Cloud Computing

In A View: Cloud computing is a general term for anything that involves delivering
hosted services over the Internet. These services are broadly divided into three categories:
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-
Service (SaaS). The name cloud computing was inspired by the cloud symbol that's often
used to represent the Internet in flow charts and diagrams.

INTRODUCTION: Computing is usually defined as the activity of using and improving

computer technology, computer hardware and software. It is the computer-specific part of
information technology. Computer science (or computing science) is the study and the
science of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their
implementation and application in computer systems.

Computing Curricula 2005 defined computing:

In a general way, we can define computing to mean any goal-oriented activity requiring,
benefiting from, or creating computers. Thus, computing includes designing and building
hardware and software systems for a wide range of purposes; processing, structuring, and
managing various kinds of information; doing scientific studies using computers; making
computer systems behave intelligently; creating and using communications and
entertainment media; finding and gathering information relevant to any particular
purpose, and so on. The list is virtually endless, and the possibilities are vast.

A computer is a machine that manipulates data according to a set of instructions called a

computer program. The program has an executable form that the computer can use
directly to execute the instructions. The same program in its human-readable source code
form, enables a programmer to study and develop the algorithm. Because the instructions
can be carried out in different types of computers, a single set of source instructions
converts to machine instructions according to the central processing unit type.
The execution process carries out the instructions in a computer program. Instructions
express the computations performed by the computer. They trigger sequences of simple
actions on the executing machine. Those actions produce effects according to the
semantics of the instructions.

Computer programming in general is the process of writing, testing, debugging, and

maintaining the source code and documentation of computer programs. This source code
is written in a programming language, which is an artificial language, restrictive,
demanding, and unforgiving to humans but easily translated by the computer. The
purpose of programming is to invoke the desired behaviour (customization) from the
machine. The process of writing high quality source code requires knowledge of both the
application's domain and the computer science domain. The highest quality software is
thus developed by a team of various domain experts, each person a specialist in some
area of development. But the term programmer may apply to a range of program quality,
from hacker to open source contributor to professional. And a single programmer could
do most or all of the computer programming needed to generate the proof of concept to
launch a new "killer" application.

DEFINTION: Cloud computing is a general term for anything that involves delivering
hosted services over the Internet. These services are broadly divided into three categories:
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-
Service (SaaS). The name cloud computing was inspired by the cloud symbol that's often
used to represent the Internet in flow charts and diagrams.

A cloud service has three distinct characteristics that differentiate it from traditional
hosting. It is sold on demand, typically by the minute or the hour; it is elastic -- a user can
have as much or as little of a service as they want at any given time; and the service is
fully managed by the provider (the consumer needs nothing but a personal computer and
Internet access). Significant innovations in virtualization and distributed computing, as
well as improved access to high-speed Internet and a weak economy, have accelerated
interest in cloud computing.
A cloud can be private or public. A public cloud sells services to anyone on the Internet.
(Currently, Amazon Web Services is the largest public cloud provider.) A private cloud is
a proprietary network or a data center that supplies hosted services to a limited number of
people. When a service provider uses public cloud resources to create their private cloud,
the result is called a virtual private cloud. Private or public, the goal of cloud computing
is to provide easy, scalable access to computing resources and IT services.

The term cloud computing probably comes from (at least partly) the use of a cloud image
to represent the Internet or some large networked environment. We don’t care much
what’s in the cloud or what goes on there except that we depend on reliably sending data
to and receiving data from it. Cloud computing is now associated with a higher level
abstraction of the cloud. Instead of there being data pipes, routers and servers, there are
now services. The underlying hardware and software of networking is of course still there
but there are now higher level service capabilities available used to build applications.
Behind the services are data and compute resources. A user of the service doesn’t
necessarily care about how it is implemented, what technologies are used or how it’s
managed. Only that there is access to it and has a level of reliability necessary to meet the
application requirements. Cloud computing is Internet- ("cloud-") based development and
use of computer technology. In concept, it is a paradigm shift whereby details are
abstracted from the users who no longer need knowledge of, expertise in, or control over
the technology infrastructure "in the cloud" that supports them. Cloud computing
describes a new supplement, consumption and delivery model for IT services based on
Internet, and it typically involves the provision of dynamically scalable and often
virtualized resources as a service over the Internet. The term cloud is used as a metaphor
for the Internet, based on the cloud drawing used to depict the Internet in computer
network diagrams as an abstraction of the underlying infrastructure it represents. Typical
cloud computing providers deliver common business applications online which are
accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on servers.

These applications are broadly divided into the following categories: Software as a
Service (SaaS), Utility Computing, Web Services, Platform as a Service (PaaS), Managed
Service Providers (MSP), Service Commerce, and Internet Integration.
HISTORY: The Cloud is a term that borrows from telephony. Up to the 1990s, data
circuits (including those that carried Internet traffic) were hard-wired between
destinations. Then, long-haul telephone companies began offering Virtual Private
Network (VPN) service for data communications. Telephone companies were able to
offer VPN-based services with the same guaranteed bandwidth as fixed circuits at a lower
cost because they could switch traffic to balance utilization as they saw fit, thus utilizing
their overall network bandwidth more effectively. As a result of this arrangement, it was
impossible to determine in advance precisely which paths the traffic would be routed
over. The cloud symbol was used to denote that which was the responsibility of the
provider, and cloud computing extends this to cover servers as well as the network
infrastructure.

The underlying concept of cloud computing dates back to 1960, when John McCarthy
opined that "computation may someday be organized as a public utility"; indeed it shares
characteristics with service bureaus that date back to the 1960s. In 1997, the first
academic definition was provided by Ramnath K. Chellappa who called it a computing
paradigm where the boundaries of computing will be determined by economic rationale
rather than technical limits. The term cloud had already come into commercial use in the
early 1990s to refer to large Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) networks

Loudcloud, founded in 1999 by Marc Andreessen, was one of the first to attempt to
commercialize cloud computing with an Infrastructure as a Service model. By the turn of
the 21st century, the term "cloud computing" began to appear more widely although
most of the focus at that time was limited to Saas, called "ASP's" or Application Service
Providers, under the terminology of the day.

In the early 2000s, Microsoft extended the concept of Saas through the development of
web services. IBM detailed these concepts in 2001 in the Autonomic Computing
Manifesto, which described advanced automation techniques such as self-monitoring,
self-healing, self-configuring, and self-optimizing in the management of complex IT
systems with heterogeneous storage, servers, applications, networks, security
mechanisms, and other system elements that can be virtualized across an enterprise.

Amazon played a key role in the development of cloud computing by modernizing their
data centers after the dot-com bubble, which, like most computer networks, were using as
little as 10% of their capacity at any one time just to leave room for occasional spikes.
Having found that the new cloud architecture resulted in significant internal efficiency
improvements whereby small, fast-moving "two-pizza teams" could add new features
faster and easier, Amazon started providing access to their systems through Amazon Web
Services on a utility computing basis in 2005. This characterization of the genesis of
Amazon Web Services has been characterized as an extreme over-simplification by a
technical contributor to the Amazon Web Services project.

In 2007, Google, IBM, and a number of universities embarked on a large scale cloud
computing research project. By mid-2008, Gartner saw an opportunity for cloud
computing "to shape the relationship among consumers of IT services, those who use IT
services and those who sell them", and observed that "organisations are switching from
company-owned hardware and software assets to per-use service-based models" so that
the "projected shift to cloud computing ... will result in dramatic growth in IT products in
some areas and in significant reductions in other areas." In July 2008, HP, Intel
Corporation and Yahoo! announced the creation of a global, multi-data center, open
source test bed, called Open Cirrus , designed to encourage research into all aspects of
cloud computing, service and datacenter management. Open Cirrus partners include the
NSF, the University of Illinois (UIUC), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, the Infocomm
Development Authority (IDA) of Singapore, the Electronics and Telecommunications
Research Institute (ETRI), the Malaysian Institute for Microelectronic Systems
(MIMOS ), and the Institute for System Programming at the Russian Academy of
Sciences (ISPRAS).

Despite efforts (such as US-EU Safe Harbor) to harmonize the legal environment, as of
2009, providers such as Amazon cater to major markets (typically the United States and
the European Union) by deploying local infrastructure and allowing customers to select
"availability zones." Nonetheless, concerns persist about security and privacy from
individual through governmental levels (e.g., the USA PATRIOT Act, the use of national
security letters, and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act's Stored
Communications Act). More risks are mentioned in Seven Technical Security Myths of
the Cloud

On January 13, 2010, HP and Microsoft announced an agreement to invest $250 million
over the next three years to significantly simplify technology environments via cloud
computing. The two companies will collaborate on an engineering roadmap for
converged application platforms, comprehensive virtualization solutions and integrated
management offerings to advance cloud computing.

Cloud computing can be confused with:

1. Grid Computing "a form of distributed computing and parallel computing,

whereby a 'super and virtual computer' is composed of a cluster of networked,
loosely coupled computers acting in concert to perform very large tasks"
2. Utility Computing "packaging of computing resources, such as computation and
storage, as a metered service similar to a traditional public utility, such as
electricity";
3. Automatic Computing "computer systems capable of self management.

Characteristics

In general, cloud computing customers do not own the physical infrastructure, instead
avoiding capital expenditure by renting usage from a third-party provider. They consume
resources as a service and pay only for resources that they use. Many cloud-computing
offerings employ the utility computing model, which is analogous to how traditional
utility services (such as electricity) are consumed, whereas others bill on a subscription
basis. Sharing "perishable and intangible" computing power among multiple tenants can
improve utilization rates, as servers are not unnecessarily left idle (which can reduce
costs significantly while increasing the speed of application development). A side-effect
of this approach is that overall computer usage rises dramatically, as customers do not
have to engineer for peak load limits. In addition, "increased high-speed bandwidth"
makes it possible to receive the same response times from centralized infrastructure at
other sites.

Economics: Cloud computing users can avoid capital expenditure (CapEx) on hardware,
software, and services when they pay a provider only for what they use. Consumption is
usually billed on a utility (resources consumed, like electricity) or subscription (time-
based, like a newspaper) basis with little or no upfront cost. Other benefits of this time
sharing-style approach are low barriers to entry, shared infrastructure and costs, low
management overhead, and immediate access to a broad range of applications. In general,
users can terminate the contract at any time (thereby avoiding return on investment risk
and uncertainty), and the services are often covered by service level agreements (SLAs)
with financial penalties.

According to Nicholas Carr, the strategic importance of information technology is

diminishing as it becomes standardized and less expensive. He argues that the cloud
computing paradigm shift is similar to the displacement of electricity generators by
electricity grids early in the 20th century. Although companies might be able to save on
upfront capital expenditures, they might not save much and might actually pay more for
operating expenses. In situations where the capital expense would be relatively small, or
where the organization has more flexibility in their capital budget than their operating
budget, the cloud model might not make great fiscal sense. Other factors impacting the
scale of any potential cost savings include the efficiency of a company’s data center as
compared to the cloud vendor’s, the company's existing operating costs, the level of
adoption of cloud computing, and the type of functionality being hosted in the cloud.

Architecture: The majority of cloud computing infrastructure, as of 2009, consists of

reliable services delivered through data centers and built on servers. Clouds often appear
as single points of access for all consumers' computing needs. Commercial offerings are
generally expected to meet quality of service (QoS) requirements of customers and
typically offer SLAs. Open standards are critical to the growth of cloud computing, and
open source software has provided the foundation for many cloud computing
implementations.

Benefits: * Improves with users' ability to rapidly and inexpensively re-provision

technological infrastructure resources *Cost is claimed to be greatly reduced and capital
expenditure is converted to operational expenditure.

Enable users to access systems using a web browser regardless of their location or what
device they are using (e.g., PC, mobile). As infrastructure is off-site (typically provided
by a third-party) and accessed via the Internet, users can connect from anywhere.
Enables sharing of resources and costs across a large pool of users thus allowing for:
Centralization of infrastructure in locations with lower costs (such as real estate,
electricity, etc.) Peak-load capacity increases (users need not engineer for highest
possible load-levels) Utilization and efficiency improvements for systems that are often
only 10–20% utilized

Security could improve due to centralization of data increased security-focused resources,

etc., but concerns can persist about loss of control over certain sensitive data, and the lack
of security for stored kernels. Security is often as good as or better than under traditional
systems, in part because providers are able to devote resources to solving security issues
that many customers cannot afford. Providers typically log accesses, but accessing the
audit logs themselves can be difficult or impossible. Furthermore, the complexity of
security is greatly increased when data is distributed over a wider area and / or number of
devices.

Maintenance cloud computing applications are easier to maintain, since they don't have to
be installed on each user's computer. They are easier to support and to improve since the
changes reach the clients instantly.And finally Critics of cloud computing cite its
seemingly broad and vague definition. Many technologies that have been branded as
"cloud computing" have existed for a long time before the "cloud" label came into
existence. Examples include databases, load balanced on-demand web hosting services,
network storage, real time online services, hosted services in general, etc.
Submitted by
S.Grace & K.R.Kiruthiga,
2nd B.Tech(Information Technology),
Sethu Institute of Technology,
Kariyapatti.
Contact No:9787344252,9578917889.