#Cloud #Computing (CC) has indeed #revolutionized our computing #environment as to how we procure, store, protect and process data at #affordable cost and meet various #functional requirements of all big and small organizations. In recent years, CC is a hot topic among senior executives, managers, analysts, and IT professionals as to when and how to move to the CC environment and maximize their growth and profitability. Indeed, Cloud Computing is a great boon for all organizations as it provides them #flexible and #cost-efficient computing #resources and #services on #usage-based payments. Big Data due to its vast volume and speed of data has great dependency on cloud computing. However, various users at different levels need to understand the applications, #benefits and #implications/risks of joining the wave of cloud computing. The #flexibility, #economy, and #efficiency of CC have been well recognized by many big enterprises who are now planning to switch from their own leased data #networks to the CC environment. A number of large industries, #Research laboratories, %Government #departments and #universities/ #institutes of higher learning have already joined the CC wave. Most of the Small to Medium Enterprises (#SMEs) are progressively moving from #in-house #dedicated computing to the CC environment. Although most of them are happy to have cost-saving and #flaxy computing resources, on a need basis, some of them remain concerned about data security/ownership, migration and exit process.
Cloud as a Name. Cloud computing has emerged out of the data centre environment but
provides a lot more resources/ services to the users. CC is globally sharing of
computing resources among internet-connected many data centres. Therefore, it
has adopted the internet symbol of cloud and is called Cloud Computing.
Working with Cloud. A cloud computing system keeps all its critical data on internet
servers rather than distributing copies of data files to individual clients.
For example, Video-sharing cloud services for Netflix, stream data across
the internet to many players viewing the contents on their device rather than
sending CD/DVD or any physical discs. It is important that clients
are connected to the internet to use cloud services.
Common Use of
Cloud Computing. Some of us may
not know that CC has already impacted our daily life. For instance, when we
stream a movie or attend a Zoom meeting, we are using CC. Likewise, when
we use a smartphone to back up our data online, we use
CC. Today online gaming, streaming music, online photo storage,
browser-based email programs, WhatsApp messaging /video chatting and online
editing software are all made possible by CC.
Cloud Computing
Environment. Earlier, large
enterprises were using data centres, which had a few thousand servers
configured together to provide large computing capacity and good redundancy.
The number of these data centres were interlinked, to provide distributed
computing environment, where computing jobs could be processed on any data centre.
For load-balancing purposes, any job or part of it could be moved at any time
across data centres and the end-user was not impacted. CC service providers like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle,
Yahoo, Cisco and Apple are offering CC services on their clouds, which are
called Public Clouds. They offer computing power like water supply or
electricity, where the user pays only for the resources used and for the
duration of use. The user need not own expensive hardware and software to match
the market requirements. Earlier, Software Development Agency (
SDA) was using affordable standalone resources to develop
application software for the customer. Once the software application has been
verified and validated, jointly by the customer and the SDA, it was moved to
the staging system for final handing over to the customer. The software
application was then moved to an operational system. With CC being available at
a very affordable cost, the SDA can develop any software application in a
full-fledged environment and save in cost, time and effort.
This
flexible and scalable computing has brought a big revolution both in the IT
industry and business organizations. The customer/ user can start small and
grow progressively without worrying about the one-time down payment and any
subsequent maintenance/updating cost. Instead,
the service provider pays for hardware, software, connectivity, maintenance,
upgrading/updating. Customers are charged only for the resources/ services they
demand and the duration of their usage.
Cloud Computing Components. CC environment is made up
of components like Clients (customers), Data-centers, Distributed Servers and
Internet connectivity. Major components are:
· Data-center. The data centre is
the major part of CC, where the user application is housed and run, without any
dedicated server for the user. Earlier, a small data centre could
have hundreds of high-performance servers located in a large room size premises,
while a large data centre may have many such rooms over a number
of stories of the building to accommodate thousands of
severs. A data centre will require a large amount of power for
running the servers and air-conditioning. Lately, to cut down electricity load
for air-conditioning Microsoft had located one of its large data-centre under
the sea on the coast of England.
· Clients. Clients are the intelligent I/O devices
that the users interact with to manage their data on the cloud. Clients
generally fall into three categories:
· Mobile devices. These include Tablets,
PDAs or smartphones and iPhones.
· Thin Clients. These are the disk-less computers, which let the data centre (servers)
handle storage, processing of data and display required information in the
desired format. Thin clients are becoming very popular due to their falling
prices. compact size and no risk of viral.
· Thick
Clients. These are Laptops, Desktop computers having disk drives and
they use a web browser like Chrome, Firefox, or Int
Cloud Computing services. Cloud Computing consists of hardware
and software resources available on the internet and managed as external
services, available to customer on-demand. These services rely on advanced
software applications and high-end networks of server computers. CC
environment provides the following services:
· Software as a Service (SaaS). SaaS, provide fully functional programs to end users even
though the programs may not be resident on their local computers. These services
are provided over the Internet to the customers on-demand and on a subscription
basis. In this, cloud providers, host and manage various application software
applications, development and testing tools. The service provider takes care of
any software maintenance, upgrades and security patching. Users connect to the
software application, using web browsers on their Smartphones, Tablets, Laptops
or PCs. The users use the required software programming language or database
and query language and they need not make any changes or require integration
with other systems. Customers who are not involved with software development
but have a need for high-powered applications can also benefit from SaaS. Some
of the SaaS applications include Gmail, Outlook.com, web
content management, web analytics, CRM and Video Conferencing using Skype,
ZOOM.
· Platform as a Service (PaaS). PaaS
include virtual servers, operating environments, database environments, and any
required middleware. PaaS caters for the designing, development, testing, deployment, and hosting
of application software on the cloud. PaaS services also include team
collaboration, web service integration, database integration, security,
scalability, storage and versioning. PaaS helps software developers to quickly
create web or mobile apps, without worrying about setting up or managing any
infrastructure of servers, storage, network and databases. PaaS is normally
based on HTML or JavaScript and supports web development interfaces such as
Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and Representational State Transfer
(REST). These features allow the development of multiple web services.
· Infrastructure
as a Service (IaaS). Infrastructure-as-a-Service
solutions generally relate to the level of the physical servers, networking
components, and device storage necessary to make platforms
functional. IaaS comprise automated and scalable computing resources,
cloud storage and network capability. These resources can be easily available
on-demand and can be metered for billing as per actual usage of resources.
Users of IaaS can outsource and build a virtual data centre. IaaS forms an
important component of the Big Data environment. The main advantages of IaaS
are :
· Eliminates the initial capital cost and ongoing maintenance cost of
infrastructure.
· Faster disaster recovery with improved business continuity.
· Easy scalability and quick response to scale up / down of computing
resources.
· Increase reliability and support.
· Better security.
Cloud
Computing Models. In general, there are three models:-
· Public Clouds. This is a common pool of computing resources offered by
leading computing companies like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google, Rack–Space,
IBM’s Blue seal, Microsoft’s Azure. These are more popular among
Educational institutes, Research institutes, Government departments and SMEs,s.
· Private Clouds. This belongs to big enterprises like Reliance, Tata or Mahindra of
India, who have full control over their data locations and their security.
· Hybrid Clouds. This is a judicious mix of public and private cloud. International
standards ensure interoperability and integration of clouds.
Programming languages and Databases. All cloud service providers cater for
customers’ needs of database and supporting program /scripting
languages. IT professionals who are involved with programming and Database
handling of business applications use programming languages
like C++, Java/ JavaScript, Python, Ruby, Scala, and
Databases like Mongo DB and Apache’s Sqoop. You would require
certain services for initial migration from the client–server-based
applications to the chosen cloud. You need to carefully evaluate the facilities
provided and cost and conditions for entry and exit,
Benefits of Cloud Computing. Cloud computing is a big shift from the traditional way businesses think
about owning in-house IT resources to having dynamically scalable shared
computing resources with very high availability and at optimum cost. The average non-IT consumer benefits from
SaaS/PaaS/IaaS technologies because of the lower cost, faster deployment time,
and increased flexibility that these solutions offer Major advantages of cloud
computing are:
· Affordability. CC environments are highly
affordable meeting various resources both for big or small organizations or any
government department or research lab/institute.
· Auto and self-configuring. Most cloud computing
services are provided by self-service and on-demand. A large vast amount of
computing resources can be provisioned in minutes, typically with just a few
mouse clicks, giving businesses a lot of flexibility for capacity planning.
· Cost-efficient. Cloud computing
eliminates the capital expense of buying hardware and software and setting up
and running on-site data centres. It also takes care of round-the-clock IT
experts for managing the infrastructure and supply of the electricity for power
and cooling,
· Easy Customization. Earlier
applications were difficult to customize and required Modification of the
application code. SaaS applications are much easier to customize and it can
provide the customer exactly what they want.
· Easily Scalable (Elasticity). The benefits of cloud
computing services include the ability to easily scale up or down. It means
delivering the right amount of IT resources, computing power, storage and
bandwidth when it’s needed and from any geographic location.
· Elasticity. An elastic cloud provides variable levels of service based on the
changing needs of its clients. This pay-as-you-go approach makes cloud
computing affordable for all clients, no matter their size.
· Faster response due to higher bandwidth,
Bandwidth has increased greatly in recent months and quality of service
improvements are helping data flow. This will allow organizations to trust that
they can access their applications with low latencies and good speeds
· Fully Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)
is widely used and trusted. This allows customers to reach their applications
securely without having to employ complex back-end configurations, like virtual
private networks (VPNs).
· Global Marketing Reach. Earlier an IT solution provider,
who had developed an application for a very narrow market, might have had
problems marketing that application. However, with SaaS, the entire world is
open to the providers
· Performance Enhancement. The biggest cloud
computing services run on a worldwide network of secure data centres, which are
regularly upgraded to the latest generation of fast and efficient computing
hardware. This offers several benefits over a single corporate data centre,
including reduced network latency for applications and greater economies of
scale.
· Productivity Improvement. Most data centres
typically require a lot of “racking and stacking” hardware set up, software
patching and other time-consuming IT management chores. Cloud computing removes
the need for many of these tasks so that IT teams can spend time on achieving
more important business goals.
· Reliability. Cloud computing makes
automatically data backup, disaster recovery. This makes business continuity
easier and less expensive because This makes business continuity easier and
less expensive because data can be mirrored at multiple redundant sites on the
cloud provider’s network.
· Resilience. In a cloud computing
environment, servers are in geographically dispersed locations. However, to the
cloud subscriber, these servers act as if they are operating next to each
other. This gives the service provider more flexibility in options and
resilience against any outage. For instance, Google, Amazon have their cloud
servers located all over the world. If something were to happen at one site,
causing a failure, the services would still be accessed through another data
centre
· Scalability. Cloud computing isn’t a one-size-fits-all affair. The infrastructure
will depend on the application and how the cloud provider has chosen to build
the cloud solution. You may suddenly require a large number of servers for a
certain duration to meet very large business requirements and you cannot afford
such a budget to acquire dedicated resources. Alternatively, due to business
constraints, you may like to scale down your processing power, for some time.
The cloud fits both scenarios.
· Shorter Learning Curve. Most workers have access
to a computer and know how to use it on the World Wide Web. As such, the
learning curve for using external applications can be much smaller.
· Smaller IT staff. IT systems require
the overhead of salaries, perks/benefits, insurance, and building space for the
staff. The ability of SaaS to farm out applications reduces the need for any
large IT staff.
· Virtualization. This is software implementation allowing multiple instances of virtual
servers to be used. In this, you can have say 10 virtual servers running on one
physical server. This has brought down the operating costs and given more
benefits to the customers.
Problems and
issues of CC.
Like any
disruptive new technology, CC has its strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, application
developers and consumers of CC services should carefully examine those
before moving to the CC environment. It is very important to go through the
Service Level Agreement (SLA) carefully. There can be some outages that can
restrict various services and operations of the cloud. Some issues/ risks
associated with CC are briefly given below:
• Trustworthy. Cloud Service providers are responsible for installing and
maintaining all hardware, software, communication networking and technology
related to their cloud. Some customers feel a loss of their
management control over the system and their data. Some of them feel
uncomfortable in relying on the service provider to ensure required reliability
and performance levels.
· System Outages. The Internet can be prone
to outages and you can have problems accessing it till the problem is fixed by
the tech team of the service provider. Likewise, there can be a problem in
customer premises in accessing the internet and client has to wait as they are
hooked on the cloud environment.
· Sensitive or Proprietary Information. If you
have, your organization may simply mandate that you not store it on someone
else’s machines.
· Lock-in. There is also fear of “Lock-in” with a particular
cloud service provider (vendor). It is feared that they may have to pay big
charges to port their application to a new vendor.
· Integration with other systems. At
times it is difficult to integrate your applications if they are geographically
dispersed. If one application is running under your own control and the other
is on the cloud, their integration at times become tricky.
· Specific Computational Needs. The
organization that has a very specific computational need might discover that
they need to buy the software and install it on their local machines.
· Ownership and Privacy. Some traditional
users have fear of data ownership and its privacy. They fear that their
business details will become public affecting their competition and new
business alliances.
· Proprietary Services. Cloud service
providers use proprietary services, development languages and software tools.
Due to this restriction, some developers are afraid of being locked into a
single provider.
· Inter-operability. PaaS lacks
interoperability and portability among other cloud service providers. Therefore,
if you create an application with one cloud service provider say Google and
decide to move to another cloud service provider say Microsoft, you may not be
able to do so easily and you may have to pay an extra
· Loss of business data. If the service
provider goes out of business,, your applications and your data will be
lost. Data could be due to sabotage/ theft . The vendor may allow your
application to be brought from a different cloud service provider.
Guidelines for adopting the
CC environment. One
must not jump into it since many big companies are already using the CC
environment. One must carefully examine one's existing requirement, future
growth, business alliances, affordability. Some important points to be
considered are briefly given below:
· Service Level Agreement
(SLA). It should include – security commitment, data protection
commitments, customer notification in case of an outage and an exit policy
allowing the customer to exit without any hassle.
· Mean Time Between Failure
(MTBF)and Mean Time To Repair ( MTTR)
· Plan data Portability.
Service availability, Performance and Response time
· Study security features
carefully and be sure of the safety and security of your data.
· Do not work with a single
CC provider, It is safer to work with two or more cloud service providers.
· Be conscious of price and
do not overbuy licenses. Therefore follow the good old
saying “cut your coat according to your cloth”
· Move on and get going. Stay
updated on CC facilities and use those judiciously.
Summary. The old concept of in-house software
development was to have a dedicated EDP team or have an ERP package. Both these
environments were based on client-server architecture and well suited on an
enterprise basis. Cloud computing offers
secure on-demand storage, servers, databases, networking, and software
accessible over the internet (the cloud). This pay-as-you-go approach makes
cloud computing affordable for all sizes of clients. Thus Cloud Computing. the
environment will cut operational as well as capital costs. As a result, both big and small industries are rapidly adopting
cloud computing environments. The rapid spread of cloud computing
in the business world demands a bigger knowledge workforce with good
competency in developing software applications on the cloud. To
meet such ongoing demand for experts in cloud computing, the education
policy at the national level has already undergone reforms. UGC
and AICTE who are relating authorities for technical
education have already made cloud computing the main subject for
UG/PG level curriculum in higher education institutes. Accordingly, most
universities, engineering colleges and training institutes are vigorously adopting
cloud computing in their curriculum for Computer Science / Information
Technology (IT) at UG/PG levels. It is therefore essential for all young
professionals to learn skills for the cloud computing environment and
avail of job opportunities in emerging technologies.
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