Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing

 Naresh Babu.V

Computer Science Department

Griffith College Dublin

Introduction:-

 This report written on Cloud computing. Cloud computing is internet-based computing, where by sharing resources, software and information that is provided to computers and other devices.

Literature Review:-

Clouding computing has become an interesting topic in the recent days and most of the companies. They may simply be applications that you located on-site. If you have sensitive information, your IT security group may simply mandate that you not to store it on someone else’s machines. You might be difficult to integrate your applications if they are geographically dispersed. i.e., it is easer to manage and access your data if it is near by, and not under someone else control.

Cloud computing consist of three models, they are:

1. Software as a Service (Saas): It is the model in which all application is hosted on the service to customers who access via internet.
2. Hardware as a Service(HaaS): It simply offers the software so that your organization can put what ever they want onto it
3. Platform as a Service: It provides application to customers.

Cloud servers won’t be in the same location, Cloud servers are situated on different location for instance, Amazon have different Cloud servers in different locations, if one server have any problem it can be accessed through another server[1].

For every server we must have a Data Center, Data center is nothing but collection of servers where the application to which you subscribed is hosted.

The number of virtual servers that can exist on physical server depends on the size and speed of the physical server.

Storage is some what similar to Hardware as service (HaaS) which is one of the Cloud computing models. If you lease storage space from vendor, you are not responsible to buy equipment, or need pay to run it, and cool it.

Data and Information are stored with in links which will help to make the data searchable. Cloud computing is technology that uses the internet and central remote servers to maintain data and application.

Cloud computing allows user to use applications with out installation and access their personal files at any computer with internet access. This technology allows more efficient computing by centralized storage, memory, processing and bandwidth.

Simple example for Cloud computing is Yahoo email or Gmail etc. you don’t need a software or server to use them.

The technical foundation of Cloud computing is Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and virtualizations of hardware and software. The goal of Cloud computing is to share resources among Cloud (Internet) service consumers, Cloud partners and Cloud vendors in the Cloud value chain.

The resources are sharing at various Clouds such as, Infrastructure Cloud, Software Cloud, Application Cloud and Business Cloud[2].

As of any other software Cloud computing has also its advantages and dis-advantages.

Advantages of Cloud computing:

1. Cost: We can totally reduce the amount of money we spent on buying the hardware as they are already installed on servers by the vendors whom we use and at a minimal cost. We only pay for the bandwidth we use, everything will be minimal.
2. Time: We don’t need to spend much time in setting up all the servers as the vendors will be taking care of them.
3. Ease: As the old applications take lot of time to customize, but using Cloud computing we can customize any information in a way we like.
4. Mobility: Cloud can be accessed at any place where there is internet; we don’t need to use the same machine at all the time.
5. Collaboration: Multiple people can collaborate easily on documents projects at the same time as the document is stored in the Cloud and not on individual computers and can accessed in a place we have internet.
6. Performance: There is a greater flexibility of systems performing as we are no longer installing huge amount of software on our machines, we are just accessing the applications from the cloud where are these applications are deployed, this improves performance and the machines will be so fast to access[2].

Dis-advantages of Cloud computing:

1. Security: Most of the companies don’t like other people see what they are doing within the organization as it is sensitive or proprietary. As the servers are on the vendor’s side, there is no guarantee that the information is outside of the organization.
2. Loss of data: There is also serious concern that the data might be getting lost when there is a power failure or if the connection is lost.
3. Down time: If there is any problems with the Internet Service Providers (ISP), that might affect a lot in case of big organizations as people have nothing to do until the issue is sorted. If they have the information on the local servers they can access that easily and can upload the data at a later point of time.
4. Difficulty in exchange of Information: It will be very difficult if the information is stored in a remote place, as sometimes we need to exchange information between two machines, one will be in the local office and the other in the Cloud.  
5. Transition: Move from the current system to complete system when the working is still going on is also a problem[3].

Conclusion:-

Cloud computing is the next big wave in computing.It has many benefits,such as better hardware management,since all the computers are the same and run the same hardware.It also provides for better and easier management of data security,since all the data is located on the central server. Administrators can control who has and does’t have access to the file.

References:-

[1] Anthony T. Velte,”Cloud Computing: A Practical Approach”.

[2] B. Shimmin,”O’Reilly Web 2.0 Expo: Desktop and Cloud Computing Draw

Closer Together “.

[3] Kevin T. McDonald ,”Managing Risk in the World of Cloud Computing”.

Presentation