CLOUD COMPUTING-
THE FIFTH GENERA
Asif Ali Khan1 , Nikhil V Kulkarni2
Students, Information Science and Engineering,
Ghousia College of Engineering, Ramanagaram, Karnataka, India-571511
1
aakhan2011@gmail.com
2
nikhilgce@gmail.com
Abstract-Cloud Computing is the recent trend in IT that
moves computing and data away from desktop and portable
PCs (laptop) into large data centres. Cloud Computing is not
a completely new concept; it has intricate connection to the
relatively new but thirteen-year established Grid Computing
paradigm, and other relevant technologies such as utility
computing, cluster computing, and distributed systems in
general. It is the long dreamed vision of Computing as a
utility, where users can remotely store their data into the
cloud so as to enjoy the on-demand high quality applications
and services from a shared pool of configurable computing
resources. The key driving forces behind cloud computing are
the invention of broadband and wireless networking
technology, falling storage costs, and progressive
improvement in internet computing software. This paper
gives a brief review about various aspects of cloud
computing. It describes about the traditional trends before the
cloud computing came into picture. It also describes the
various essential characteristics, service models, deployment
model and various risks and issues in cloud computing.
I. INT RODUCT ION:
The Fifth Generation of Co mputing (after Mainframe,
Personal Co mputer, Client-Server Co mputing, and the web)
―The Cloud is a Virtualizat ion of resources that maintains
and manages itself, delivering massively scalable
Enterprise IT as a Service across Internet.‖
Cloud Co mputing is a popular phrase that is shortened
for applications that were developed to be rich internet
applications that run on the Internet (or "Cloud").In cloud
computing paradig m , software that is tradit ionally installed
on personal computers is shifted or extended to be
accessible via Internet. These "Cloud applications" or
"Cloud apps" utilize massive data centers and powerful
servers that host web applications and web services. They
can be accessed by anyone with a suitable Internet
connection and a standard web browser." [1]
Forrester, Gartner and other analysts all have their o wn
definit ion, many of which are s till evolving. A very
pragmatic definit ion is used by Consulting firm Accenture:
―the dynamic provisioning of IT capabilities (hardware,
software, or services) fro m third part ies over a network‖. [2]
The currently most accepted or ―official‖ defin ition of
cloud computing is provided by the North American
National Institute for Standard and Technology (NIST), a
shortened version is listed below.
"Cloud Co mputing 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.
This Cloud model pro motes availability and is composed
of five essential characteristics (On-demand self-service;
Broad network access; Resource pooling; Rap id elasticity;
Measured Service), the service models (Cloud Software as
a Serv ice (SaaS), Cloud Platfo rm as a Serv ice (PaaS),
Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and four
deployment models (Private Cloud, Co mmunity Cloud,
Public Cloud and Hybrid Cloud)." [3]
You may have heard about computing the cloud. Or you
may not have, but you probably should learn a bit about
them. Cloud computing is about many applications or
pieces of them, out of an organization (such as library) to
some external place.
Place is usually group of servers (server firm)
somewhere on the internet. So instead of an investment in
the infrastructure and maintenance of local servers, the
organization pays for raw computing power.
How does cloud computing work? The concept is fairly
simp le. First consider the traditional means of running large
applications: an application running of dumb terminal or,
more likely these days, your PC. In actually this is only the
"front end" of the application. Your co mputer is connected
to a server that actually runs a program and returns
informat ion to your personal computer. The server
constituents the "back ends". The dedicated server may be
located in the same bu ild ing as you are or most probably be
located at your system's headquarters or the resources
library.
With cloud computing the application runs somewhere
within the cloud. Ideally the user need not be aware of the
underlying technology or the physical location of the
application's computer being concerned only with the
application that is available. The desktop is connected via
the internet to a server farm, a collection of remote servers
that runs many applications at once. Which server o r server
the application runs on is determined by the programs
already running on the machines -there is an attempt
to balance the load so that all o f the programs run optimally .
II. TRADIT IONAL TRENDS (BEFORE CLOUD COMPUT ING):
"Cloud is designed to available everywhere, all the
time .By using redundancy and geo-replicat ion, cloud is so
designed that services be available even during hardware
failures including full data centre failures."[4].

Fig 1: T he Evolution of Cloud Computing
According to Fig 1, ironically, co mputing in cloud
brings things full circle in terms of co mputing resources. In
beginning computer were managed by the programmers
and were not accessible by mere laypeople. Then came
time sharing, when people had big, chunky terminals on
their desktop that looked like television sets with keyboards.
Staff throughout a company had to wait for in formation
technologists to write software for their application needs,
or in some cases to even run the programs. Then the advent
of personal computers allo wed people to run applications
on their own computers, over which they had co mplete
control. Eventually, networking products emerged that
allo wed PCs to co mmun icate with each other, transferring
data back and forth, and giv ing us email, as well as running
some shared applications. Additionally, the big mainframes
of yesteryear evolved into servers within co mpanies (and
lib raries); these were powerfu l, low-cost computers. Finally,
with cloud computing, the full circle: many personal
computers accessing big servers in a kind of timesharing.
"System integrators with a close proximity to customers
have a crit ical ro le in taking the benefit of cloud co mputing
to the enterprise customers."[5]
III. WHY CLOUD COMPUTING?
"The rise of the cloud is more than just another platform
shift that geeks excite .It will undoubtedly transform the IT
industry, but it will also profoundly change the way people
work and companies operate."[6]
Traditional infrastructure provisioning model is
inefficient and does not meet the requirements of the
internet era. In this system centric model, once the need for
a business application is identified, its infrastructure needs
are identified and a request for infrastructure is placed with
the IT infrastructure team that procures and provisions the
infrastructure. The application is then developed, tested and
deployed on that infrastructure.
Some of the challenges with this mode include —
A. Need for Large Capital
Large investments are required in procuring the
infrastructure for a business application. This increases the
barrier for innovation as it is hard to experiment with a
business idea without large investments.
B. Poor Utilization of Resources
Most of the time applicat ion usage is not constant and
hence there is inadequate utilization of resources that has to
be taken care of.
C. Slow Time-to-Market
This model of procuring infrastructure usually requires
large amount of time and reduces the agility of an
organization in creating new business solutions and
products. There are various ways in which various vendors
provide various different IT co mponents as services and
components ranging from infrastructure to platforms and
applications. This is co mmonly referred as infrastructure-
as-a-service, platform-as-aservice and software-as-a-
service.
This cloud co mputing model offers several important
benefits for enterprises including —
1) Faster Time-to-Market
Enterprises can avoid init ial stages of infrastructure
procurement and setup, thus allowing the business
solutions to enter the market faster.
2) On-Demand Elastic Infrastructure
Sudden changes due to business growth, functionality
additions or promotional offers can be addressed easily
with infrastructure that can be requested on demand.
3) Pay-as-Use
Organizations can leverage the pay-as-use model of
cloud computing to ensure efficient utilizat ion of available
resources and services .
IV. ESSENT IAL CHARACT ERIST ICS
A. On-demand Self Service
A consumer can use co mputing capabilities, such as
server time and network storage automatically without
requiring human interaction with each service’s provider.
B. Broad Network Access
Services are availab le over the network, wh ich
promotes utilization of client platforms (e.g., mobile
phones, laptops, and PDAs) which reduces the work of
human to a great extent.
 T ABLE 1:
T HE KEY P LATFORM P ROVIDERS

Company Offering Hosting S torage Platform App

S vcs

Rackspace M osso × ×
IBM Public & × ×
Private
Cloud
Google Google × × × ×
App
Engine
Amazon Amazon × × × ×
Web Fig 2: T hree Service Models
Services
M icrosoft Azure × × × × B.Cloud Software as a Service (SaaS)
Services The service of this model is to provide applications
Salesforce Force.com × × × × running on a cloud infrastructure to the consumer. The
applications are accessible fro m various client devices
through a client interface such as a web browser (e.g.,
C. Resource Pooling internet explorer). The consumer has no control over the
The resources are pooled to provide services to mu ltiple underlying cloud infrastructure including network, servers,
customers with different physical and virtual resources operating systems, storage. Providers are SalesForce,
provided according to customer's request. Examp les of Microsoft Office Live, Blogger etc…
resources include storage, processing, memo ry, netwo rk
C. Cloud Platform as a Service (PaaS)
bandwidth and virtual machines.
The service of the model is to provide the consumer-
D. Rapid Elasticity created or acquired applications created using
Capabilit ies can be flexibly provisioned automatically programming languages and tools supported by the
to the consumer. To the consumer, the capabilit ies provider. The consumer has no control over the underlying
available for provisioning often appear to be unlimited and cloud infrastructure including network, servers, operating
can be purchased in any quantity at any time. systems, storage. Providers are force.co m, IBM , Go Grid
etc...
E. Measured Service The key co mpanies providing services are shown in
Cloud systems automatically control and optimize table 1. So me other flavours of service models are listed
resource at some level of abstraction appropriately to the below in Fig 3-
type of service (e.g., storage, processing, bandwidth, and
active user accounts). Resource usage can be controlled,
monitored, and reported providing transparency for both
the provider and consumer of the utilized service.

V. THREE SERVICE M ODELS

According to Fig 2, we have three service models –
A. Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
The service of the model is to provide processing,
storage, networks, and other fundamental co mputing
resources to the consumer, to deploy and run arbitrary
software, wh ich can include operating systems and
applications. The consumer does not manage or control the
underlying cloud infrastructure but has control over
operating systems, storage, deployed applications.
Providers are GoGrid, Amazon EC2, Google, etc... Fig 3: Other Flavours of Cloud Computing Service Models
 VI. FOUR DEPLOYMENT M ODEL
A. Private Cloud.
The cloud infrastructure is operated solely for an
organization. It may be managed by the organization or a
third party and may exist on premise or off premise. It is
also called as inter cloud or corporate cloud .It provides
more control and security over resources but is more
expensive.
B. Community Cloud
The cloud infrastructure is shared by several
organizations and supports a specific co mmunity that has
shared concerns (e.g., mission, security requirements,
policy, and co mp liance considerations). It may be managed
by the organizat ions or a th ird party and may exist on
premise or off premise.
C. Public Cloud
The cloud in frastructure is made available to the general
public or a large industry group and is owned by an
organization selling cloud services. It is cheaper but it is
more prone to security.
D. Hybrid Cloud
The cloud infrastructure is a composition of two or
more clouds (private, commun ity, or public) that remain
unique entities but it is bound together by standardized or
proprietary technology .It enables data and application
portability (e.g., cloud bursting for load-balancing between
clouds).
VII. BENEFIT S
A. Costs
It reduces the cost of acquiring, delivering, and
maintaining co mputing power, importance in t imes of
uncertainty. The consumers don't need to purchase
complex IT infrastructure, they only need to purchase
computing services. The cloud pro mises universal access to
high-powered computing and storage resources for anyone
with a network access device.
B. Scalability and Capacity
The cloud is an always-on computing resource that
enables users to tailor consumption to their specific needs.
It allo ws IT infrastructures to be expanded efficiently and
effectively without necessity of making major capital
investments and capacity can be added as resources are
needed in a short duration of time. Capacity can be added
as resources are needed and completed in a very short
period of time.
C. Resource Maximization
Cloud computing Helps in maximizing the IT resources
particularly for agencies facing shortage of qualified IT
professionals. It helps in reduces the cost of training
process.
D. Collaboration
The cloud presents an environment where users, agency,
government and private entit ies can enhance collaboration
and greater information sharing between them.
E. Customization
Cloud computing offers a platform of tremendous
potential for creating and amending applications to address
a diversity of tasks and challenges. Its inherent agility
means that specific processes can be easily altered to meet
shifting agency needs, since those processes are typically
changeable by making a configuration change, and not by
driving redevelopment from the back-end systems [7]
VIII. ISSUES AND RISKS
A. Loss Of Governance
While using cloud infrastructures, the client losses
control over the Cloud Provider (CP) on a nu mber of issues
which may affect security. At the same t ime, SLAs may not
offer a co mmit ment to provide such services on the part of
the cloud provider, thus leaving a gap in security defences.
B. Lock - In
Absence of interoperability between various cloud
providers it is d ifficult for the customer to migrate fro m
one provider to another or migrate data and services. Th is
introduces a dependency for a part icular customer to stick
to a Cloud Provider.
C. Compliance Risk
Investment in achiev ing certification (e.g., industry
standard or regulatory requirements) may be put at risk by
migration to the cloud:
if the CP cannot provide evidence of their own
compliance with the relevant requirements
if the CP does not permit audit by the cloud
customer (CC).
D. Management Interface Compromise
Customer management interfaces of a public cloud
provider can be accessed through the internet to larger set
of resources and therefore they are vulnerable to increased
risk, especially when co mbined with remote access and
web browser.
E. Data Protection
It may be difficult for the cloud customer to effectively
check the data handling practices of the cloud provider and
thus to be sure that the data is handled in a lawful way. On
the other hand, some cloud providers do provide
informat ion on their data handling practices others offer
certification summaries on their data processing and data
security activities.
F. Insecure or Incomplete Data Deletion
Whenever a consumer requests to delete a
cloud resource, most of the times the data is not completely
wiped. Time ly data deletion may also be impossible, either
because ext ra copies of data are stored but are not available,
or because the disk to be destroyed also stores data from
other clients.
Other Issues and Risks: Includes Malicious Insider,
Isolation Failure, and Absence of Standards and so on.
IX. CLOUD COMPUT ING M AT URIT Y M ODEL
The establishment of a cloud computing maturity model
(CCMM) provides a framework for successful
implementation. GTSI reco mmends a phased approach to
the CCMM, encompassing five key components:
Consolidation
Virtualization
Automation
Utility
Cloud
A. Consolidation
An enterprise’s migration towards cloud computing
begins with the consolidation of server, storage, and
network resources, which wo rks to reduce redundancy,
decrease wasted space, and increase resource usage.
Consolidation is achieved primarily through virtualization.
It allo ws agencies to do more with fewer resources by
mu ltip lying the speed of critical processes and enabling
greater flexib ility. Moreover, the transition to a unified
fabric provides both physical and virtual access to the
storage area network (SAN), creat ing greater efficiency and
cost savings by allowing more storage to be consolidated in
the SAN.When established properly, the cloud platform
provides security of all data in motion, t ravelling between
the cloud and all data at rest in cloud storage.
B. Virtualization
Virtualizat ion forms a solid foundation for all cloud
modelling architectures. It helps in creating a unified
resource that can be shared by all application loads by
enabling the abstraction and aggregation of all data centre
resources. Hardware such as servers, storage devices, and
other components are treated as a pool of resources rather
than a discrete system, thereby allowing the allocation of
resources on demand. By separating the workload fro m the
underlying OS and hardware, v irtualization allo ws
portability. When extended to every system component,
network, storage, and servers– it enables the mobility of
applications and data, not only across servers and storage
arrays, but also across data centres and networks.
Ult imately, the result is increased use of assets and
simp lified lifecycle management through the mobility of
applications and data. Although many agencies turn to
virtualizat ion to improve resource usage and decrease both
capital and operating costs, the ultimate goal in cloud
computing is the use of the abstraction between
applications and infrastructure to manage IT as a Service
(IaaS) in a true cloud environment.
C. Automation
In this stage, automation optimizes an agency’s virtualized
IT resources. Infrastructure is automated through a
transformative procedure. With automation, data centres
can systematically remove manual labour requirements for
run-time operations. Among the various forms of
automation in practice today, provisioning automation is
perhaps the best known and most often implemented. With
centralized IT and self-service for end users, automation
helps agencies to get rid of themselves from the burden of
repetitive management procedures, all while enabling end
users to quickly access what they require. Ultimately,
automation can help agencies to reduce their operating
expenses by: Reallocating computing resources on-
demand. Establishing run-time responses to capacity
demands. Integrating system management and
measurement.
D. Utility
In addition to automat ion, both self-service and metering
- feedback about the cost of the resources allocated – are
necessary requirements in creating a cloud service. In the
cloud, there is no intermediary between the user of a
resource and the processes for acquiring and allocating
resources for crit ical mission needs and initiatives. Since
the user initiates the service requests, IT becomes an on
demand service and the costs of operation drop
significantly, because costs are incurred only when the
service is used and very less is spent attending to the needs
of the infrastructure. A private cloud utility model by
enabling agencies to retain the data within their network
security while scaling and expanding as user demands
change, pooling IT resources in a single operating system
or management platform. As a result, anywhere fro m tens
to thousands of applications and services can be supported
– and new architectures can be easily installed.
E. Cloud
Through cloud internetworking federat ion, d isparate
cloud systems can be linked in such a way as to
accommodate both the particular nature of cloud co mputing
and the running of IT workloads. This federation allo ws the
sharing of a range of IT resources and capabilit ies –
including capacity, monitoring, and management.
Moreover, since federation can occur across data centre and
agency boundaries, it enables such processes as unified
metering and billing and one-stop self-service provisioning.
With cloud co mputing, co mmunicat ion increases
significantly, as data sharing between previously separate
systems is fully enabled Ultimately, rather than each
agency operating in isolation, constricted by the boundaries
of its own data centre, not only can services be shared
among groups, but also costs can be shared and lessened.
Thus cloud computing is called the fifth generation of
computing.
 X. CONCLUSION
With its convenient, on-demand model for network
access to a shared pool of configurable co mputing
resources, cloud computing is rapidly emerg ing as a viable
alternative to traditional approaches – and is carrying a host
of proven benefits to government agencies. Costs are being
significantly reduced, along with personnel time spent on
computing issues. Storage availability increases, high
automation eliminates worries about keeping applications
up to date, and flexibility and mobility are heightened,
allo wing workers to access information anytime, anywhere.
Cloud computing can be rapidly provisioned and released
with minimal management effort or service provider
interaction. Ult imately, with its offering of scalable, real-
time, internet-based information technology services and
resources, the cloud can satisfy the computing needs of a
universe of users, without the users incurring the costs of
maintaining the underlying infrastructure.

XI. A CKNOWLEDGEMENT
We greatly thank the faculties of Information Science
Engineering, Ghousia College of Engineering,
Ramanagaram for helping us in completing the paper.

REFERENCES
[1] From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[2] http://www.accenture.com/Global/Services/Accenture_T echnology
_Labs/R_and_I/CloudComputing.htm
[3] T he NIST Definition of Cloud Computing (version 15, shortened)
[4] Amitabh Srivastava,Senior Vice President, Microsoft Technology
[5] Taghavan Subramanian,AVP & Head – Cloud Computing
CoE,Infosys Technologies Limited
[6] T he Economist, "Let it Rise",10/23/08
[7] Heyward and Rayport, 2009