cloud
Computing provides us a means by which we can access the applications
as utilities, over the Internet. It allows us to create, configure, and
customize applications online.
·
Cloud Computing is an approach to provide the following
services -
1.
SAAS (Software As A Service)
2.
PAAS (Platform As A Service)
3.
IAAS (Infrastructure As A Service)
Ex: Salesforce, Amazon EC2, IBM Blue Cloud, Microsoft Azure
What is Cloud?
The term Cloud refers to a Network or Internet.
In other words, we can say that Cloud is something, which is present at remote
location.
Cloud can provide services over network, i.e., on
public networks or on private networks, i.e., WAN, LAN or VPN.
Applications such
as e-mail, web conferencing, customer relationship management (CRM),all
run in cloud.
Or
What is Cloud Computing?
Cloud Computing refers to manipulating,
configuring, and accessing the applications online. It offers online data storage,
infrastructure and application.
We need not to install a piece of software on our
local PC and this is how the cloud computing overcomes platform dependency
issues. Hence, the Cloud Computing is making our business application mobile
and collaborative.
Basic Concepts
There are
certain services and models working behind the scene making the cloud computing
feasible and accessible to end users. Following are the working models for
cloud computing:
1. Deployment Models
2. Service Models
DEPLOYMENT MODELS
Deployment
models define the type of access to the cloud, i.e., how the
cloud is located? Cloud can have any of the four types of access: Public,
Private, Hybrid and Community.
1. PUBLIC CLOUD
The Public
Cloud allows systems and services to be easily accessible to the general
public.
Public cloud may be less secure because of its openness,
Examples of public clouds include
Amazon
Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2),
IBM’s
Blue Cloud,
Sun
Cloud,
Google
AppEngine and
Windows
Azure Services Platform.
Ex- e-mail.
2. PRIVATE CLOUD
The Private
Cloud allows systems and services to be accessible within an organization.
It offers increased security because of its private nature.
3. COMMUNITY CLOUD
The Community
Cloud allows systems and services to be accessible by group of
organizations.
4. HYBRID CLOUD
The Hybrid
Cloud is mixture of public and private cloud. However, the
critical activities are performed using private cloud while the non-critical
activities are performed using public cloud.
SERVICE MODELS
Service
Models are the
reference models on which the Cloud Computing is based.
These can be categorized into three basic service
models as listed below:
1. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
2. Platform as a Service (PaaS)
3. Software
as a Service (SaaS)
There are many other service models all of which can
take the form like XaaS, i.e., Anything as a Service. This can be
Network as a Service, Business as a Service, Identity as a Service, Database
as a Service or Strategy as a Service. The Infrastructure as a
Service (IaaS) is the most basic level of service. Each of the service
models make use of the underlying service model, i.e., each inherits the
security and management mechanism from the underlying model, as shown in the
following diagram:
INFRASTRUCTURE AS A SERVICE (IAAS)
IaaS provides access
to fundamental resources such as physical machines, virtual machines, virtual
storage, etc.
PLATFORM AS A SERVICE (PAAS)
PaaS provides the runtime
environment for applications, development & deployment tools, etc.
SOFTWARE AS A SERVICE (SAAS)
SaaS model allows to use
software applications as a service to end users.
Benefits
Cloud Computing has numerous advantages. Some of
them are listed below:One can access applications as
utilities, over the Internet.
·
Manipulate
and configure the application online at any time.
· It does not require to install a
specific piece of software to access or manipulate cloud
application.
· Cloud Computing offers online
development and deployment tools, programming runtime environment through Platform
as a Service model.
· Cloud
resources are available over the network in a manner that provides platform
independent access to any type of clients.
· Cloud Computing offers on-demand
self-service. The resources can be used without
interaction with cloud service provider.
· Cloud Computing is highly cost
effective because it operates at higher efficiencies with
greater utilization. It just requires an Internet connection.
· Cloud
Computing offers load balancing that makes it more reliable.
Virtualization
Virtualization
is a technique, which allows to share single physical instance of an
application or resource among multiple organizations or tenants (customers).
It does so by assigning a logical name to a physical resource and
providing a pointer to that physical resource when demanded.
Cloud Computing
has its applications in almost all the fields such as business,
entertainment, data storage, social networking, management, entertainment,
education, art.
Business
Applications
Cloud computing has made businesses more
collaborative and easy by incorporating various apps such as MailChimp,
Chatter, Google Apps for business, and Quickbooks
SN
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Application Description
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1
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MailChimp It offers an e-mail
publishing platform. It is widely employed by the businesses to design
and send their e-mail campaigns.
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2
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Chatter Chatter app helps
the employee to share important information about organization in real
time. One can get the instant feed regarding any issue.
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3
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Google Apps for Business Google offers creating text documents, spreadsheets, presentations,
etc., on Google Docs which allows the business users to share them
in collaborating manner.
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4
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Quickbooks It
offers online accounting solutions for a business. It helps in monitoring
cash flow, creating VAT returns and creating business reports.
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Data Storage
and Backup
Box.com, Mozy, Joukuu are
the applications offering data storage and backup services in cloud.
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Application Description
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1
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Box.com Box.com offers
drag and drop service for files. It just required to drop the files into
Box and access from anywhere.
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2
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Mozy Mozy offers online
backup service for files during a data loss.
|
3
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Joukuu
Joukuu is
a web-based interface. It allows to display a single list of contents for
files stored inGoogle Docs, Box.net and Dropbox.
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Management
Applications
There are apps available for management task such as
time tracking, organizing notes. Applications performing such tasks are discussed
below:
SN
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Application Description
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1
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Toggl It helps in
tracking time period assigned to a particular project.
|
2
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Evernote Evernote is an
application that organizes the sticky notes and even can read the text from
images which helps the user to locate the notes easily.
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3
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Outright It is an accounting
app. It helps to track income, expenses, profits and losses in real time.
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Social
Applications
There are several social networking services
providing websites such as Facebook, Twitter, etc.
SN
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Application Description
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1
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Facebook Facebook offers
social networking service. One can share photos, videos, files, status and
much more.
|
2
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Twitter Twitter helps
to interact directly with the public. One can follow any celebrity,
organization and any person, who is on twitter and can have latest updates
regarding the same.
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Entertainment Applications
SN
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Application Description
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1
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Audiobox.fm It
offers streaming service, i.e., music can be stored online and can be
played from cloud using service's own media player.
|
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Art Applications
SN
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Application Description
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1
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Moo It offers art services
such as designing and printing business cards, postcards and minicards.
|
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Cloud Computing Providers
Various Cloud Computing platforms are available
today. The following table contains the popular Cloud Computing platforms:
SN
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Platform's Description
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1
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Salesforce.com This is a Force.com
development platform. This provide a simple user interface and lets users
log in, build an app and push it in the cloud.
|
2
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Appistry The
Appistry'sCloudQ platform is efficient in delivering a runtime application
platform. This platform is very useful to create scalable and service
oriented applications.
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3
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AppScale The AppScale is an
open source platform for Google App Engine applications.
|
4
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AT&T The AT&T allows
access to virtual servers and manages the virtualization infrastructure.
This virtualization infrastructure includes network, server and storage.
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5
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Engine Yard The Engine Yard is a
Rails Application cloud computing platform.
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6
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Enomaly Enomaly provides
the Infrastructure-as-a-Service platform.
|
7
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FlexiScale The
FlexiScale offers a cloud computing platform that allows flexible, scalable
and automated cloud infrastructure.
|
8
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GCloud3 The GCloud3 offers
private cloud solution in its gPlatform.
|
9
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Gizmox The Gizmox Visual
WebGUI platform is best suited for developing new web apps and modernize
the legacy apps based on ASP.net, DHTML, etc.
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10
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GoGrid The GoGrid platform
allows the users to deploy web and database cloud services.
|
11
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Google The Google's App Engine
lets the users build, run and maintain their applications on Google's
infrastructure.
|
12
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LongJump
LongJump offers a Business Application Platform, a
platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).
|
13
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Microsoft The Microsoft's Windows Azure is a
cloud computing platform offering an environment to create cloud apps and
services.
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14
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OrangeScape OrangeScape
offers a Platform-as-a-Service (Paas) for non-programmers. Building an
app is as easy as spreadsheet.
|
15
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RackSpace The
RackSpace provide servers-on-demand via a cloud-driven platform of
virtualized servers.
|
16
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Amazon EC2 The Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud)
lets the users configure and control computing resources while running
them on Amazon's environment.
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