We hear lot of cloud terminologies : Apple iCloud, , Amazon EC2, Google Apps, IBM Cloud Foundation, IBM Lotus Live, Microsoft Azure, Google App Engine, Private Cloud, sales force, Public Cloud, Grid Computing ,… too Cloudy Isn’t it!!!
In this part of I am going to put some definition around Cloud Computing, in next parts I will discuss on various cloud applications and review of cloud Integration tools.
So let us define it:
“Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, 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 is composed of five essential characteristics, three service models, and four deployment models.” – NIST definition.
Long definition short, it is a utility computing model with on demand, automated turn-on, turn-off, or quickly scale capacity up and down based on one’s requirement. In accounting terms, fixed costs (Capital Expenditure) used to spend on computing can be converted to variable costs (Operational Expenses) based on the usage.
Like in any business model, in Cloud Computing context there are Producers who produce Cloud Computing Services to be consumed by Consumers.
Three basic service models in Cloud Computing are Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS).
Amazon Elastic Computing Cloud (EC2) is an IaaS in Public Cloud providers flexible offering with choice of multiple instant types, operating systems and applications. It enables elastic capacity demand provisioning in matter of minutes. With Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) you can provide secure private infrastructure by isolating your computing instances by specifying IP range you wish to use. And Pricing is based on the usage per hour.
IBM plays major role in IaaS area for Private and Hybrid Cloud with its IBM Smart Cloud Foundation with set of technologies that serve as underpinnings of Cloud Computing.
Cloud Computing is deployed in four different models: Private Cloud, Community Cloud, Public Cloud and Hybrid cloud.
- In Private cloud, the cloud infrastructure is provisioned for exclusive use by a single organization comprising multiple consumers (e.g., business units). It may be owned, managed, and operated by the organization, a third party, or some combination of them, and it may exist on or off premises.
- In Community cloud. The cloud infrastructure is provisioned for exclusive use by a specific community of consumers from organizations that have shared concerns (e.g., security requirements, policy, and compliance considerations etc.). It may be owned, managed, and operated by one or more of the organizations in the community, a third party, or some combination of them, and it may exist on or off premises.
- Public cloud. The cloud infrastructure is provisioned for open use by the general public. It may be owned, managed, and operated by a business, academic, or government organization, or some combination of them. It exists on the premises of the cloud provider.
- Hybrid cloud. The cloud infrastructure is a composition of two or more distinct cloud infrastructures (private, community, or public) that remain unique entities, but are bound together by standardized or proprietary technology that enables data and application portability (e.g., cloud bursting for load balancing between clouds).
Force.com from Sales force, IBM Smart Cloud Application Services, Microsoft Windows Azure Cloud Platform from, Google App Engine etc. provides PaaS services to develop and deploy applications based on this platform. They do provide with easy to development and deployment tools to develop applications without worrying about underlying Infrastructure complexities.
The IBM Smart Cloud Application Services are tuned for enterprise applications and delivered on IBM Smart Cloud for easy development and deployment.
Finally SaaS based Cloud Services are many, focused on end users, consumers without worrying about software or hardware. All they need is a Browser or device to access these applications. Apple iCloud, Google Apps, IBM Smart Cloud Solutions, and Salesforce.com etc. are providing software as a service for enterprises as well as to consumers.
In order to achieve economies of scale and provide flexibility for on-demand self-service, rapid elasticity and to measure service utilization, Providers does resource pooling. The provider’s computing resources are pooled to serve multiple consumers using a multi-tenant model, with different physical and virtual resources dynamically reassigned according to consumer demand. Example of resources includes storage, processing, memory and network bandwidth.
Here is the summary of Cloud definition pictorially with five characteristics, deployment modes and services:
In the next part I am going to discuss about Cloud applications and followed by discussion on Cloud Integration Tools.
