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. (The National Institute of Standards and Technology, U.S. Department of Commerce; October, 2009).

Figure 1.1 A Cloud computing conceptual diagram

If you have a Gmail or Yahoo account, you are already using Cloud computing. You dont really know where your e-mail and contacts are stored. Types of Clouds Public clouds Generally feature clients from more than one organization sharing the same infrastructure. This is also known as multi-tenancy. In a public cloud, a third-party service provider sells shared computing resources. Private clouds Are provisioned so that only one organization or entity has control over the infrastructure, and shared resources are solely for the benefit of the organization exerting the control. An example of this may be a private wiki site that only allows access to members of the same corporation. Community clouds Is a group united by a common cause or purpose. An example could be a public-private partnership site that hosts collaborative efforts to help airlines improve maintenance practices. Membership is limited to industry and government, but the overall portal is hosted by an industry trade group. Hybrid clouds Share features with the other three models (Public, Private and Community). An example is transportation clearing houses where some information may be public, some may be private and some may be shared with allied members such as travel booking sites, but not with individual consumers.

Types of Cloud Services The three generally accepted modes of types of services offered are as follows: Software as a Service or (SaaS) This provides software Cloud-based software services such as customer resources management or enterprise resources management and office suites such as Microsoft Live that duplicates the Microsoft Office suite for a fee on the internet. Early success story of SaaS providers is Salesforce.com. This site keeps track of customer potential sales value (also known as the pipeline), that management can use to manage the sales process, identify profitable sales efforts faster and put more resources into profitable sales contacts. Platform as a Service or (PaaS) This provides a Cloud-based platform such as em-mail, web serving, and collaboration. An example might be a collaboration platform that provides access to developer tools, document sharing, online slide decks or video archival or retrieval. Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint fall under this category. A sub-class of PaaS is communications as a service. Vendors such as Vonage and Skype now provide Cloud-based communications using a public Cloud model to provision services. Infrastructure as a Service or (IaaS) It provides a Cloud-based platform for servers, storage, memory, bandwidth and computing power on demand. Typically, the user will need to perform substantial customization of IaaS services. Vendors such as Rackspace provide servers and storage on demand. The nuances of what applications to use and how to configure the data storage are left to the client.

Cloud computing offers significant computing capability and economy of scale that might not otherwise be affordable to business, especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that may not have the financial and human resources to invest in IT infrastructure. Benefits of Cloud Computing Cost Savings for Hardware, Software, Maintenance and Personnel Cloud computing involves shifting the bulk of the costs from capital expenditures (CapEx), or buying and installing servers, storage, networking, and related infrastructure to an operating expense (OpEx) model, where you pay for usage of these types of resources. The relatively low upfront cost of IaaS and PaaS services, including virtual machines, storage, and data transmission, can be attractive especially for addressing tactical, transient requirements such as unanticipated workload spikes. Upgrades, data backup, configuration and technical support multiply the true cost of software well beyond the original purchase prices. Support and productivity losses such as downtime during upgrades or recovery of lost data are significant cost multipliers. Businesses could potentially save 70 percent of their operational costs by reducing the number of IT personnel at a business by shifting maintenance, IT expertise and many compliance requirements to the cloud provider. Flexibility and Scalability Small businesses can respond quickly to unexpected increases in demand rather than wait for infrastructure upgrades. This rapid, elastic response to business requirements gives businesses a competitive advantage in the marketplace over companies clinging to a fixed computing asset model. For example, you may need a large number of server resources for the duration of a specific task. You can then release these server resources after you complete your task.

Resiliency Companies that deploy applications on high-performance cloud computing platforms are guaranteed a level of business continuity and resilience nearly impossible to duplicate on owned computing systems without a significant investment in disaster recovery sites, replication software and highly trained disaster recovery and storage management personnel. Pay-per-use Business can throttle back their consumption of computing resources during off-peak hours or during slower business seasons, rather than paying for capacity they will not use. You pay for cloud services only when you use them, either for the short term (for example, for CPU time) or for a longer duration (for example, for cloud-based storage or vault service). On demand You only invoke cloud services only when you need them, they are not permanent parts of your IT infrastructure a significant advantage for cloud use as opposed to internal IT services. With cloud services there is no need to have dedicated resources waiting to be used, as is the case with internal services. Workload movement Cloud computing providers can migrate workloads across servers both inside the data center and across data centers (even in a different geographic area). This might be necessitated by cost (less expensive to run a workload in a data center in another country based on time of day or power requirements) or efficiency considerations (for example, network bandwidth). Energy and Space Savings With fewer servers, storage sub-systems, and network routers on the premises, enterprises that move a significant portion of their computing infrastructure to a cloud provider save money on both the electricity to power those systems and the air conditioning systems required to keep them cool. Floor and rack space for equipment is also reduced. Measured Service Cloud systems automatically control and optimize resource use by leveraging a metering capability. Resource usage can be monitored, controlled, and reported providing transparency for both the provider and consumer of the utilized service.

Risks of Cloud Computing Security and Privacy Public cloud services providers often can host the cloud services for multiple users with the same infrastructure. In this multi-tenant environment it may be difficult for a cloud service provider to provide the level of isolation and associated guarantees that are possible with an environment dedicated to a single customer. Enterprises fear that sensitive corporate data cannot be adequately secured and are worried about theft and who has access to data and their backgrounds. If third parties have access to trade secret information, that could destroy the legal protection of trade secrets. Lack of Direct Control With data hosted by a cloud provider and not on the enterprises premises, enterprises are concerned about the loss of control over users, applications and resources. They are worried about how their data might be used without their awareness e.g. sold or used for marketing. There is also a real possibility that their data could reside on the same resources as a competitors application and data which makes them feel vulnerable.

Data lock-in Once enterprises commit to cloud computing, their data and businesses are locked in and bound to a certain application, platform or operating system making them hostage to a particular provider of cloud services. Regulatory compliance Enterprises cannot tell whether the cloud provider has met local, regional and national regulations or whether the provider has complied with the necessary information security management systems requirements such IS027001. Cloud providers do not currently provide capabilities to guarantee compliance with these policies or facilities for auditing compliance. These create a third-party contractual limitation on user of cloud. Cloud Supplier viability and reliability There is concern about the viability of cloud provider tasked with hosting critical applications and data. If service provider goes out of business the enterprise will experience a disruption in service. Data Location When storing data it could be that the laws governing the data are not the laws of the jurisdiction where the company is located. Companies may or may not be able to control this by contract as the law in some countries can trump contractual provisions. Some regions such as European Union have stringent rules concerning moving certain types of data across borders. Data Availability Business Continuity A major risk to business continuity in the cloud computing environment is loss of internet connectivity (that could occur in circumstances such as natural disasters) as businesses are dependent on the internet access to their corporate information. There are also concerns that the seizure of a data-hosting server by law enforcement agencies may result in the unnecessary interruption or cessation of unrelated services whose data is stored on the same physical machine.

References: [1] Choo, R. Kim-Kwang. (2010) Cloud Computing: Challenges and future directions. Trends & Issues in crime and criminal justice. Australian Institute of Criminology. Available at: http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/tandi/381-400/tandi400.aspx [2] Cloud Computing diagram available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing [3] Joyent Smart Computing. (2010) Cloud Computing: An Overview. Available at: http://www.joyent.com/documents/Joyent-Cloud-Computing-Overview.pdf [4] Lewis, G. (2010) Basics About Cloud Computing. Software Engineering Institute Carnegie Mellon. Available at: http://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/abstracts/whitepapers/cloudcomputingbasics.cfm [5] McDonald, Kevin T. (2010) Above the Clouds: Managing Risk in the World of Cloud Computing. Available at: https://uhvpn.herts.ac.uk/patron/,DanaInfo=herts.np.eblib.com+FullRecord.aspx? userid=her.614871003bb8c56e&id=0d42cf0c3dd665945cdcfbeb0801cee5&tstamp=1303134429& p=499605 [6] Sridhar, T. (2009) Cloud Computing A Primer Part 1: Models and Technologies. The Internet Protocol Journal. Available at: http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac123/ac147/archived_issues/ipj_12-3/123_cloud1.html