What is Cloud Computing?

Some time back I created a presentation (ppt) for a session on introduction to cloud computing. The PPT slide used will help to understand “what is cloud computing?”. I thought of sharing the PPT with you. Download the presentation (PPT) on what is cloud computing.

Cloud Computing Origin

“Comes from the early days of the Internet where we drew the network as a cloud… we didn’t care where the messages went… the cloud hid it from us”
– Kevin Marks, Google

“The emerging cloud abstracts infrastructure complexities of servers, applications, data, and heterogeneous platforms”
– Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon.

What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. This cloud model promotes availability and is composed of five essential characteristics, three service models, and four deployment models.
– National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) def–v15.

Cloud Computing – Essential Characteristics

• Location Independent Resource Pooling
• Measured Service
• Rapid Elasticity
• On Demand Self Service
• Broad Network Access

Cloud Computing – Service Models

• Software as a Service (SaaS): Use provider’s applications over a network
• Platform as a Service (PaaS): Enables developers to build applications on scalable systems and deploy as a service to customers. (Example: Google App Engine)
• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): Provide processing, storage, network capacity, and other fundamental computing resources where the consumer is able to deploy and run arbitrary software

Cloud Computing – Deployment Models

• Private cloud: Enterprise owned and operated for an organization only.
• Community cloud: Shared infrastructure for specific community.
• Public cloud: Provided to the public, generally large-scale.
• Hybrid cloud: Composition of two or more clouds.

Cloud Computing Properties

Cloud computing consists some or all of the following properties:

• Massive scale
• Homogeneity
• Virtualization
• Resilient computing
• Low cost software
• Geographic distribution
• Service orientation

Cloud Computing Architecture

Cloud Computing – Applications

SaaS

• Applications for Collaboration: email, IM
• Online storage: Files, photos, music, movies…
• Management: Calendar, project management
• Office productivity: Word processor, presentations, spread sheet
• Tools: Media player, compression utility, cloud desktop, antivirus

PaaS

• Applications are unlimited. Type of application is limited by the developer’s knowledge only.

Cloud Computing – Advantages

• Simplicity – easy to deploy and use
• Pay as you use – pay only for the services you consume
• Cost saving – Lesser in-house IT costs
• Scalability
• Backup and Recovery
• Easy to upgrade
• On demand availability

Cloud Computing – Challenges

• Security
• Performance
• Uninterrupted availability
• Integration with in-house IT
• Ability to customize to internal needs
• Migrating back to in-house
• Regulatory requirements prohibit cloud (data storage abstracted)

Cloud Computing Security – Advantages

• Shifting public data to a external cloud reduces the exposure of the internal sensitive data
• Cloud homogeneity makes security auditing/testing simpler
• Clouds enable automated security management
• Redundancy / Disaster Recovery

Cloud Computing Security – Challenges

• Trusting vendor’s security model
• Customer inability to respond to audit findings
• Obtaining support for investigations
• Indirect administrator accountability
• Proprietary implementations can’t be examined
• Loss of physical control
• Denial of Service

Download the presentation (PPT) on what is cloud computing