CLOUD COMPUTING INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW ERA OF CLOUD COMPUTING #awsugjaipur

INTRODUCTION TO CLOUD COMPUTING: TOPICS TO BE COVERED 1 Cloud Computing 2 Characteristics of Cloud Computing 3 Advantages and Disadvantages of Cloud Computing 4 Cloud Deployment Models

1 Cloud Computing To understand why cloud computing is needed, consider this as an example; we all have used Uber or Ola services at least once.

What is the advantage of using these services over buying a car?

Buying a car requires investment, driving ourselves or hiring a chauffeur, parking space and maintenance.

Cloud computing services such as Uber or Ola is like renting a car. No parking space required, no maintenance and you pay by miles.

Why Cloud? Cloud provides a host of benefits which make it so popular.

We can not only store large amounts of data securely on the cloud, but it is also possible to rent the latest hi-tech software and even hardware.

For example:

Consider that you are using a traditional method of computing in your office, now if your company recruits some more employees then you need to do all the hardware as well as software setup for all those employees again which will inevitably increase your expenses. However, using cloud computing you get the platform on rent and simply provide the employees a terminal and credentials to logon to their virtual system. Hence, in this case you rent the processing time, memory and the software setup. Whenever an employee quits, his resources are freed and there is no need to pay for those rentals. Why Cloud? The cloud itself is a set of hardware, networks, storage, services and interfaces that enable the delivery of computing as a service.

Cloud Computing – Definition:

Cloud Computing is the on-demand delivery of computer power, infrastructure, applications, storage and other IT resources through a cloud services platform via the internet with pay-as-you-go pricing.

2 Characteristics of Cloud Computing Characteristics of Cloud Computing On-demand Service

Broad Network Service

Resource Pooling

Rapid Elasticity

Measured Service

On-demand Service: The user can provide the required resources automatically without human intervention.

Broad Network Access: Accessible from any of the consumer’s devices (such as Mobile, tablet, laptop and Desktop).

Resource Pooling: Multiple consumers can use multiple physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according to their demand.

Rapid Elasticity: Capabilities can be provisioned elastically. They can be scaled up and down based on the consumer’s demand.

Measured Service: The service is measured using the pay-as-you-go pricing model.

The major three categories are IaaS, PaaS and SaaS.

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS): The cloud provider provides IT infrastructure like the servers, virtual machines, storage, networks, and the operating systems on pay-as-you-go basis.

Platform as a service (PaaS): The developers may use the cloud computing services on demand for creating a web or mobile application. They need not worry about setting up the development environment.

Software as a service (SaaS): The users just connect to the Internet through phone, PC or the tablet and use the application hosted on cloud. The cloud service providers host and manage the software application, infrastructure, handle maintenance and upgrades including patching. Types of Cloud Services: Other Cloud services:

Data as a service (DaaS): data are stored on cloud and made available to users on demand  regardless of their geographic location.

Desktop as a service provides a virtual desktop.

Storage as a service (SaaS) provides data storage infrastructure.

Test environment as a service: we can rent a test setup to quickly test our application.

Security as a service (SECaaS): we can allow the cloud provider to take care of the security.

API as a service is a SaaS exposed as an API (Application Programming Interface). It allows users to access web services such as Google Maps, credit card processing and payroll processing.

Other Cloud services:

Data as a service (DaaS): data are stored on cloud and made available to users on demand  regardless of their geographic location.

Desktop as a service provides a virtual desktop.

Storage as a service (SaaS) provides data storage infrastructure.

Test environment as a service: we can rent a test setup to quickly test our application.

Security as a service (SECaaS): we can allow the cloud provider to take care of the security.

API as a service is a SaaS exposed as an API (Application Programming Interface). It allows  users to access web services such as Google Maps, credit card processing and payroll processing.

3 Advantages and Disadvantages of Cloud Computing Advantages of Cloud Computing Models: Advantages of Cloud Computing Cost Efficient – the pay-as-you-go model significantly minimizes the organization’s costs.

Almost Unlimited Storage – Using cloud storage means unlimited storage capability. No running out of storage or no need of investing in storage devices.

Backup and Recovery – all the data are backed up on to the cloud. Hence, backup and recovery becomes more easier.

Automatic Software Integration – the changes to the software made by different developers are tested and integrated several times in a day. This is automatically done when using cloud.

Easy Access to Information – once registered, information can be accessed from any location and from any device.

Disadvantages of Cloud Computing: Technical issues: Though cloud enables you to access information from anywhere and on any device, however, the system can sometimes malfunction and besides that you also need a strong internet connection.

Security in Cloud: You should always be careful to choose the most reliable service provider since the company’s sensitive information is being handed over to a third party for storage.

Prone to Attack: Storing information in the cloud makes it accessible to hackers.

4 Cloud Computing Models Cloud Deployment Models: National Institution of Standards and Technology (NIST) operate under the US Department of Commerce and has defined many of the key concepts used in cloud computing.

NIST Special Publication 800-145 identifies four models for cloud deployments. These are:

Public Cloud Private Cloud Community Cloud Hybrid Cloud

Cloud Deployment Models: Private cloud – owned organization Public cloud – accessible to the public

Community cloud – shared by a group of organizations

Hybrid cloud – a combination of the above three clouds Public Cloud Public clouds are external publicly available environments accessible to multiple tenants.

The cloud provider is responsible for the creation and the on-going maintenance of the public cloud and its IT resources.

Public clouds are ideal for individuals, startups and other organizations with financial restrictions. Public Cloud Some of the Public cloud examples include Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud and Google Cloud Platform. The Case of Public Cloud Consider this,

Connected Solutions is a startup venture started by four classmates who are interested in developing IoT (Internet of Things) solutions. However, when it comes to investing in infrastructure like storage and networking, finance is an issue. What would Connected Solutions do?

If you are limited in financial resources but still require a good amount of space to store your data, using a public cloud is the best option.

There are good public cloud pricing plans that offer good amount of storage.

Additionally, public clouds tend to use the latest technological advancements (hardware, software and so on), have better utilization rates, provide greater elasticity and continually test your applications and networks. Private Cloud A Private Cloud is owned by a single organization.

Private cloud helps an organization in centralizing the access of IT resources by its various locations and departments.

Private clouds are ideal especially for organizations that have heavily invested in infrastructure. The Case of Private Cloud Consider this as an example,

You are a financial organization with a big infrastructure. You deal with sensitive information, hence, security is of utmost importance. You want your infrastructure to be centralized, secure and to have a greater control over it. What is your best option?

A private cloud though expensive, comes with greater security and control. A private cloud is custom designed by you for your business. It allows for rapid scaling of business operations. And most importantly, when issues arise you can prioritize and handle them unlike a public cloud where the delays in resolving an issue may pile up.

Public Cloud vs. Private Cloud Private clouds combine the security of keeping resources in- house with the scalability of the cloud by storing resources privately. Therefore, they are an ideal solution for companies with compliance requirements who cannot host their resources on a public cloud.

However, public clouds are best when facing financial restrictions and are not dealing with sensitive information. Community Cloud Community cloud model is shared by a group of organizations with similar requirements such as security, compliance and IT policies.

The community cloud may be jointly owned by the community members or by a third-party cloud provider that provisions a public cloud with limited access. The Case of Community Cloud For example, the Department of Defense and some intelligence agencies have launched data centre improvement initiatives using a community cloud. This enables them to easily share data with other agencies in the community cloud, while still keeping it secure and controlled.

Another industry taking advantage of community clouds is the healthcare industry, where everyone in the community can support patients and exchange data in a controlled way.

Uses of community cloud:

Allows for easy sharing and collaboration Lowers costs Hybrid Cloud Hybrid cloud is a combination of two or more models, private cloud, public cloud or community cloud.

For example, a cloud consumer may choose to deploy cloud services processing sensitive data to a private cloud and other less sensitive cloud services to a public cloud. The result of this combination is a hybrid deployment model. The Case of Hybrid Cloud Consider a business with dynamic work load that experiences significant hike in business during holiday season. They require more resources to handle the peak season. However, these resources are not required for the rest of the year. What would be the best option?

A hybrid cloud - A private cloud for off season operations and public cloud services for the holiday season is an ideal combination for such a business. Other Deployment Models: There are other variations of the basic cloud deployment models such as:

Virtual Private Cloud: also called ‘dedicated cloud’ or ‘hosted cloud’ is a self-contained cloud environment hosted and managed by a public cloud provider.