they do not have to learn more about coding and concepts
to work with it.
• Information Technology companies basically provide this
kind of service in which people can use the services on
the common platform.
• Predefined blocks or templates make their work easy and
they can work together by the centralized
cloud computing system.
• Some examples of WEB 2.0 services are host services
like Google Maps, blogging sites like Twitter, and social
networking sites like Facebook.

• However, all cloud computing applications suffer from the

inherent unreliability of the Internet.

• This is because the Internet is a shared public resource

that is subject to a variety of problems, including
congestion, outages, and security threats.
Second Root: Distributed Computing

• The second root is Distributed Computing from the roots

of cloud computing which contains grids, utility
computing, and cluster.

• To understand the second root, let’s take an example, a

computer is a general store, and documents in the form of
files.
• Each document stored in the computer has a specific
location, either on the local hard disk or it is stored over
the internet.
• Now, when someone visits your website over the internet,
the person browses through the files on the browser
without downloading them.
• This means users can access the files to the specific
location after processing; they can also send that file back
to the server.
• Thus, it is known as distributed computing of the cloud. It
is distributed in a manner so people can access it
anywhere in the world.
• With the help of this root, all the related resources
like memory space, processor speed, and hard drive
space are utilized in the best possible manner.
• A company using this technology will never face a
problem and will always stay in competition with other
companies.
Third Root: Hardware
• The third root is Hardware from the roots of cloud
computing which contains multi-core chips and
virtualization.
• When we talk about Hardware for cloud computing, it is
usually virtual and people do not need to buy it.
• Generally, computers do require hardware such as CPU,
RAM, ROM, and Motherboard to process, store,
analyze, and manage the data.
• In Cloud Computing there are no hardware devices or
components because the applications are all managed via
the internet.
• If you are using a large amount of data then it becomes
very difficult for your computer to manage the constant
increase in data.
• On the other hand, the cloud stores data on its own
computers rather than having the computer that holds
the data physically.
• In cloud computing virtualization allows users to use
resources from multiple virtual machines. It makes it
easier and cheaper for customers to use cloud services.
• Moreover, In the Service Level Agreement (SLA) based
cloud computing model, each customer gets their own
virtual machine called Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)
• In short, a single cloud computing platform provides all
the requirements of hardware, software, and operating
system.
Fourth Root: System Management

• The fourth root of cloud computing (System

Management) contains data center automation and
autonomic computing.
• System management root handles the operations to
improve the productivity and efficiency of the system.
• To achieve this system management ensures all the
employees have easy access to all the necessary
information.
• For that, employees can change configurations,
obtain/resend information and perform other related
functions from any location.
• This makes it possible for the system admin to respond to
any user demand instantly. Moreover, the admin can
restrict or deny access for the different users.
• In an autonomic system, admin work becomes easier as
the system is autonomic or self-managing. Additionally,
data analysis and monitoring are handled by the sensors.
• Based on that data, the system responses perform various
tasks such as optimization, adaptation, configuration,
and protection.
• Hence, at this root, human involvement is less and the
computing system handles most of the operations.
Cloud Computing Operations

Developing new applications and services

Storage, back up, and recovery of data
Hosting blogs and websites
Delivery of software on demand
Analysis of data
Streaming videos and audios
Why Cloud Computing?

• Small as well as large IT companies, follow the

traditional methods to provide the IT infrastructure.
That means for any IT company, we need a Server
Room that is the basic need of IT companies.
• In that server room, there should be a database server,
mail server, networking, firewalls, routers, modem,
switches, QPS (Query Per Second means how much
queries or load will be handled by the server),
configurable system, high net speed, and the
maintenance engineers.
• To establish such IT infrastructure, we need to spend
lots of money. To overcome all these problems and to
reduce the IT infrastructure cost, Cloud Computing
comes into existence.
Characteristics of Cloud Computing
The characteristics of cloud computing are given below:
1) Agility
• The cloud works in a distributed computing
environment. It shares resources among users and works
very fast.
2) High availability and reliability
• The availability of servers is high and more reliable
because the chances of infrastructure failure are
minimum.
3) High Scalability
• Cloud offers "on-demand" provisioning of resources on a large scale, without
having engineers for peak loads.
4) Multi-Sharing
• With the help of cloud computing, multiple users and applications can work
more efficiently with cost reductions by sharing common infrastructure.
5) Device and Location Independence
• Cloud computing enables the users to access systems using a web browser
regardless of their location or what device they use e.g. PC, mobile phone,
etc.
• As infrastructure is off-site (typically provided by a third-party) and accessed
via the Internet, users can connect from anywhere.
6) Maintenance
• Maintenance of cloud computing applications is easier, since they do not need
to be installed on each user's computer and can be accessed from different
places. So, it reduces the cost also.
7) Low Cost
• By using cloud computing, the cost will be reduced
because to take the services of cloud computing, IT
company need not to set its own infrastructure and
pay-as-per usage of resources.
8) Services in the pay-per-use mode
• Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are provided
to the users so that they can access services on the
cloud by using these APIs and pay the charges as per
the usage of services.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Cloud
Computing

1) Back-up and restore data

• Once the data is stored in the cloud, it is easier to get
back-up and restore that data using the cloud.

2) Improved collaboration
• Cloud applications improve collaboration by allowing
groups of people to quickly and easily share information
in the cloud via shared storage.
3) Excellent accessibility
• Cloud allows us to quickly and easily access store information
anywhere, anytime in the whole world, using an internet
connection. An internet cloud infrastructure increases
organization productivity and efficiency by ensuring that our
data is always accessible.
4) Low maintenance cost
• Cloud computing reduces both hardware and software
maintenance costs for organizations.
5) Mobility
• Cloud computing allows us to easily access all cloud data via
mobile.
6) Services in the pay-per-use model
• Cloud computing offers Application Programming Interfaces
(APIs) to the users for access services on the cloud and pays the
charges as per the usage of service.
7) Unlimited storage capacity
• Cloud offers us a huge amount of storing capacity for
storing our important data such as documents, images,
audio, video, etc. in one place.
8) Data security
• Data security is one of the biggest advantages of cloud
computing. Cloud offers many advanced features related
to security and ensures that data is securely stored and
handled.
Disadvantages of Cloud Computing
1) Internet Connectivity
• As you know, in cloud computing, every data (image,
audio, video, etc.) is stored on the cloud, and we access
these data through the cloud by using the internet
connection.
• If you do not have good internet connectivity, you cannot
access these data. However, we have no any other way to
access data from the cloud.
2) Vendor lock-in
• Vendor lock-in is the biggest disadvantage of cloud
computing.
• Organizations may face problems when transferring their
services from one vendor to another.
• As different vendors provide different platforms, that can
cause difficulty moving from one cloud to another.
3) Limited Control
• As we know, cloud infrastructure is completely owned,
managed, and monitored by the service provider, so the
cloud users have less control over the function and
execution of services within a cloud infrastructure.
4) Security
• Although cloud service providers implement the best
security standards to store important information.
• But, before adopting cloud technology, you should be
aware that you will be sending all your organization's
sensitive information to a third party, i.e., a cloud
computing service provider.
• While sending the data on the cloud, there may be a
chance that your organization's information is hacked by
Hackers.