What is Cloud

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.

·         IaaS Provider: Amazon Web Services (AWS)

·         IaaS Provider: Windows Azure

·         IaaS Provider: Google Compute Engine

·         IaaS Provider: Rackspace Open Cloud

·         IaaS Provider: IBM SmartCloud Enterprise

·         IaaS Provider: HP Enterprise Converged Infrastructure

PLATFORM AS A SERVICE (PAAS)

PaaS provides the runtime environment for applications, development & deployment tools, etc.

·         PaaS Provider: Engine Yard

·         PaaS Provider: Red Hat OpenShift

·         PaaS Provider: Google App Engine

·         PaaS Provider: Heroku

·         PaaS Provider: AppFog

·         PaaS Provider: Windows Azure Cloud Services

·         PaaS Provider: Amazon Web Services (AWS)

·         PaaS Provider: Caspio

·         Specialized PaaS: mBaaS Providers

SOFTWARE AS A SERVICE (SAAS)

SaaS model allows to use software applications as a service to end users.

·         SaaS Customer Service Providers.

·         SaaS Office Suite Providers.

·         SaaS Project Management Providers

·         SaaS Help Desk Providers

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 Application Description 1 MailChimp It offers an e-mail publishing platform. It is widely employed by the businesses to design and send their e-mail campaigns. 2 Chatter Chatter app helps the employee to share important information about organization in real time. One can get the instant feed regarding any issue. 3 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. 4 Quickbooks It offers online accounting solutions for a business. It helps in monitoring cash flow, creating VAT returns and creating business reports.

Data Storage and Backup

Box.com, Mozy, Joukuu are the applications offering data storage and backup services in cloud.

SN Application Description 1 Box.com Box.com offers drag and drop service for files. It just required to drop the files into Box and access from anywhere. 2 Mozy Mozy offers online backup service for files during a data loss. 3 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.

Management Applications

There are apps available for management task such as time tracking, organizing notes. Applications performing such tasks are discussed below:

SN Application Description 1 Toggl It helps in tracking time period assigned to a particular project. 2 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. 3 Outright It is an accounting app. It helps to track income, expenses, profits and losses in real time.

Social Applications

There are several social networking services providing websites such as Facebook, Twitter, etc.

SN Application Description 1 Facebook Facebook offers social networking service. One can share photos, videos, files, status and much more. 2 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.

Entertainment Applications

SN Application Description 1 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.

Art Applications

SN Application Description 1 Moo It offers art services such as designing and printing business cards, postcards and minicards.

Cloud Computing Providers

Various Cloud Computing platforms are available today. The following table contains the popular Cloud Computing platforms:

SN Platform's Description 1 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 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. 3 AppScale The AppScale is an open source platform for Google App Engine applications. 4 AT&T The AT&T allows access to virtual servers and manages the virtualization infrastructure. This virtualization infrastructure includes network, server and storage. 5 Engine Yard The Engine Yard is a Rails Application cloud computing platform. 6 Enomaly Enomaly provides the Infrastructure-as-a-Service platform. 7 FlexiScale The FlexiScale offers a cloud computing platform that allows flexible, scalable and automated cloud infrastructure. 8 GCloud3 The GCloud3 offers private cloud solution in its gPlatform. 9 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. 10 GoGrid The GoGrid platform allows the users to deploy web and database cloud services. 11 Google The Google's App Engine lets the users build, run and maintain their applications on Google's infrastructure. 12 LongJump LongJump offers a Business Application Platform, a platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). 13 Microsoft The Microsoft's Windows Azure is a cloud computing platform offering an environment to create cloud apps and services. 14 OrangeScape OrangeScape offers a Platform-as-a-Service (Paas) for non-programmers. Building an app is as easy as spreadsheet. 15 RackSpace The RackSpace provide servers-on-demand via a cloud-driven platform of virtualized servers. 16 Amazon EC2 The Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) lets the users configure and control computing resources while running them on Amazon's environment.