The Fundamentals of Cloud Computing
1. Business value:
Flexibility and ability to match the cost of the service to the consumption differentiate cloud computing from other internet services and though critical, this feature creates a new value for business services and enables to develop of new business models which have never been tried till now, as Cloud is not a kind of resource expense which can be replaced by means of working costs.
2. Service deployment:
The strength of cloud computing is instantaneous output, as customers can get service within a few minutes only. But, payment has not been done instantly all the way through the typical manual itself.
3. Self-service deployment:
Spontaneous and well-defined services provided by cloud computing can be utilized independently by customers.
All these core fundamentals imply a fully automated service provisioning and for the consumer, it means, “Service is in your hand take or leave it!”
Cloud computing, as a service in the form of “IAAS (Infrastructure as a Service)” and “PAAS (Platform as a Service)” by means of Infrastructure and Platform, are evolutionary steps to change its deployment model and the business value in very thoughtful ways. As cloud computing is a completely new part of the IT portfolio, just washing up the pre-existing services with a cloud doesn’t make any sense. It’s very important to focus on the things that make cloud computing, original and distinctive in every way.
Nowadays as a part of rapid growth, the traditional concept has been replaced by on-demand service, and that’s why, genuine prospective of SaaS (Software as a Service), has been not fulfilled in a proper way. As in fact, existing products are simply rebranded or just repackaged by vendors.
Similarly, to profit from the wave of cloud computing, pre-existing features of cloud computing have been rebranded without any proper functionality. To do this all, the concept of Cloud washing is implemented by vendors to convince decision-makers of any business or IT industry that how his strategy is useful to maintain swiftness with the latest innovations in the marketplace. Still, due to a few factors that are lacking, the strategy of cloud washing has not been fully implemented yet.
For all industrial applications based on a Cloud environment, it’s very beneficial to implement the concept of Cloud scalability. For effective functioning, the cloud needs to be designed with the provision of everlasting abstract scalability which can be controlled by service, if included in the architecture of the cloud-based application. Thus, the service itself manipulates a scalable architecture design of an application, this is why Cloud-based application essentially requires scalable architecture design.
NOTE: Cloud infrastructure provides an unbounded scalability.
Requirements of a strictly scalable application as follows:
1. Automatic enhancement of resources derived from the demand
2. Operationally competent enough while scaling up and down
3. Safe service
4. Fault-tolerant.
Types of Cloud Hosting Services Models
As a part of business objectives, customer service can be provided by means of Cloud Service Models. Basically there are three types of Cloud Service Models as follows:
1. SaaS (Software as a Service)
2. PaaS (Platform as a Service)
3. IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)
Software as a service (SaaS)
In this type of model, the cloud application is highly controlled by the administrative authority and the service provider is charged for updates, development, maintenance, and security. Thus, the service provider controls the final authority over the whole application and the end-user is totally free from any service issues.
Example of SaaS is Gmail, where Google is the provider and we are just end users.
SaaS Component Stack and Scope of Control
Despite of organizations and enterprises, an individual can be a subscriber or user of SaaS.
In most of the cases, calculation of usage fee depends on the number of users.
For example: Google Apps for business, individually charges fees for more than 10 users,
In SAAS, in spite of concentrating on hardware maintenance, infrastructure management, job hiring and retaining etc, center of attention needs to be the business.
Need of SAAS
In the cloud applications, SAAS can be implemented by means of productivity and collaboration, to make the task a little bit easier for HR, PayRoll and Sales
Cloud-based storage and sharing services like Dropbox, Windows Live, Amazon S3, Google Docs, and Box.net, etc.
NOTE: Individual use of more than 30 Google Cloud Services is an example of SAAS itself.
PaaS (Platform as a Service)
A policy to develop, test and deploy software is practically known as a platform and the entire SDLC is operated on a service model called PAAS. PaaS is dedicated to application developers, testers, and administrators. Everything required to build up a cloud SaaS application is provided by PAAS.
PaaS Component Stack and Scope of Control
On average, development environment, programming languages, compilers, testing tools, and deployment mechanisms, etc are included in PaaS.
For example: In Google Apps Engine (GAE), the developer downloads the development environment, locally in the developer’s infrastructure otherwise accesses tools in the provider’s infrastructure through a browser.
Independent Software Vendors, IT Service providers, or even individual developers wishing to develop SAAS, can become subscribers of PaaS.
Need of PAAS
The developer needs to concentrate on just the application development as the platform itself takes care of everything.
IaaS
A range of virtual computers, cloud storage, network infrastructure components like firewalls and configuration services, etc, is nothing but IaaS.
The System Administrators are the subscribers of this service and by considering per hour CPU utilization, storing of data, network bandwidth and infrastructure consumed respectively, the cost can be added and services can be used.
For example: monitoring, auto-scaling etc.
The fee structure of IAAS depends on all the above-mentioned factors and can be calculated by considering each of them.
IaaS Component Stack and Scope of Control
In the case of a newly established company, IAAS can be very useful in launching any application or website.
