Cloud Computing

What is Cloud Computing

The cloud computing paradigm is punctually gaining favor as the ideal choice for several businesses, educational and research establishments. It can be considered as a new computing model that can provide services on demand at a least cost. Cloud computing is a large scale distributed infrastructure of the hardware and software resources in the data centers that provide diverse services over the network or the Internet to satisfy user’s requirements.  
According to the definition of “cloud computing” from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) it is that “cloud computing enables ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.” According to the definition, cloud computing provides a convenient on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources like computing applications, storage, network resources, platforms, software services, virtual servers, and computing infrastructure etc.  The main goal of the cloud computing is to provide scalable and low-priced on-demand computing infrastructures with good quality of service levels.
Cloud computing serves different needs for different parts of an organization. Business owners are attracted to cloud computing concept because of several features which improve their business capabilities.

(a) Easier to manage
(b) Deploy faster
(c) Device Independent
(d) Scalability
(e) Lower Initial investment
(f) Location independent

Some of the overseas organizations that are top in the cloud computing are Google, Yahoo, Amazon and IBM.

In Cloud Computing infrastructure, it needs the traditional service providers to have two different ways. They are service and infrastructure providers. Infrastructure providers manage cloud platforms and lease resources according to usage. Service providers hire resources from infrastructure providers to serve the end users. The mechanism model of cloud storage consists of four layers:

  1. Storage layer which stores the data
  2. Basic management layer which guarantees security and stability of cloud storage itself
  3. Application interface layer which provides application service platform
  4. Access layer which provides the access platform.

Since users’ data are in distant locations many developers of cloud-based applications difficult to include security. In other cases, developers just cannot provide real security with presently affordable technological capabilities. But it is very essential that the customer and the cloud provider share the same mutual trust. Trust is the backbone of the cloud computing infrastructure. 

Cloud Computing service models

A.     SaaS (Software as a Service)

Provides a business application used by many persons or enterprises concurrently. The applications are available from several client devices through a thin client interface such as a web browser. SaaS makes it not needful for the customer to have a physical copy of the software installed on the computer or any other client device. Applications can be accessed through any internet enabled device, such as smart phones, desktops. SaaS can sometimes be referred to as service or application cloud. This is individuals using software for private purposes, or businesses. There is no hardware or initial setup costs, pay for what you use.

B.     IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)

Provides online processing or data storing capacity. Cloud provider provides the cloud customer with essentially a virtual machine. How IaaS integrates basic services such as data storage, virtual servers, and database into one platform for arranging and running your applications. In this case, the company can have, upon request, the ability to manage any application. In IaaS, there are no delays in increasing capacity or any wastage of unused capability. The service can be accessed from anywhere by using internet.

C.     PaaS (Platform as a Service)

Provide a platform and environment to permit developers to make applications and services through the internet. These services are held in the cloud accessed by users basically through their web browser. One of the major benefits of PaaS is the flexibility that it occurs. Users can select which features the require and the don’t need to pay features they don’t require.


Cloud Deployment models

A.     Public Cloud

Public cloud is an infrastructure that is used by the public and provided by a government, organization or other companies. An offering from one Cloud Service Provider to many clients who share the cloud processing power concurrently. This is a cloud computing in which the cloud services are distributed over a network which is explicit for public usage. This is managed by an off-site third-party provider. This cloud is suitable for business requirements which require running the load, host application that is SaaS-based and control applications that a lot of users consume.

B.     Private Cloud

Has one enterprise as its user. A private cloud is used specially by an organization and the cloud provider is either the organization themselves or a third party. This is an advertising word for a proprietary computing architecture that provide hosted services to limited number of people behind a firewall. Private clouds often employ virtualization within an enterprise’s existing computer servers to improve computer utilization.

C.     Community Cloud

A private-public cloud with users having a common connection or relationship, such as a trade association, the same industry or a common locality. The cloud environment in use according to this might exist locally or remotely.

D.     Hybrid Cloud

This cloud is a cloud computing environment in which an organization manages, offers some resources in-house and has others provided outwardly. It can be an arrangement of two or more cloud servers. And the benefits of the multiple deployment models are available in a hybrid cloud hosting.
Properties of Cloud Computing

1.      Pay as you go
2.      Rapid Elasticity
3.      On Demand self service
4.      Broad Network access
5.      Resource pooling
6.      Measured Service


Problems with Cloud Service

1.      Trust issue
2.      Data Privacy (Integrity, Confidentiality. Availability)
3.      Cloud Service Abuse
4.      Infected application
5.      Data theft
6.      Data access Control


Countermeasures

1.      Encrypt data and upload
2.    The security measures designed for virtualization consists virtual firewall, virtual machine security management, virtual machine monitor and virtual machine isolation.
3.      Use Intrusion Detection Systems
4.      Heterogeneous data centric security is to be used to provide data access control.
5.      Data splitting
Read review paper


Advantages of Cloud Computing

1.      Low cost
2.      Location independent
3.      Easy to manage
4.      Scalability
5.      Easy to deploy


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