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A Technical Seminar Report

on

“CLOUD COMPUTING”
Submitted for fulfillment of the subject SEMINAR(150705) of 5th Sem for Degree in

BACHELOR OF ENGINEERING
in
COMPUTER ENGINEERING
at
BIRLA VISHVAKARMA MAHAVIDYALA
V.V.NAGAR

Submitted By:
 Jainik S. Vora(080070107064)
 Suhas Sutariya(080070107058)

Instructor:
Mr. Keyur Brahmbhatt

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CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that
Mr. Jainik Shantilal Vora
of Batch/Division: D/3, Enrollment No: 080070107064
has satisfactory completed his term work in
SEMINAR(150705) for the term ending in December 2010.

Date: 16/10/2010

Sign of Instructor Head of the Department

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CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that


Mr. Suhas Maheshkumar Sutariya
of Batch/Division: D/3, Enrollment No: 080070107058
has satisfactory completed his term work in
SEMINAR(150705) for the term ending in December 2010.

Date: 16/10/2010

Sign of Instructor Head of the Department

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ABSTRACT
Cloud Computing is quite possibly the hottest, most discussed and often misunderstood
concept in Information Technology (IT) today. In short, Cloud Computing proposes to
transform the way IT is deployed and managed, promising reduced implementation,
maintenance costs and complexity, while accelerating innovation, providing faster time to-
market, and providing the ability to scale high-performance applications and infrastructures
on demand.

Enterprises strive to reduce computing costs. Many start by consolidating their IT


operations and later introducing virtualization technologies. Cloud computing takes these
steps to a new level and allows an organization to further reduce costs through improved
utilization, reduced administration and infrastructure costs, and faster deployment cycles.
The cloud is a next Generation platform that provides dynamic resource pools,
virtualization, and high availability.

Cloud computing describes both a platform and a type of application. A cloud computing
platform dynamically provisions, configures, reconfigures, and deprovisions servers as
needed. Cloud applications are applications that are extended to be accessible through the
Internet. These cloud applications use large data centers and powerful servers that host
Web applications and Web services.

Cloud computing infrastructure accelerates and fosters the adoption of innovations:


Enterprises are increasingly making innovation their highest priority. They realize they need
to seek new ideas and unlock new sources of value. Driven by the pressure to cut costs and
grow— simultaneously—they realize that it’s not possible to succeed simply by doing the
same things better. Cloud computing enables innovation. The enterprise should provide an
ecosystem where innovators are not hindered by excessive processes, rules, and resource
constraints. In this context, a cloud computing service is a necessity. It comprises an
automated framework that can deliver standardized services quickly and cheaply.

Cloud computing infrastructure allows enterprises to achieve more efficient use of their IT
hardware and software investments:
Cloud computing increases profitability by improving resource utilization. Pooling resources
into large clouds drives down costs and increases utilization by delivering resources only for
as long as those resources are needed. Cloud computing allows individuals, teams, and
organizations to streamline procurement processes and eliminate the need to duplicate
certain computer administrative skills related to setup, configuration, and support.

This report introduces the value of implementing cloud computing. The report defines
clouds, explains the business benefits of cloud computing, and outlines cloud architecture
and its major components. And also the issues related to cloud computing are introduced in
this report.

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INDEX

1. Introduction 6
2. Cloud Computing – The Concept 7
2.1 Comparision 8
2.2 Implementation 8
2.3 Characteristics 9
2.4 Economics 9
3. History 10
4. Components 11
4.1 Application 12
4.2 Client 12
4.3 Infrastructure 12
4.4 Platform 13
4.5 Service 13
4.6 Storage 13
5. Architecture 14
6. Key Characteristics 15
7. Types of Clouds 16
7.1 Public Cloud 16
7.2 Private Cloud 16
7.3 Hybrid Cloud 16
8. Possible Deployment Models 17
8.1 Software as a Service(SaaS) 17
8.2 Platform as a Service(PaaS) 17
8.3 Infrastructure as a Service(IaaS) 17
9. Implementation Road-Map 18
10. Challenges 19
10.1 Security a Major Concern 20
11. Case Study 21
11.1 Amazon EC2 21
12. Pros & Cons of Cloud Computing 25
13. Conclusion 26
14. References 27

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1. INTRODUCTION

Imagine yourself in the world where the users of the computer of today’s internet world
don’t have to run, install or store their application or data on their own computers, imagine
the world where every piece of your information or data would reside on the Cloud
(Internet).

As a metaphor for the Internet, "the cloud" is a familiar cliché, but when combined with
"computing", the meaning gets bigger and fuzzier. Some analysts and vendors define cloud
computing narrowly as an updated version of utility computing: basically virtual servers
available over the Internet. Others go very broad, arguing anything you consume outside
the firewall is "in the cloud", including conventional outsourcing.

Cloud computing comes into focus only when you think about what we always need: a way
to increase capacity or add capabilities on the fly without investing in new infrastructure,
training new personnel, or licensing new software. Cloud computing encompasses any
subscription-based or pay-per-use service that, in real time over the Internet, extends ICT's
existing capabilities.

Cloud Computing disrupts the conventional on-premises IT model, where you keep
acquiring servers, PCs and software licenses as your business grows. Running application
services on a cloud platform moves CapEx (capital expense) to OpEx (operational expense) ,
because business can develop, deploy and use more application services as they require
them, without needing huge initial capital investments (and ensuing operational costs) for
dedicated infrastructure that may never be needed.

Cloud Computing is not a technology revolution, but rather a process and business evolution
on how we use those technologies that enables Cloud Computing as it exists today: SaaS,
inexpensive storage, SOA(service-oriented architectures), On Demand Computing, Grid
Computing, Utility Computing, virtualization, etc.

Cloud computing is at an early stage, with a motley crew of providers large and small
delivering a slew of cloud-based services, from full-blown applications to storage services to
spam filtering. Yes, utility-style infrastructure providers are part of the mix, but so are SaaS
(software as a service) providers such as Salesforce.com. Today, for the most part, IT must
plug into cloud-based services individually, but cloud computing aggregators and
integrators are already emerging.

Also, a relatively young company, without a huge IT infrastructure, will tend to move more
quickly to the Cloud, be able to enter and build new "markets" more rapidly, and thus
achieve competitive advantages over more traditional businesses.

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2. CLOUD COMPUTING- THE CONCEPT
"The cloud is a smart, complex, powerful computing system in the sky that people can just
plug into."
-Web browser pioneer Marc Andreessen
A definition refers to any situation in which computing is done in a remote location (out in
the clouds), rather than on your desktop or portable device. You tap into that computing
power over an Internet connection.
So ultimately cloud computing is abstraction of whole computer of any scale.

It is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are
provided as a service over the Internet. Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or
control over the technology infrastructure "in the cloud" that supports them.

The concept incorporates Infrastructure as a service (IaaS), Platform as a service (PaaS) and
Software as a service (SaaS) as well as Web 2.0 and other recent technology trends which
have the common theme of reliance on the Internet for satisfying the computing needs of
the users. Examples of SaaS vendors include Salesforce.com and Google Apps which provide
common business applications online that are accessed from a web browser, while the
software and data are stored on the servers.

The term cloud is used as a metaphor for the Internet, based on how the Internet is
depicted in computer network diagrams, and is an abstraction for the complex
infrastructure it conceals.

Cloud computing overview

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2.1 Comparison:
Cloud computing is often confused with grid computing ("a form of distributed 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"), utility computing (the
"packaging of computing resources, such as computation and storage, as a metered service
similar to a traditional public utility such as electricity") and autonomic computing
("computer systems capable of self-management").

Indeed many cloud computing deployments as of 2009 depend on grids, have autonomic
characteristics and bill like utilities — but cloud computing can be seen as a natural next
step from the grid-utility model.

2.2 Implementation:
The majority of cloud computing infrastructure as of 2009 consists of reliable services
delivered through data centers and built on servers with different levels of virtualization
technologies. The services are accessible anywhere that has access to networking
infrastructure. The Cloud appears as a single point of access for all the computing needs of
consumers. Commercial offerings need to meet the quality of service requirements of
customers and typically offer service level agreements. Open standards are critical to the
growth of cloud computing and open source software has provided the foundation for
many cloud computing implementations.

2.3 Characteristics:

• On-demand self-service: individuals can set themselves up without needing anyone’s


Help.
• Ubiquitous network access: available through standard Internet-enabled devices.
• Location independent resource pooling: processing and storage demands are balanced
across a common infrastructure with no particular resource assigned to any individual
user.
• Rapid elasticity: consumers can increase or decrease capacity at will.
• Pay per use: consumers are charged fees based on their usage of a combination of
computing power, bandwidth use and/or storage.

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2.4 Economics:
Cloud computing users avoid capital expenditure (CapEx) on hardware, software, and
services when they pay a provider only for what they use which is called operational
expenditure (OpEx). 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 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.

Among the items that some cloud hosts charge for are instances (often with extra charges
for high-memory or high-CPU instances); data transfer in and out; storage (measured by GB-
month); I/O requests; PUT requests and GET requests; IP addresses; and load balancing. In
some cases, users can bid on instances, with pricing dependent on demand for available
instances.

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3. HISTORY
The Cloud is a term with a long history in telephony, which has in the past decade, been
adopted as a metaphor for internet based services, with a common depiction in network
diagrams as a cloud outline.

The underlying concept 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 which date back to the 1960s. The term cloud had already come into commercial
use in the early 1990s to refer to large ATM networks. By the turn of the 21st century, the
term "cloud computing" had started to appear, although most of the focus at this time was
on Software as a service (SaaS).

In 1999, Salesforce.com was established by Marc Benioff, Parker Harris, and his fellows.
They applied many technologies of consumer web sites like Google and Yahoo! to business
applications. They also provided the concept of "On demand" and "SaaS" with their real
business and successful customers. The key for SaaS is being customizable by customer
alone or with a small amount of help. Flexibility and speed for application development
have been drastically welcomed and accepted by business users.

IBM extended these concepts in 2001, as detailed 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.com played a key role in the development of cloud computing by modernizing their
data centers after the dot-com bubble and, having found that the new cloud architecture
resulted in significant internal efficiency improvements, providing access to their systems by
way of Amazon Web Services in 2005 on a utility computing basis.

2007 saw increased activity, with Google, IBM, and a number of universities embarking on a
large scale cloud computing research project, around the time the term started gaining
popularity in the mainstream press. It was a hot topic by mid-2008 and numerous cloud
computing events had been scheduled.

In August 2008, Gartner Research observed that "organizations are switching from
company-owned hardware and software assets to per-use service-based models" and 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."

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4. COMPONENTS

Applications: Facebook · Google Apps · SalesForce · Microsoft Online

Browser(Chrome) · Firefox · Cloud · Mobile (Android · iPhone) · Netbook


Client:
(EeePC · MSI Wind) · Nettop (CherryPal · Zonbu)

Infrastructure
BitTorrent  · EC2 · GoGrid · Sun Grid
:

Platforms: Azure · SalesForce

Services: Alexa  · MTurk · SQS

Storage: S3 · SimpleDB · SQL Services

Standards: Ajax · HTML 5 

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4.1 Application
A cloud application leverages the Cloud in software architecture, often eliminating the need
to install and run the application on the customer's own computer, thus alleviating the
burden of software maintenance, ongoing operation, and support. For example:

 Peer-to-peer / volunteer computing (Bittorrent, BOINC Projects, Skype)


 Web application (Facebook)
 Software as a service (Google Apps, SAP and Salesforce)
 Software plus services (Microsoft Online Services)

4.2 Client
A cloud client consists of computer hardware and/or computer software which relies on
cloud computing for application delivery, or which is specifically designed for delivery of
cloud services and which, in either case, is essentially useless without it. For example:

 Mobile (Android, iPhone, Windows Mobile)


 Thin client (CherryPal, Zonbu, gOS-based systems)
 Thick client / Web browser (Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox)

4.3 Infrastructure
Cloud infrastructure, such as Infrastructure as a service, is the delivery of computer
infrastructure, typically a platform virtualization environment, as a service. For example:

 Full virtualization (GoGrid, Skytap)


 Management (RightScale)
 Compute (Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud)
 Platform (Force.com)

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4.4 Platform
A cloud platform, such as Platform as a service, the delivery of a computing platform,
and/or solution stack as a service, facilitates deployment of applications without the cost
and complexity of buying and managing the underlying hardware and software layers. For
example:

 Web application frameworks


o Python Django (Google App Engine)
o .NET (Azure Services Platform)
 Web hosting (Mosso)
 Proprietary (Force.com)

4.5 Service
A cloud service includes "products, services and solutions that are delivered and consumed
in real-time over the Internet". For example, Web Services ("software system[s] designed to
support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network") which may be
accessed by other cloud computing components, software, e.g., Software plus service, or
end users directly. Specific examples include:

 Identity (OAuth, OpenID)


 Integration (Amazon Simple Queue Service)
 Payments (Amazon Flexible Payments Service, Google Checkout, PayPal)
 Mapping (Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps)
 Search (Alexa, Google Custom Search, Yahoo! BOSS)
 Others (Amazon Mechanical Turk)

4.6 Storage
Cloud storage involves the delivery of data storage as a service, including database-like
services, often billed on a utility computing basis, e.g., per gigabyte per month. For
example:

 Database (Amazon SimpleDB, Google App Engine's BigTable datastore)

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 Network attached storage (MobileMe iDisk, Nirvanix CloudNAS)
 Synchronization (Live Mesh Live Desktop component, MobileMe push functions)
 Web service (Amazon Simple Storage Service, Nirvanix SDN)

5. ARCHITECTURE
The cloud computing architecture consists of two sections: The front end and the back end.
They connect to each other through a network, usually the Internet.

The front end: The front end includes the client's computer (or computer network) and the
application required to access the cloud computing system e.g. Internet Explorer or Firefox

The back end: On the back end of the system are the various computers, servers and data
storage systems that create the "cloud" of computing services. The facilities that house
cloud storage systems are called data centers. Creating an effective data center requires
careful planning. The three big concerns every data center must be able to address are
security, electric power and cooling.

A single data server's power requirements aren't very taxing. But when a data center has
hundreds of servers, it's crucial that the center's electric wiring can support the
workload. Like all computers, data servers generate heat. Too much heat can impair or
damage servers, so the data center needs an effective cooling system to prevent such
problems.

Usually, each application will have its own dedicated server. A central server administers
the system, monitoring traffic and client demands to ensure everything runs smoothly. It
follows a set of rules called protocols and uses a special kind of software called
middleware. Middleware allows networked computers to communicate with each other.

If a cloud computing company has a lot of clients, there's likely to be a high demand for a lot
of storage space. Some companies require hundreds of digital storage devices. Cloud
computing systems need at least twice the number of storage devices it requires to keep all
its clients' information stored. The redundant copies of all these information is also needed
to ensure that the information will be available even after any breakdown in the system.

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6. KEY CHARACTERISTICS

 Cost is greatly reduced and capital expenditure is converted to operational


expenditure. This lowers barriers to entry, as infrastructure is typically provided by a
third-party and does not need to be purchased for one-time or infrequent intensive
computing tasks. Pricing on a utility computing basis is fine-grained with usage-based
options and minimal or no IT skills are required for implementation.
 Device and location independence 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 the users can connect from anywhere.
 Multi-tenancy enables sharing of resources and costs among a large pool of users,
allowing for:
o Centralization of infrastructure in areas with lower costs (such as real estate,
electricity, etc.)
o Peak-load capacity increases (users need not engineer for highest possible
load-levels)
o Utilization and efficiency improvements for systems that are often only 10-
20% utilized.
 Reliability improves through the use of multiple redundant sites, which makes it
suitable for business continuity and disaster recovery. Nonetheless, most major
cloud computing services have suffered outages and IT and business managers are
able to do little when they are affected.
 Scalability via dynamic ("on-demand") provisioning of resources on a fine-grained,
self-service basis near real-time, without users having to engineer for peak loads.
Performance is monitored and consistent and loosely-coupled architectures are
constructed using web services as the system interface.
 Security typically improves due to centralization of data, increased security-focused
resources, etc., but raises concerns about loss of control over certain sensitive data.

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Security is often as good as or better than 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.
 Sustainability comes about through improved resource utilization, more efficient
systems, and carbon neutrality. Nonetheless, computers and associated
infrastructure are major consumers of energy.

7. TYPES OF CLOUDS
7.1 Public cloud
Public cloud or external cloud describes cloud computing in the traditional mainstream
sense, whereby resources are dynamically provisioned on a fine-grained, self-service basis
over the Internet, via web applications/web services, from an off-site third-party provider
who shares resources and bills on a fine-grained utility computing basis.

7.2 Private cloud


Private cloud and internal cloud are neologisms that some vendors have recently used to
describe offerings that emulate cloud computing on private networks. These products claim
to "deliver some benefits of cloud computing without the pitfalls", capitalizing on data
security, corporate governance, and reliability concerns.

While an analyst predicted in 2008 that private cloud networks would be the future of
corporate IT, there is some uncertainty whether they are a reality even within the same
firm. Analysts also claim that within five years a "huge percentage" of small and medium
enterprises will get most of their computing resources from external cloud computing
providers as they "will not have economies of scale to make it worth staying in the IT
business" or be able to afford private clouds.

The term has also been used in the logical rather than physical sense, for example in
reference to platform as service offerings, though such offerings including Microsoft's Azure
Services Platform are not available for on-premises deployment.

7.3 Hybrid cloud


Composition of two or more clouds that remain unique entities but are bound together by
standardized or proprietary technology.
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8. POSSIBLE DELIVERY MODELS
8.1 Software As A Service (SaaS)
• Defined as service-on-demand.

• Infrastructure providers allow customers’ to run applications off their infrastructure,


but transparent to the end user.

• Customers can utilize greater computing power while saving on the following

 Cost

 Space

 Power Consumption

 Facility

8.2 Platform As A Service (PaaS)

• PaaS offerings facilitate deployment of applications without the cost and complexity
of buying and managing the underlying hardware and software and provisioning
hosting capabilities, providing all of the facilities required to support the complete
life cycle of building and delivering web applications and services entirely available
from the Internet.

• PaaS offerings may include facilities for application design, application development,
testing, deployment and hosting as well as application services such as team
collaboration, web service integration and marshalling, database integration,
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security, scalability, storage, persistence, state management, application versioning,
application instrumentation and developer community facilitation. These services
may be provisioned as an integrated solution over the web.

• Infrastructure providers can transparently alter the platforms for their customers’
unique needs

8.3 Infrastructure As A Service (IaaS)


• Defined as delivery of computer infrastructure as a service
• Fully outsourced service so businesses do not have to purchase servers, software
or equipment
• Infrastructure providers can dynamically allocate resources for service providers
• Service providers offer this service to end users
• Allows cost savings for the service providers, since they do not need to operate
their own datacenter.
• Ad hoc systems allow quick customization to consumer demands.
9. IMPLEMENTATION ROAD-MAP

In the following diagram,


• SaaS is consumed by end users (employees, clients, partners).
• PaaS is consumed by software developers and
• IaaS is consumed by IT administrators, and all those components must be managed
either by your company or by a third-party Solution Provider.

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10. CHALLANGES

• Where is my data?
• How does my data securely enter and exit the cloud?
• How is my data protected in transit?
• Who has access to my data?
• Who is accountable if something goes wrong?
• What’s the disaster recovery plan, including response to a pandemic?
• How to comply with Export and Privacy laws?
• Will my data disappear when my online storage site shuts down?
• What happens if my cloud provider disappears?

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• How is the environment monitored for OS / DB / application failures and how are we
notified?
• How is the data protected and secured from theft and damage? Encrypted? and how
are the encryption keys rotated and managed?
• How easy is it to integrate with existing in-house IT?
• Does the system have enough customization capabilities to suit my needs?
• Will on-demand cost more? What is the sweet-spot to consider when weighing Cloud
vs. in-house?
• How difficult is it to migrate back to an in-house system? Is it even possible?
• Are there any regulatory requirements on my business that can prevent me from
using the cloud?

10.1 Security A Major Concern

Security concerns arising because both customer data and program are residing in Provider
Premises.
Security is always a major concern in Open System Architectures

Host Security Issues


• The host running the job, the job may well be a virus or a worm which can destroy
the system From malicious users

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• Solution: A trusted set of users is defined through the distribution of digital
certification, passwords, keys etc. and then access control policies are defined to
allow the trusted users to access the resources of the hosts.
Information Security
• Security related to the information exchanged between different hosts or between
hosts and users.
• This issues pertaining to secure communication, authentication, and issues
concerning single sign on and delegation.
• Secure communication issues include those security concerns that arise during the
communication between two entities.
• These include confidentiality and integrity issues. Confidentiality indicates that all
data sent by users should be accessible to only “legitimate” receivers, and integrity
indicates that all data received should only be sent/modified by “legitimate” senders.
• Solution: public key encryption, X.509 certificates, and the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)
enables secure authentication and communication over computer networks.

Encryption Scheme
• Is it possible for all of my data to be fully encrypted?
• What algorithms are used?
• Who holds, maintains and issues the keys?
Problem:
• Encryption accidents can make data totally unusable.
• Encryption can complicate availability
Solution:
• The cloud provider should provide evidence that encryption schemes were designed
and tested by experienced specialists.

11. CASE STUDY

11.1 Amazon EC2

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Amazon EC2 Functionality
Amazon EC2 presents a true virtual computing environment, allowing you to use web
service interfaces to launch instances with a variety of operating systems, load them with
your custom application environment, manage your network’s access permissions, and run
your image using as many or few systems as you desire.

To use Amazon EC2, you simply:

• Select a pre-configured, templated image to get up and running immediately. Or


create an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) containing your applications, libraries, data,
and associated configuration settings.
• Configure security and network access on your Amazon EC2 instance.
• Choose which instance type(s) and operating system you want, then start, terminate,
and monitor as many instances of your AMI as needed, using the web service APIs or
the variety of management tools provided.
• Determine whether you want to run in multiple locations, utilize static IP endpoints,
or attach persistent block storage to your instances.
• Pay only for the resources that you actually consume, like instance-hours or data
transfer.

History
Amazon announced a limited public beta of EC2 on August 25, 2006. Access to EC2 was
granted on a first come first served basis. EC2 became generally available on October 23,
2008 along with support for Microsoft Windows Server.

Instance Types
Standard Instances

Instances of this family are well suited for most applications.

• Small Instance (Default) 1.7 GB of memory, 1 EC2 Compute Unit (1 virtual core with 1
EC2 Compute Unit), 160 GB of local instance storage, 32-bit platform
• Large Instance 7.5 GB of memory, 4 EC2 Compute Units (2 virtual cores with 2 EC2
Compute Units each), 850 GB of local instance storage, 64-bit platform
• Extra Large Instance 15 GB of memory, 8 EC2 Compute Units (4 virtual cores with 2
EC2 Compute Units each), 1690 GB of local instance storage, 64-bit platform

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Micro Instances

Instances of this family provide a small amount of consistent CPU resources and allow you
to burst CPU capacity when additional cycles are available. They are well suited for lower
throughput applications and web sites that consume significant compute cycles periodically.

• Micro Instance 613 MB of memory, up to 2 ECUs (for short periodic bursts), EBS
storage only, 32-bit or 64-bit platform

High-Memory Instances

Instances of this family offer large memory sizes for high throughput applications, including
database and memory caching applications.

• High-Memory Extra Large Instance 17.1 GB memory, 6.5 ECU (2 virtual cores with
3.25 EC2 Compute Units each), 420 GB of local instance storage, 64-bit platform
• High-Memory Double Extra Large Instance 34.2 GB of memory, 13 EC2 Compute
Units (4 virtual cores with 3.25 EC2 Compute Units each), 850 GB of local instance
storage, 64-bit platform
• High-Memory Quadruple Extra Large Instance 68.4 GB of memory, 26 EC2 Compute
Units (8 virtual cores with 3.25 EC2 Compute Units each), 1690 GB of local instance
storage, 64-bit platform

High-CPU Instances

Instances of this family have proportionally more CPU resources than memory (RAM) and
are well suited for compute-intensive applications.

• High-CPU Medium Instance 1.7 GB of memory, 5 EC2 Compute Units (2 virtual cores
with 2.5 EC2 Compute Units each), 350 GB of local instance storage, 32-bit platform
• High-CPU Extra Large Instance 7 GB of memory, 20 EC2 Compute Units (8 virtual
cores with 2.5 EC2 Compute Units each), 1690 GB of local instance storage, 64-bit
platform

Cluster Compute Instances

Instances of this family provide proportionally high CPU with increased network
performance and are well suited for High Performance Compute (HPC) applications and
other demanding network-bound applications. Learn more about use of this instance type
for HPC applications.

• Cluster Compute Quadruple Extra Large 23 GB memory, 33.5 EC2 Compute Units,
1690 GB of local instance storage, 64-bit platform, 10 Gigabit Ethernet.

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• EC2 Compute Unit (ECU) – One EC2 Compute Unit (ECU) provides the equivalent CPU
capacity of a 1.0-1.2 GHz 2007 Opteron or 2007 Xeon processor.

Pricing
Amazon charges customers in following way:

The hourly virtual machine rate is fixed, based on the capacity and features of the virtual
machine. Amazon advertising describes the pricing scheme as "you pay for resources you
consume," but defines resources such that an idle virtual machine is consuming resources,
as opposed to other pricing schemes where one would pay for basic resources such as CPU
time.

Customers can easily start and stop virtual machines to control charges, with Amazon
measuring with one hour granularity. Some are thus able to keep each virtual machine
running near capacity and effectively pay only for CPU time actually used.

Amazon does not have monthly minimums or account maintenance charges.

Here is the pricing scheme of Amazon EC2.

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Operating systems
When it launched in August 2006, the EC2 service offered Linux and later Sun Microsystems'
OpenSolaris and Solaris Express Community Edition. In October 2008, EC2 added the
Windows Server 2003 operating system to the list of available operating systems.

Currently available operating systems on Amazon EC2 are: Red Hat Enterprise Linux,
OpenSolaris, Fedora, Windows Server 2003/2008, Amazon Linux AMI, Gentoo Linux, SUSE
Linux Enterprise, Debian.

Persistent Storage
Amazon.com provides persistent storage in the form of Elastic Block Storage (EBS). Users
can set up and manage volumes of sizes from 1GB to 1TB. The servers can attach these
instances of EBS to one server at a time in order to maintain data storage by the servers

The figure shows how Amazon EC2 keeps Customer’s resources secure and isolated in the
cloud.

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12. PROS & CONS Of CLOUD COMPUTING
12.1 Cloud Computing Pros.
• Reduced Hardware equipment for end users

• Improved Performance

• Lower Hardware and Software Maintenance

• Instant Software Updates

• Accessibility

• Less Expensive (Amazon example)

• Better Collaboration

• Pay for what you use

• Flexible

• Increased storage

• Highly automated

• More mobility

12.2 Cloud Computing Cons.


• Security Issues (#1 concern)

• Internet connection

• Too many platforms

• Location of Servers

• Time for Transition

• Speed

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• Reliability

• Real time application response times

13. CONCLUSION
Cloud Computing is a vast topic and the above report does not give a high level introduction
to it. It is certainly not possible in the limited space of a report to do justice to these
technologies. What is in store for this technology in the near future? Well, Cloud Computing
is leading the industry’s endeavor to bank on this revolutionary technology.

Cloud Computing Brings Possibilities……..

 Increases business responsiveness

 Accelerates creation of new services via rapid prototyping capabilities

 Reduces acquisition complexity via service oriented approach

 Uses IT resources efficiently via sharing and higher system utilization

 Reduces energy consumption

 Handles new and emerging workloads

 Scales to extreme workloads quickly and easily

 Simplifies IT management

 Platform for collaboration and innovation

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 Cultivates skills for next generation workforce

Today, with such cloud-based interconnection seldom in evidence, cloud computing might
be more accurately described as "sky computing," with many isolated clouds of services
which IT customers must plug into individually. On the other hand, as virtualization and SOA
permeate the enterprise, the idea of loosely coupled services running on an agile, scalable
infrastructure should eventually make every enterprise a node in the cloud. It's a long-
running trend with a far-out horizon. But among big metatrends, cloud computing is the
hardest one to argue with in the long term.

Cloud Computing is a technology which took the software and business world by storm. The
much deserved hype over it will continue for years to come.

14. REFERENCES

1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing

2) http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/

3) http://www.mariaspinola.com/CloudComputing.php

4) http://salesforce.com

5) http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure

6) http://2009.cloudviews.org/site/

7) http://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/

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