Unit 1: Cloud Computing: An Introduction

1.1. Traditional Computing Approaches

Previously, the power of computing was considered to be costly and scarce. Today, with
the emergence of cloud computing, it is plentiful and inexpensive, causing a profound
paradigm shift — a transition from scarcity computing to abundance computing. This
computing revolution accelerates the commoditization of products, services and business
models and disrupts current information and communications technology (ICT) Industry
.It supplied the services in the same way to water, electricity, gas, telephony and other
appliances. Cloud Computing offers on-demand computing, storage, software and other
IT services with usage-based metered payment. Cloud Computing helps re-invent and
transform technological partnerships to improve marketing, simplify and increase security
and increasing stakeholder interest and consumer experience while reducing costs. With
cloud computing, you don't have to over-provision resources to manage potential peak
levels of business operation. Then, you have the resources you really required. You can
scale these resources to expand and shrink capability instantly as the business needs
evolve. This computing paradigm gave rise to many forms of distributed computing such
as grid computing and cloud computing.
These vast applications required high-performance computing systems for their execution
wherein the concept of cluster computing, grid and cloud computing came into existence. Some of
the examples are:
 Numerous Scientific and engineering applications
 Modeling, simulation and analysis of complex systems like climate, galaxies, molecular
structures, nuclear explosions, etc.
 Business and Internet applications such as e-commerce and web-servers, file servers,
databases, etc.
For running these applications, the traditional approach to computing in the form of
parallel computing was used. But, then, the dedicated parallel computers were very
expensive and were not easily extensible. Hence, as per the users’ demand, the computer
scientists or engineers designed the cost-effective approaches in the form of cluster, grid
and cloud computing.

1.2. Evolution of Cloud Computing

Today’s PCs have remarkably high computing power. In the last few years, networking
capabilities have also improved phenomenally. It is now possible to connect clusters of
workstations with latencies and bandwidths comparable to tightly coupled machines. The
concept of “Clusters” started to take off in the 90’s. The term “grid computing” also
originated in the early 1990s as a metaphor for making the computer power as easy to
access as an electric power grid. The grids were considered as an innovative extension to
the distributed computing technology. However, the development of Cloud Computing
through various phases, including Grid Computing, Utility Computing, Application
Service Provision and Software as a Service, etc., has taken place in a remarkable way.
But the overall (whole) concept of the provision of computing resources via a global
network began in the 1960s. But the history of cloud computing is how we got there and
where all that started. Cloud computing has a history that is not that old, the first business
and consumer cloud computing website was launched in 1999 ([Link] and
Google). Cloud computing is directly connected to Internet development and the
development of corporate technology as cloud computing is the answer to the problem of
how the Internet can improve corporate technology. Business technology has a rich and
interesting background, almost as long as businesses themselves, but the development
 that has influenced Cloud computing most directly begins with the emergence of
computers as suppliers of real business solutions. History of Cloud Computing Cloud
computing is one of today's most breakthrough technologies.
 Early Phases of 1960s
Computer scientist John McCarthy had the concept of time-sharing that allowed the
organization to use an expensive mainframe at the same time. This machine is described
as a major contribution to Internet development, and as a leader in cloud computing.
 1969
J.C.R. Licklider, responsible for the creation of the Advanced Research Projects
Agency (ARPANET), proposed the idea of an "Intergalactic Computer Network"
or "Galactic Network" (a computer networking term similar to today’s Internet).
His vision was to connect everyone around the world and access programs and
data from anywhere.
 1970s
 Usage of tools such as VMware for virtualization. More than one operating
system can be run in a separate environment simultaneously. In a different
operating system it was possible to Cloud Computing: Unedited Version pg. 15
operate a completely different computer (virtual machine). IN 1997 Prof Ramnath
Chellappa in Dallas in 1997 seems to be the first known definition of "cloud
computing," "a paradigm in which computing boundaries are defined solely on
economic rather than technical limits alone." IN 1999 [Link] was
launched in 1999 as the pioneer of delivering client applications through its simple
website. The services firm has been able to provide applications via the Internet
for both the specialist and mainstream software companies. IN 2003 This first
public release of Xen ,is a software system that enables multiple virtual guest
operating systems to be run simultaneous on a single machine, which also known
as the Virtual Machine Monitor ( VMM) as a hypervisor. IN 2006 The Amazon
cloud service was launched in 2006. First, its Elastic Compute Cloud ( EC2)
allowed people to use their own cloud applications and to access computers.
Simple Storage Service (S3) was then released. This incorporated the user-as-you-
go model and has become the standard procedure for both users and the industry
as a whole.
1.3. Comparison between Cluster, Grid and Cloud Computing

FEATURES CLUSTER GRID COMPUTING CLOUD

COMPUTING COMPUTING
Characteristics Tightly coupled Loosely coupled Dynamic
systems, Single system (Decentralization) computing
image, Centralized Job Diversity and infrastructure, IT
management & Dynamism Distributed service-centric
scheduling system Job Management & approach, Self-
scheduling service based
usage model,
Minimally or self-
managed platform,
Consumption-
based billing
Physical Structure In cluster computing, a In grid computing, the In cloud
bunch of computers do not have computing, the
similar/identical to be in the same computers need
computers are hooked physical location and not to be in the
 up locally (in the same can be operated same physical
physical location, independently. As far location.
directly connected with as other computers are
very high speed concerned each
connections) to operate computer on the grid is
as a single computer a distinct computer
Hardware The cluster computers The computers that are The memory,
all have the same part of a grid can run storage device and
hardware and OS different operating network
systems and have communication
different hardware are managed by
the operating
system of the
basic physical
cloud units. Open
source Software
such as LINUX
can support the
basic physical unit
management and
virtualization
computing.
Resources The whole system (all Every node is Every node acts as
nodes) behaves like a autonomous i.e. it has an independent
single system view and its own resource entity
resources are managed manager and behaves
by centralized resource like an independent
manager. entity
Applications 1. Educational [Link] Modeling [Link]
resources and Simulations [Link]
[Link] sectors [Link] Design [Link]
for industrial promotion and Automation Forecasting
[Link] research [Link] Resources [Link]
Exploration [Link], Exploration
Military and Basic [Link] as a
Research service [Link]
[Link] [Link]-
as -a-Service
Networking Dedicated, high-end Mostly Internet with Dedicated, high-
with low latency and high latency and low end with low
high bandwidth Bandwidth latency and high
Interconnection Interconnection Bandwidth
Network Network Interconnection
Network
Scalability Size or scalability is Size or scalability is Size or scalability
100s 1000s is 100s to 1000s
1.4. Utility Computing

Utility computing basically refers to the utility computing technologies and the business models that
are offered by a service provider to the IT customers. The client is charged as per their consumption.
Examples of these IT services are storage, computing power, and applications.
The term utility is basically the utility services like water, telephone, electricity, and gas that are
provided by any utility company. In a similar manner, the customer when receives utility computing,
its computing power on the shared computer network bills is decided on the basis of the consumption
which is measured.
Utility computing is similar to virtualization and the total web storage space amount with the
computing power that is made available to the user is higher as compared to a single time-sharing
computer. The web service is possible through a number of backend web servers. The web servers
could be dedicated and used as a cluster form which is created and then gets leased to the end-user.
Distributed computing is the method where a single such calculation is done on multiple web servers.
In utility computing, there is a provider who will own the storage or power resources. The customer is
charged based on how much they make use of the services. The customer is not charged each month
and the services are not sold outright. Depending on the resources that are offered utility computing
could also be called Infrastructure as a Service or IaaS and Hardware as a Service or HaaS.
Their function is similar to the other basic utilities. It is like you or any major company uses
electricity. Both of you do not pay a flat monthly rate but pay the amount as per the electricity that
you consume.
There are companies that offer a different kind of utility computing where the user will rent a cloud
computer and use it in order to run the applications or an algorithm or anything that may need a lot of
computing power. You pay per second or per hour and do not pay a flat fee to use the service.
Utility computing is beneficial because of its flexibility. Since you do not own the resource and are
not leasing them for long it is easy to change the amount of power that you buy. You are free to grow
or to shrink the service amount within a few seconds based on your business requirements.

1.5. Characteristics of Cloud Computing

 On-demand Self Service: A consumer can request and receive access to a service offering,
without an administrator or some sort of support staff having to fulfil the request
manually.
 Broad network Access: The servers can be accessed from any location using any type of
device – anywhere access and anytime.
 Resource Pooling: Resource can be storage, memory, network bandwidth, virtual
machines, etc. which can be consumed by the cloud users. Resource Pooling means that
multiple customers are serviced from the same physical resources.
 Measured Services: Pay according to the services you use.
 Rapid Elasticity and Stability: One of the great things about cloud computing is the ability
to quickly provision resources in the cloud as organizations need them and then to remove
them when they don’t need them.
 Easy maintenance: Maintenance of the cloud is easier.
 Security: Copy of our data on various servers i.e., if 1 fails, data is safe on the other.

1.6. Benefits of Cloud Computing

 Resources accessible anywhere, anytime
 On-demand self-service
 Reduced IT cost(We need not purchase hardware, no maintenance, etc.)
 Scalability- If traffic on website is more, we can scale up anytime and similarly scale
down also.
  Online development and deployment tools
 Collaboration – People sitting in different countries can do a project through collaborating
and getting their data stored on the cloud
 Offers security as data stored is stored at multiple locations.
 Location and device independence
 Saves our time – we need not update the softwares, or maintain the hardware.

1.7. Applications of Cloud Computing

1. Online Data Storage :

Cloud computing allows storing data like files, images, audios, and videos, etc on the cloud
storage. The organization need not set physical storage systems to store a huge volume of
business data which costs so high nowadays. As they are growing technologically, data
generation is also growing with respect to time, and storing that becoming problem. In that
situation, Cloud storage is providing this service to store and access data any time as per
requirement.
2.
3. Backup and Recovery:

Cloud vendors provide security from their side by storing safe to the data as well as providing
a backup facility to the data. They offer various recovery application for retrieving the lost
data. In the traditional way backup of data is a very complex problem and also it is very
difficult sometimes impossible to recover the lost data. But cloud computing has made
backup and recovery applications very easy where there is no fear of running out of backup
media or loss of data.
4.
5. Big data Analysis:

We know the volume of big data is so high where storing that in traditional data management
system for an organization is impossible. But cloud computing has resolved that problem by
allowing the organizations to store their large volume of data in cloud storage without
worrying about physical storage. Next comes analyzing the raw data and finding out insights
or useful information from it is a big challenge as it requires high-quality tools for data
analytics. Cloud computing provides the biggest facility to organizations in terms of storing
and analyzing big data.

6. E-commerce Application:
Cloud-based e-commerce allows responding quickly to the opportunities which are emerging.
Users respond quickly to the market opportunities as well as the traditional e-commerce
responds to the challenges quickly. Cloud-based e-commerce gives a new approach to doing
business with the minimum amount as well as minimum time possible. Customer data,
product data, and other operational systems are managed in cloud environments.

7. Cloud computing in education :

Cloud computing in the education sector brings an unbelievable change in learning by providing e-
learning, online distance learning platforms, and student information portals to the students. It is a
new trend in education that provides an attractive environment for learning, teaching, experimenting,
etc to students, faculty members, and researchers. Everyone associated with the field can connect to
the cloud of their organization and access data and information from there.

6.E-Governance Application :

Cloud computing can provide its services to multiple activities conducted by the government. It can
support the government to move from the traditional ways of management and service providers to an
advanced way of everything by expanding the availability of the environment, making the
environment more scalable and customized. It can help the government to reduce the unnecessary cost
in managing, installing, and upgrading applications and doing all these with help of could computing
and utilizing that money public service.

7. Cloud Computing in Medical Fields :

In the medical field also nowadays cloud computing is used for storing and accessing the data as it
allows to store data and access it through the internet without worrying about any physical setup. It
facilitates easier access and distribution of information among the various medical professional and
the individual patients. Similarly, with help of cloud computing offsite buildings and treatment
facilities like labs, doctors making emergency house calls and ambulances information, etc can be
easily accessed and updated remotely instead of having to wait until they can access a hospital
computer.
8. Entertainment Applications:

Many people get entertainment from the internet, in that case, cloud computing is the perfect place for
reaching to a varied consumer base. Therefore different types of entertainment industries reach near
the target audience by adopting a multi-cloud strategy. Cloud-based entertainment provides various
entertainment applications such as online music/video, online games and video conferencing,
streaming services, etc and it can reach any device be it TV, mobile, set-top box, or any other form. It
is a new form of entertainment called On-Demand Entertainment (ODE).

1.8. Challenges of Cloud Computing

 Availability of Services
 Data Lock-In: Shifting of large volume of data from one platform to another.
 Data Seggregation: Isolation of data of each user.
 Scaling Resources: Sudden demand of increased resources may arise.
 Location of Data: Geographically stored(Each country has its own rule)
 Deletion of Data: User demands complete removal of data
 Recovery and Backup: How frequently and how fast a cloud system recovers from failure.