Cloud computing Term paper - 1

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CLOUD COMPUTING
Cloud computing is a technology that uses the Internet and central remote servers to
maintain data and applications. Cloud computing allows consumers and businesses to use
applications without installation and access their personal files at any computer with
Internet access. This technology allows for much more efficient computing by centralizing
storage, memory, processing and bandwidth.
Cloud computing comes into focus only when you think about what IT always needs: a
way to increase capacity or add capabilities on the fly without investing in new
infrastructure, training new personnel, or licensing new software. Many people are
confused as to exactly what cloud computing is, as the term can be used to mean almost
anything. Roughly, it describes highly scalable computing resources provided as an
external service via the Internet on a pay-as-you-go basis. The cloud is simply a metaphor
for the Internet, based on the symbol used to represent the worldwide network in computer

network diagrams.

The boom in cloud computing over the past few years has led to a situation that is
common to many innovations and new technologies: many have heard of it, but far fewer
actually understand what it is and, more importantly, how it can benefit them.
Economically, the main appeal of cloud computing is that customer only use what they
need, and only pay for what they actually use. Resources are available to be accessed from
the cloud at any time, and from any location via the Internet. Theres no need to worry
about how things are being maintained behind the scenes you simply purchase the IT
service you require as you would any other utility. Because of this, cloud computing has
also been called utility computing, or IT on demand

Cloud Application:
This is the apex of the cloud pyramid, where applications are run and interacted with via a
web browser, hosted desktop or remote client. A hallmark of commercial cloud computing
applications is that users never need to purchase expensive software licenses themselves.
Instead, the cost is
incorporated into the subscription fee. A cloud application eliminates the need to install and
run the application on the customer's own computer, thus removing the burden of software
maintenance, ongoing operation and support.

Cloud Platform
The middle layer of the cloud pyramid, which provides a computing platform or
framework as a service. A cloud computing platform dynamically provisions, configures,
reconfigures and de-provisions servers as needed to cope with increases or decreases in
demand. This in reality is a distributed computing model, where many services pull
together to deliver an application or infrastructure request.
Cloud Infrastructure
The foundation of the cloud pyramid is the delivery of IT infrastructure through
virtualization. Virtualization allows the splitting of a single physical piece of hardware
into independent, self-governed environments, which can be scaled in terms of CPU,
RAM, Disk and other elements. The infrastructure includes servers, networks and other
hardware appliances delivered as either Infrastructure Web Services, farms or "cloud
centers". These are then interlinked with others for resilience and additional capacity.

Here's a rough breakdown of what cloud computing is all about:

1. SaaSThis type of cloud computing delivers a single application through the browser to
thousands of customers using a multitenant architecture. On the customer side, it means
no upfront investment in servers or software licensing; on the provider side, with just one
app to maintain, costs are low compared to conventional hosting. Salesforce.com is by far
the best-known example among enterprise applications, but SaaS is also common for HR
apps and has even worked its way up the food chain to ERP, with players such as
Workday. And who could have predicted the sudden rise of SaaS"desktop" applications,
such as Google Apps.

2. Utility computing: The idea is not new, but this form of cloud computing is getting
new life from Amazon.com, Sun, IBM, and others who now offer storage and virtual
servers that IT can access on demand. Early enterprise adopters mainly use utility
computing for supplemental, non-mission-critical needs, but one day, they may replace
parts of the datacenter. Other providers offer solutions that help IT create virtual
datacenters from commodity servers, such as 3Tera's AppLogic and Cohesive Flexible
Technologies' Elastic Server on Demand.
3. Web services in the cloud Closely related to SaaS, Web service providers offer APIs
that enable developers to exploit functionality over the Internet, rather than delivering
full-blown applications. They range from providers offering discrete business services such as Strike Iron and Xignite - to the full range of APIs (applicationprogram interface)
offered by Google Maps, ADP payroll processing, the U.S. Postal Service, Bloomberg,
and even conventional credit card processing services.
4. Platform as a service Another SaaS variation, this form of cloud computing delivers
development environments as a service. You build your own applications that run on the
provider's infrastructure and are delivered to your users via the Internet from the
provider's servers. Like Lagos, these services are constrained by the vendor's design and
capabilities, so you don't get complete freedom, but you do get predictability and preintegration. Prime examples include Salesforce.com's, coghead and Google app for
extremely lightweight development, cloud-basedplatforms.
5. MSP (managed service providers)One of the oldest forms of cloud computing, a
managed service is basically an application exposed to IT rather than to end-users, such
as a virus scanning service for e-mail or an application monitoring service (which
Mercury, among others, provides). Managed security services delivered by Secure Works,
IBM, and Verizon fall into this category, as do such cloud-based anti-spam services as
Postini, recently acquired by Google. Other offerings include desktop management
services, such as those offered by Center Beam or Ever dream
6. Service commerce platforms A hybrid of SaaS and MSP, this cloud computing

service offers a service hub that users interact with. They're most common in trading
environments, such as expense management systems that allow users to order travel or
secretarial services from a common platform that then coordinates the service delivery
and pricing within the specifications set by the user. Think of it as an automated service
bureau. Well-known examples include Rearden Commerce and Ariba.
7. Internet integration The integration of cloud-based services is in its early days.
OpSource, which mainly concerns itself with serving SaaS providers, recently introduced
the OpSource Services Bus, which employs in-the-cloud integration technology from a
little startup called Boomi. SaaS provider Workday recently acquired another player in
this space, Cape Clear, an ESB (enterprise service bus) provider that was edging toward
b-to-b integration. Way ahead of its time, Grand Central -- which wanted to be a universal
"bus in the cloud" to connect SaaS providers and provide integrated solutions to
customers -- flamed out in 2005.

Types of Cloud Computing

Public Cloud:
Public cloud (also referred to as external cloud) describes the conventional meaning of
cloud computing: scalable, dynamically provisioned, often virtualized resources available
over the Internet from an off-site third- party provider, which divides up resources and
bills its customers on a utility basis.
An example is ThinkGrid, a company that provides a multi-tenant architecture for
supplying services such as Hosted Desktops, Software as a Service and Platform as a
Service. Other popular cloud vendors include Salesforce.com, Amazon EC2 and Flexi
scale.

Private Cloud:
Private cloud (also referred to as corporate or internal cloud) is a term used to denote a
proprietary computing architecture providing hosted services on private networks. This
type of cloud computing is generally used by large companies, and allows their corporate
network and data centre administrators to effectively become in-house service providers
catering to customers within the corporation. However, it negates many of the benefits
of cloud computing, as organizations still need to purchase, set up and manage their own
clouds.
Hybrid Cloud:
It has been suggested that a hybrid cloud environment combining resources from both
internal and external providers will become the most popular choice for enterprises. For
example, a company could choose to use a public cloud service for general computing,
but store its business-critical data within its own data centre. This may be because larger
organizations are likely to have already invested heavily in the infrastructure required to
provide resources in-house or they may be concerned about the security of public
clouds
Some of advantages of cloud computing:
Access to your data all the times.
A physical storage location is not needed.
Mostly has pay structure, which needs to be paid only when used.
Easily scalable so that companies can add or subtract their resources as per need.
Some disadvantages of cloud computing:
Less control as we handover our data and information.
Dependence on third part for security and confidentiality.

 Long-term dependence on cloud host for maintenance and information.

References:
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/cloud-computing/cloud-computing.htm
http://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/definition/cloud-computing
http://www.salesforce.com/cloudcomputing/
http://www.networkworld.com/supp/2009/ndc3/051809-cloud-faq.html