A

SEMNIOR REPORT

ON

CLOUD COMPUTING

BY

VISHNUVARUNAN.T

12PCA058

FINAL-MCA

TO

T.S.VENKATESWAREN

PROFESSOR OF MCA DEPT

DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE – PG

K.S.RANGASAMY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCE

(AUTONOMOUS)

TIRUCHENGODE - 637 215

[2012-2015]

CLOUD COMPUTING

Abstract

A common understanding of “cloud computing” is continuously evolving, and the terminology and concepts used to define it often need clarifying. Press coverage can be vague or may not fully capture the extent of what cloud computing entails or represents, sometimes reporting how companies are making their solutions available in the “cloud” or how “cloud computing” is the way forward, but not examining the characteristics, models, and services involved in understanding what cloud computing is and what it can become.

This white paper introduces internet-based cloud computing, exploring the characteristics, service models, and deployment models in use today, as well as the benefits and challenges associated with cloud computing. Also discussed are the communications services in the cloud (including ways to access the cloud, such as web APIs and media control interfaces) and the importance of scalability and flexibility in a cloud-based environment.

Also noted for businesses desiring to start using communication services, are the interface choices available including Web 2.0 APIs, media control interfaces, Java interfaces, and XML based interfaces, catering to a wide range of application and service creation developers.

Introduction to Cloud Computing

When you store your photos online instead of on your home computer, or use webmail or a social networking site, you are using a “cloud computing” service. If you are an organization, and you want to use, for example, an online invoicing service instead

of updating the in-house one you have been using for many years, that online invoicing service is a “cloud computing” service.

Cloud computing refers to the delivery of computing resources over the Internet. Instead of keeping data on your own hard drive or updating applications for your needs, you use a service over the Internet, at another location, to store your information or use its applications. Doing so may give rise to certain privacy implications.

For that reason the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) has prepared some responses to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). We have also developed a Fact Sheet that provides detailed information on cloud computing and the privacy challenges it presents.

What is Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is the delivery of computing services over the Internet. Cloud services allow individuals and businesses to use software and hardware that are managed by third parties at remote locations. Examples of cloud services include online file storage, social networking sites, webmail, and online business applications. The cloud computing model allows access to information and computer resources from anywhere that a network connection is available. Cloud computing provides a shared pool of resources, including data storage space, networks, computer processing power, and specialized corporate and user applications.

The 5 essential characteristics of cloud computing!

On-demand self-service Broad network access.  Resource pooling.  Rapid elasticity.  Measured service. 

On-demand self-service. This is where

you can provision computing capabilities

based on your needs. Our needs may change

from time to time. This is why it’s called

“on-demand”. It’s based on your needs. The

cool thing is that, all these provisioning

processes don’t need human intervention!

Broad network access. By using cloud,

you have the option on whether to burden

the end users laptop or in another word, thin

or thick client. Thin client is where users

have to download a small size file and they

can access to all the resources and features

available. For thick client, users will have to

download a big size of files to their

workstations before using the features. In

another word, it’s about how much you rely

on the cloud and workstation.

Resource pooling. This is another

cool thing about cloud computing. Resource

pooling is about assigning computing

resources to multiple customers

dynamically. It is something that can change

from time to time based on users demands.

Rapid elasticity. For me, this is the coolest characteristic in cloud computing.

Imagine you are hosting a web site and your average hit per day is 100. Suddenly, you are launching a project and for a particular day, a lot of users will be signing in online at the same time. Your hit for that particular time may rise to 10,000 in a day. For this type of scenario, during a normal day, the cloud will assign you let’s say, 1 server and during peak time, it will rise to 5 servers and back to 1 server during normal hour. The best thing is that, you only pay for how much you use! If you are hosting it yourself, you’ll need to purchase 5 servers to prepare for the peak hours which only will occur once in a blue moon. During the rest of the time, the other 4 servers will just sit there doing nothing. Waste of resources.

Measured service. Since cloud is a pay-as-you-go type, you will be charged based on the amount of resources you use only. Cloud provides usage metering.

Service Models

Once a cloud is established, how its cloud computing services are deployed in terms of business models can differ depending on requirements. The primary service models being deployed (see Figure 1) are commonly known as:

• Software as a Service (SaaS)— Consumers purchase the ability to access and use an application or service that is hosted in the cloud. A benchmark example of this is Salesforce.com, as discussed previously, where necessary information for the interaction between the consumer and the service is hosted as part of the service in the cloud.

• Platform as a Service (PaaS)— Consumers purchase access to the platforms, enabling them to deploy their own software and applications in the cloud. The operating systems and network access are not managed by the consumer, and there might be constraints as to which applications can be deployed.

• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)— Consumers control and manage the systems in terms of the operating systems, applications, storage, and network connectivity, but do not themselves control the cloud infrastructure.

Also known are the various subsets of these models that may be related to a particular industry or market. Communications as a Service (CaaS) is one such subset model used to describe hosted IP telephony services. Along with the move to CaaS is a shift to more IP-centric communications and more SIP trunking deployments. With IP and SIP in place, it can be as easy to have the PBX in the cloud as it is to have it on the premise. In this context, CaaS could be seen as a subset of SaaS.

Deployment Models

Deploying cloud computing can differ depending on requirements, and the

following four deployment models have been identified, each with specific characteristics that support the needs of the services and users of the clouds in particular ways (see Figure 2).

• Private Cloud— The cloud infrastructure has been deployed, and is maintained and operated for a specific organization. The operation may be in-house or with a third party on the premises.

• Community Cloud— The cloud infrastructure is shared among a number of organizations with similar interests and requirements. This may help limit the capital expenditure costs for its establishment as the costs are shared among the organizations. The operation may be in-house or with a third party on the premises.

• Public Cloud— The cloud infrastructure is available to the public on a commercial basis by a cloud service provider. This enables a consumer to develop and deploy a service in the cloud with very little financial outlay compared to the capital expenditure equirements normally associated with other deployment options.

• Hybrid Cloud— The cloud infrastructure consists of a number of clouds of any type, but the clouds have the ability through their interfaces to allow data and/or applications to be moved from one cloud to another. This can be a combination of private and public clouds that support the requirement to retain some data in an organization, and also the need to offer services in the cloud.

Why cloud services are popular

Cloud services are popular because they can reduce the cost and complexity of owning and operating computers and networks. Since cloud users do not have to invest in information technology infrastructure, purchase hardware, or buy software licences, the benefits are low up-front costs, rapid return on investment, rapid deployment, customization, flexible use, and solutions that can make use of new innovations. In addition, cloud providers that have specialized in a particular area (such as e-mail) can bring advanced services that a single company might not be able to afford or develop.

Some other benefits to users include scalability, reliability, and efficiency. Scalability means that cloud computing offers unlimited processing and storage capacity. The cloud is reliable in that it enables access to applications and documents anywhere in the world via the Internet. Cloud computing is

often considered efficient because it allows organizations to free up resources to focus on innovation and product development.

Another potential benefit is that personal information may be better protected in the cloud. Specifically, cloud computing may improve efforts to build privacy protection into technology from the start and the use of better security mechanisms. Cloud computing will enable more flexible IT acquisition and improvements, which may permit adjustments to procedures based on the sensitivity of the data. Widespread use of the cloud may also encourage open standards for cloud computing that will establish baseline data security features common across different services and providers. Cloud computing may also allow for better audit trails.

Benefits

The following are some of the possible benefits for those who offer cloud computing-based services and applications:

• Cost Savings— Companies can reduce their capital expenditures and use operational expenditures for increasing their computing capabilities. This is a lower barrier to entry and also requires fewer in-house IT resources to provide system support.

• Scalability/Flexibility— Companies can start with a small deployment and grow to a large deployment fairly rapidly, and then scale back if necessary. Also, the flexibility of cloud computing allows companies to use extra

resources at peak times, enabling them to satisfy consumer demands.

• Reliability— Services using multiple redundant sites can support business continuity and disaster recovery.

• Maintenance— Cloud service providers do the system maintenance, and access is through APIs that do not require application installations onto PCs, thus further reducing maintenance requirements.

• Mobile Accessible— Mobile workers have increased productivity due to systems accessible in an infrastructure available from anywhere.

Challenges

The following are some of the notable challenges associated with cloud computing, and although some of these may cause a slowdown when delivering more services in the cloud, most also can provide opportunities, if resolved with due care and attention in the planning stages.

• Security and Privacy— Perhaps two of the more “hot button” issues surrounding cloud computing relate to storing and securing data, and monitoring the use of the cloud by the service providers. These issues are generally attributed to slowing the deployment of cloud services. These challenges can be addressed, for example, by storing the information internal to the organization, but allowing it to be used in the cloud. For this to occur, though, the security mechanisms between organization and the cloud need to be robust

and a Hybrid cloud could support such a deployment.

• Lack of Standards— Clouds have documented interfaces; however, no standards are associated with these, and thus it is unlikely that most clouds will be interoperable. The Open Grid Forum is developing an Open Cloud Computing Interface to resolve this issue and the Open Cloud Consortium is working on cloud computing standards and practices. The findings of these groups will need to mature, but it is not known whether they will address the needs of the people deploying the services and the specific interfaces these services need. However, keeping up to date on the latest standards as they evolve will allow them to be leveraged, if applicable.

• Continuously Evolving— User requirements are continuously evolving, as are the requirements for interfaces, networking, and storage. This means that a “cloud,” especially a public one, does not remain static and is also continuously evolving.

• Compliance Concerns— The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) in the US and Data Protection directives in the EU are just two among many compliance issues affecting cloud computing, based on the type of data and application for which the cloud is being used. The EU has a legislative backing for data protection across all member states, but in the US data protection is different and can vary from state to state. As with security and privacy mentioned previously, these typically result in Hybrid cloud deployment with one cloud storing the data internal to the organization.

What are the drawbacks of cloud computing?

Clouds pose more than just legal problems; there are technical ones, too, according to Bob Laliberte, analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group.

"We say about virtualization that it's hard to manage an environment where your applications are playing hide and seek and your hardware is lying to you," Laliberte says. "It's even more with clouds. You're having to try to manage someone else's hardware that's lying to you."

There is no single "cloud" involved in cloud computing, Laliberte says. All the SaaS and infrastructure-services providers use different technology and different standards, meaning every vendor relationship will be different. You can't just tool up one application or business process for "the cloud" and be ready to go.

You also can't just move applications to the cloud and expect them to run, even with the best virtualization technology, according to James Staten, data-center analyst for Forrester Research.To move any significant corporate processing into a cloud environment requires at least the same amount of work IT would have to do to move the same workload from its existing servers to new virtual or physical servers, including reconfiguring connections to network and storage resources, Wolf says.

Keeping track of what happens after the workloads move often means using a completely different set of management applications that integrate imperfectly, if at

all, with a company's existing management applications, Laliberte says. IBM, HP, BMC and other data-center systems-management vendors are adding cloud-management functions as quickly as possible in order to try to appeal to customers who have never dealt with them before, Laliberte says.

A lot of CIOs are interested in internal clouds, but they're leery of the performance issues and security inherent in the cloud environment," he says.Virtualization leader VMware is also leaping into clouds, basing much of its technology strategy on the idea that companies should be able to virtualize all their IT assets into "internal clouds" that will interoperate seamlessly with external clouds also based on VMware virtualization software.Both that capability and customers' willingness to go along with it are still in question, Wolf and Laliberte agree. The best use of clouds would be to be able to move specific workloads from internal servers to a cloud provider when you expect a spike in demand, take advantage of the cloud provider's additional capacity, move it back when the rush is over and pay only for the resources you used, Staten says."We're a long way from being able to do that," Staten says. (See Busting the Nine Myths of Cloud Computing).CIOs on the leading edge of cloud adoption say using an external cloud can make sense, but that metrics and strict controls are even more important in a cloud environment than in a normal internal IT environment, specifically because there are so few controls inherent in cloud-computing relationships. They recommend this checklist of issues to go through before deciding whether and why to use cloud

services, which to use, and how. Though the intent of cloud computing is simple, the impact and mechanisms for delivery are often far more complex."There's a lot more to it than people often admit," Staten says.

Risks of Cloud Computing Model

• Data mobility – Most SaaS or cloud vendors have some ability for customers to download and store data, but the cost of using someone else's application is often that you can't get all your data out of it in a way that's usable in a different vendor's software.

• Privacy – Most cloud contracts include privacy language that promises a customer's data is secure and private. But with cloud-monitoring and management software still in its infancy, a customer's ability to know for sure who's looking at what data — especially who within their own organizations is using it — is limited.•

 Service levels – Cloud computing isn't entirely one-size-fits-all; there is some ability to customize the applications and services each customer gets. But the ability to tailor service-level requirements to the specific needs of a business is far less than with internal data centers where IT's whole purpose is to further the company's business goals. 

• Interoperability – The highly-customized internal applications that many companies rely on most heavily are often incompatible with generic IT infrastructures available within the cloud. That may be fine with many companies, which would prefer

to use only relatively generic applications outside their own firewalls.

Merits & Demerits:

Merits:

Cloud enabler technologies like utility computing, Grid Computing, RTI, web infrastructure and others are cloud enabled.

1. Infrastructure service providers are taking advantage of the Cloud services.

2. Information services, entertainment-oriented services such as video on demand, simple business services such as customer authentication or identity management and contextual services such as location or mapping services are positioned well by using the service.

3. Other services, such as corporate processes (for example, billing, deduction management and mortgage calculation) and transactional services (for example, fiscal transactions), would take longer to reach the cloud and the mainstream.

4. Cloud computing infrastructures allows efficient use of their IT hardware and software investments

5. A cloud infrastructure can be a cost efficient model for delivering information services, reducing IT management complexity.

6. The Cloud makes it possible to launch Web 2.0 applications quickly and to scale up applications as much as needed when needed.

Demerits:

1.Stored data might not be secure: With cloud computing, all our data is stored on the cloud. The unauthorized users gain access to our confidential data.

2.Dependent on internet connection:Internet connectivity isn’t completely stable and reliable. It’s not platform agnostic:Most clouds force participants to rely on a single platform or host only one type of product.

3.Can be slow:Even on a fast connection,web based application scan sometimes be slower than accessing a similar software program on our desktop PC.

Many companies are delivering services from the cloud. Some notable examples as of 2010 include the following:

• Google — Has a private cloud that it uses for delivering many different services to its users, including email access, documentapplications, text translations, maps, web analytics, and much more.

• Microsoft — Has Microsoft® Sharepoint® online service that allows for content and business intelligence tools to be moved intothe cloud, and Microsoft currently makes its office applications available in a cloud.

• Salesforce.com — Runs its application set for its customers in a cloud, and its Force.com and Vmforce.com products provide developers with platforms to build customized cloud services.

Conclusions

To summarize, the cloud provides many options for the everyday computer user as well as large and small businesses. It opens up the world of computing to a broader range of uses and increases the ease of use by giving access through any internet connection. However, with this increased ease also come drawbacks. You have less

control over who has access to your information and little to no knowledge of where it is stored. You also must be aware of the security risks of having data stored on the cloud. The cloud is a big target for malicious individuals and may have disadvantages because it can be accessed through an unsecured internet connection.

If you are considering using the cloud, be certain that you identify what information you will be putting out in the cloud, who will have access to that information, and what you will need to make sure it is protected. Additionally, know your options in terms of what type of cloud will be best for your needs, what type of provider will be most useful to you, and what the reputation and responsibilities of the providers you are considering are before you sign up.