c


  


   is a general term for anything that involves delivering hosted services over the
Internet. These services are broadly divided into three categories: Infrastructure-as-a-Service
(IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). The name cloud
computing was inspired by the cloud symbol that's often used to represent the Internet in flow
charts and diagrams.

A cloud service has three distinct characteristics that differentiate it from traditional hosting. It is
sold on demand, typically by the minute or the hour; it is elastic -- a user can have as much or as
little of a service as they want at any given time; and the service is fully managed by the provider
(the consumer needs nothing but a personal computer and Internet access). Significant
innovations in virtualization and distributed computing, as well as improved access to high-speed
Internet and a weak economy, have accelerated interest in cloud computing.

http://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/definition/cloud-computing


  

The idea of an "intergalactic computer network" was introduced in the sixties by 

, who was responsible for enabling the development of  
!



 " #$ %&'&

His vision was for everyone on the globe to be interconnected and accessing programs and data
at any site, from anywhere, explained Margaret Lewis, product marketing director at AMD. "It is
a vision that sounds a lot like what we are calling cloud computing."

Other experts attribute the cloud concept to computer scientist   (
  who proposed
the idea of computation being delivered as a public utility, similar to the service bureaus which
date back to the sixties.

Since the sixties, cloud computing has developed along a number of lines, with Web 2.0 being
the most recent evolution. However, since the internet only started to offer significant bandwidth
in the nineties, cloud computing for the masses has been something of a late developer.

One of the first milestones for cloud computing was the arrival of Salesforce.com in 1999, which
pioneered the concept of delivering enterprise applications via a simple website. The services
firm paved the way for both specialist and mainstream software firms to deliver applications over
the internet.
The next development was Amazon Web Services in 2002, which provided a suite of cloud-
based services including storage, computation and even human intelligence through the Amazon
Mechanical Turk.

Then in 2006, Amazon launched its Elastic Compute cloud (EC2) as a commercial web service
that allows small companies and individuals to rent computers on which to run their own
computer applications.

"Amazon EC2/S3 was the first widely accessible cloud computing infrastructure service," said
Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Brightcove, which provides its SaaS online video platform to UK TV
stations and newspapers.

Another big milestone came in 2009, as Web 2.0 hit its stride, and Google and others started to
offer browser-based enterprise applications, though services such as Google Apps.

"The most important contribution to cloud computing has been the emergence of "killer apps"
from leading technology giants such as Microsoft and Google. When these companies deliver
services in a way that is reliable and easy to consume, the knock-on effect to the industry as a
whole is a wider general acceptance of online services," said Dan Germain, chief technology
officer at IT service provider Cobweb Solutions.

Other key factors that have enabled cloud computing to evolve include the maturing of
virtualisation technology, the development of universal high-speed bandwidth, and universal
software interoperability standards, said UK cloud computing pioneer Jamie Turner.

Turner added, "As cloud computing extends its reach beyond a handful of early-adopter Google
Docs users, we can only begin to imagine its scope and reach. Pretty much anything can be
delivered from the cloud."

Š

 



"Many IT professionals recognise the benefits cloud computing offers in terms of increased
storage, flexibility and cost reduction," said Songnian Zhou, chief executive officer of Platform
Computing.

But he added that IT directors still have concerns about the security of their corporate data in the
cloud. This means that it will be 2010 at the earliest before cloud adoption sees increased growth.

Julian Friedman, a specialist in emerging technologies, said that security and other concerns will
soon be resolved.

"Considerations such as security, data privacy, network performance and economics are likely to
lead to a mix of cloud computing centres both within the company firewall and outside of it."

He added that today's applications will naturally move towards a cloud model as they become
more pervasively available through the web, require more data processing, and span the
boundaries of multiple devices.
Experts seem to agree that cloud computing will ultimately transform today's computing
landscape.

Andreas Asander, vice-principal of product management at virtualisation security

specialist Clavister, said that once the security issues are resolved, cloud computing services "can
enable an enterprise to expand its infrastructure, add capacity on demand, or outsource the whole
infrastructure, resulting in greater flexibility, a wider choice of computing resources and
significant cost savings."

It is clear that cloud computing can bring enormous benefits for IT users.

However, the bottom line for IT directors is that they will need to continue to manage their
internal computing environments, whilst learning how to secure, manage and monitor the
growing range of external resources residing in the cloud.

http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/06/10/235429/A-history-of-cloud-
computing.htm




  

o ±
   
  

Cloud computing requires a dynamic computing infrastructure. The foundation for the
dynamic infrastructure is a standardized, scalable, and secure physical infrastructure.
There should be levels of redundancy to ensure high levels of availability, but mostly it
must be easy to extend as usage growth demands it, without requiring architecture
rework. Next, it must be virtualized.

Today, virtualized environments leverage server virtualization (typically from VMware,

Microsoft, or Xen) as the basis for running services. These services need to be easily
provisioned and de-provisioned via software automation. These service workloads need
to be moved from one physical server to another as capacity demands increase or
decrease. Finally, this infrastructure should be highly utilized, whether provided by an
external cloud provider or an internal IT department. The infrastructure must deliver
business value over and above the investment.

A dynamic computing infrastructure is critical to effectively supporting the elastic nature

of service provisioning and de-provisioning as requested by users while maintaining high
levels of reliability and security. The consolidation provided by virtualization, coupled
with provisioning automation, creates a high level of utilization and reuse, ultimately
yielding a very effective use of capital equipment.

o á!) 



Cloud computing is IT (or business) service-centric. This is in stark contrast to more
traditional system- or server- centric models. In most cases, users of the cloud generally
 want to run some business service or application for a specific, timely purpose; they
don¶t want to get bogged down in the system and network administration of the
environment. They would prefer to quickly and easily access a dedicated instance of an
application or service. By abstracting away the server-centric view of the infrastructure,
system users can easily access powerful pre-defined computing environments designed
specifically around their service.

An IT Service Centric approach enables user adoption and business agility ± the easier
and faster a user can perform an administrative task the more expedient the business
moves, reducing costs or driving revenue.

o O)!*

 


Interacting with the cloud requires some level of user self-service. Best of breed self-
service provides users the ability to upload, build, deploy, schedule, manage, and report
on their business services on demand. Self-service cloud offerings must provide easy-to-
use, intuitive user interfaces that equip users to productively manage the service delivery
lifecycle.

The benefit of self service from the users¶ perspective is a level of empowerment and
independence that yields significant business agility. One benefit often overlooked from
the service provider¶s or IT team¶s perspective is that the more self service that can be
delegated to users, the less administrative involvement is necessary. This saves time and
money and allows administrative staff to focus on more strategic, high-valued
responsibilities.

o ( 
)




In order for an IT team or a service provider to efficiently provide a cloud for its
constituents, they must leverage a technology platform that is self managed. Best-of-
breed clouds enable self-management via software automation, leveraging the following
capabilities:
` A provisioning engine for deploying services and tearing them down recovering
resources for high levels of reuse
` Mechanisms for scheduling and reserving resource capacity
` Capabilities for configuring, managing, and reporting to ensure resources can be
allocated and reallocated to multiple groups of users
` Tools for controlling access to resources and policies for how resources can be used or
operations can be performed
All of these capabilities enable business agility while simultaneously enacting critical and
necessary administrative control. This balance of control and delegation maintains security and
uptime, minimizes the level of IT administrative effort, and keeps operating expenses low,
freeing up resources to focus on higher value projects.

o    )*

* 
Finally, cloud computing is usage-driven. Consumers pay for only what resources they
use and therefore are charged or billed on a consumption-based model. Cloud computing
platforms must provide mechanisms to capture usage information that enables
chargeback reporting and/or integration with billing systems.
 The value here from a user¶s perspective is the ability for them to pay only for the
resources they use, ultimately helping them keep their costs down. From a provider¶s
perspective, it allows them to track usage for charge back and billing purposes.

In summary, all of these defining characteristics are necessary in producing an enterprise

private cloud capable of achieving compelling business value which includes savings on
capital equipment and operating costs, reduced support costs, and significantly increased
business agility. All of these enable corporations to improve their profit margins and
competitiveness in the markets they serve.

 
O!(


ù O  O 

OO
SaaS is a software model provided by the vendor through an
online service. User doesn¶t have to install or maintain SaaS application. Software is running
on a provider¶s cloud infrastructure and a user can access it via web browser. With SaaS,
vendor makes the required software available to a business on subscription basis, and charges
are based on the product usage. SaaS model can save companies the expense on buying
hardware and software and it removes the maintenance costs.
ù 
 O 
O
PaaS enables companies to develop applications more quickly
and efficiently in a cloud environment using programming languages and tools supported by
the provider. The provider is responsible for maintenance and control of the underlying
cloud infrastructure including network, servers, and operating systems. PaaS services provide
a great deal of flexibility allowing companies to build PaaS environments on demand with no
capital expenditures.
ù á 
    O 
 áO
With IaaS, a company can rent fundamental computing
resources for deploying and running applications or storing data. It enables companies to
deliver applications more efficiently by removing the complexities involved with managing
their own infrastructure. IaaS enables fast deployment of applications, and improves the
agility of IT services by instantly adding computing processing power and storage capacity
when needed.







!
  O!



+
, 
-

+ 1994

 + Seattle
c #.#
  + Amazon is one of the true innovators in Web-based computing,
offering pay-as-you-go access to virtual servers and data storage space. In addition to these core
offerings, Amazon offers the SimpleDB (a database Web service); the CloudFront (a Web
service for content delivery); and the Simple Queue Service (a hosted service for storing
messages as they travel between computers). By launching the Elastic Compute Cloud in 2006,
well before most of its competitors, Amazon has become almost synonymous with "cloud
computing." But criticisms are starting to pop up regarding Amazon's reliability and service-level
agreements.
/+ Jeffrey Bezos, Amazon's founder, was previously a financial analyst.
#
,  
  + One of the largest Web properties in existence,
Amazon always excelled at delivering computing capacity at a large scale to its own employees
and to consumers via the Amazon shopping site. Offering raw computing capacity over the
Internet was perhaps a natural step for Amazon, which had only to leverage its own expertise and
massive data center infrastructure in order to become one of the earliest major cloud providers.
c   !+ Tens of thousands of small businesses, enterprises and individual users.
Prominent customers include the _

, 

 and Eli Lilly.



+0
-

+ 1983

 + Dallas

 + Synaptic Hosting, an application hosting service that offers pay-as-you-go
access to virtual servers and storage integrated with security and networking functions.
c #.#
  + Amazon and Google may be the biggest names in cloud computing
today, but don't discount the built-in advantage telcos have when it comes to infrastructure.
"Building publicly accessible cloud infrastructure is not inexpensive or uncomplicated," Pund-IT
analyst Charles King says. "The service providers already have those infrastructures in place ±
the data center assets, connectivity and billing."
While AT&T has a head start, rival Verizon offers cloud-based security services and seems
poised to make a larger run at the cloud market later this year.
/+ Randall Stephenson, appointed in 2007 after three years as AT&T's COO.
#0 
  + AT&T's foray into the cloud began in 2006 with its
purchase of the USinternetworking, an application service provider with enterprise customers in
more than 30 countries. When announcing Synaptic in August 2008, AT&T said it had combined
USi technology's five "super Internet Data Centers" in the United States, Europe and Asia, which
will act as regional gateways to the AT&T cloud network.
c   !+ Synaptic is powering major Web properties such as the official Web site
of the U.S. Olympic Committee.



+ 

-

+ 2004

 + Toronto

 + Enomaly's Elastic Computing Platform (ECP) is software that integrates
enterprise data centers with commercial cloud computing offerings, letting IT pros manage and
govern both internal and external resources from a single console, while making it easy to move
virtual machines from one data center to another.
c #.#
  + Unlike the other nine vendors on this list, Enomaly doesn't offer
services of its own over the Web. But its software could prove crucial as enterprises grapple with
the problem of managing a wide array of computing resources that live both inside and outside
the firewall. Intel has recognized Enomaly's promise, bankrolling the company's product
development, which focuses heavily on managing the various hypervisors used both within
enterprises and by cloud providers.
/+ Richard Reiner, called out of semi-retirement to become Enomaly CEO this year. Most
recently, Reiner was founder and CEO of Assurent, a software-as-a-service company acquired by
Telus in 2006.
# 

+Enomaly was born five years ago as a consulting business, but later
developed an open source management tool that runs on top of the Xen hypervisor. Enomaly
dropped its consulting business for good last year to focus on cloud management software.
c   !+ More than two dozen customers have been named publicly, including
Business Objects, France Telecom, NBC, the Canadian government, Deutsche Bank, Best Buy,
and several universities.




+1
-

+ 1998

 + Mountain View, Calif.

 + Google Apps, a set of online office productivity tools including e-mail,
calendaring, word processing and a simple Web site creation tool; Postini, a set of e-mail and
Web security services; and the Google App Engine, a platform-as-a-service offering that lets
developers build applications and host them on Google's infrastructure.
c #.#
  + No one knows the Internet quite like Google. While the company's
main focus is crawling the Web and delivering advertising-supported search results, Google's
foray into software-as-a-service applications for businesses is hastening the industry's move from
packaged software to Web-hosted services, and App Engine provides a credible alternative in the
platform-as-a-service market.
/+ Eric Schmidt, former CTO of Sun and former CEO of Novell, took the helm in 2001.
#1 
  + Google Apps was the company's attempt to branch out
beyond the consumer search market and become a player in the enterprise. Google unveiled the
enterprise version of Apps in February 2007 in a competitive strike against rival Microsoft, and
followed up by releasing App Engine in April 2008.
c   !+ Lots of small businesses, enterprises and colleges including Arizona State
University and Northwestern University.



+11


! O!
 $

 
+ March 2008 (ServePath was founded in 2001, GoGrid development began in 2006)

 + San Francisco

 + The GoGrid platform offers Web-based storage and the ability to quickly
deploy Windows- and Linux-based virtual servers onto the cloud, with preinstalled software
including Apache, PHP, Microsoft SQL and MySQL.
GoGrid, one of Amazon's chief competitors in the cloud storage and compute markets,
distinguishes itself from Amazon in a couple ways. GoGrid offers Windows Server 2008
instances (Amazon offers only Windows Server 2003) and 100% uptime service-level
agreements (Amazon offers 99.95% for compute and 99.9% for storage).
/+ John Keagy, the CEO and founder of ServePath, built and sold several ISPs in the decade
prior to starting ServePath.
#11

+ Executives at ServePath, a dedicated server hosting company,
created GoGrid after deciding that inefficiencies within the standard hosting model could be
alleviated with a self-service, pay-as-you-go infrastructure.
c   !+ Mostly start-ups, Web 2.0 and SaaS companies, plus a few big names
like SAP and Novell who are running pilots or small test projects on the GoGrid service.


+(
-

+ 1975

 + Redmond, Wash.

 + Azure, a Windows-as-a-service platform consisting of the operating system and
developer services that can be used to build and enhance Web-hosted applications. Azure is in
beta until the second half of 2009.
c #.#
  + Because this is Microsoft's first big foray into the cloud. But for all of
Microsoft's might, it is still a new player in the cloud market and has questions to answer. For
example, will it be easy to move existing applications onto the Azure platform, and will
Microsoft avoid the tendency toward vendor lock-in ± which is bad for users but has been
tremendously profitable for Microsoft in the world of packaged software.
/+ Steve Ballmer, appointed CEO in 2000 after 20 years with the company.
#( 
  + Microsoft made its name by developing the
operating system for home and work computers. But with all forms of applications moving to the
Web-hosted model, it's no surprise Microsoft would make Windows available over the cloud.
Microsoft also provides a set of business services over the Web, including Exchange, SharePoint,
Office Communications Server, CRM and Live Meeting.
c   !+ Software companies Epicor, S3Edge and Micro Focus are among the
early customers using Azure to develop cloud apps.



+O 
-

+ 1998

 + San Mateo, Calif.

 + A business software suite including e-commerce, CRM, accounting and ERP
tools.
c #.#
  + One of the industry's most successful online business software
providers, NetSuite has a tendency to make competitive moves that are both entertaining and
potentially profitable for customers. NetSuite recently promised 50% discounts to Sage Software
customers who switch to NetSuite, and made a similar offer to Salesforce.com and SAP
customers last year. NetSuite will even integrate with rivals' technology, for example by
connecting its ERP suite to Salesforce's CRM tools, a move designed to lure Salesforce
customers by enabling new business processes.
/+ Zach Nelson, appointed in 2002 after holding executive positions at companies such as
Oracle and Sun.
#O 
+ NetSuite, originally called NetLedger, was founded by Oracle CEO
Larry Ellison and NetSuite CTO Evan Goldberg to make Web-based applications for small
businesses. NetSuite and Oracle had tight go-to-market partnerships in the company'searly
years but Ellison's official influence over the company has diminished since NetSuitewent
public late in 2007.
c   !+ Thousands of small business and enterprise customers worldwide
including Wolfgang Puck Coffee, Wrigleyville Sports and Isuzu.



+


-

+ 1998

 + San Antonio

 + The Rackspace Cloud, also known as "Mosso," consists of three major services:
Cloud sites, a platform for building Web sites; Cloud Files, a storage service; and Cloud Servers,
an Amazon EC2-like service that provides access to virtualized server instances.
c #.#
  + Rackspace has a long history of offering hosted data center services
and is a trusted name in the enterprise. With Mosso, Rackspace is taking aim at the platform-as-
a-service and infrastructure-as-a-service markets, the two key areas for customers looking to
build Web-hosted applications.
/+ Lanham Napier, joined Rackspace as CFO in 2000 and became CEO in 2006.
#

 
  + Rackspace has always focused on providing
dedicated, rather than shared, data center resources. That is, until a small team in the company
said, "There has to be a better way for Web designers to build Web sites rather than getting a
dedicated server" that requires extensive management, according to Rackspace CTO John
Engates. With a multi-tenant cloud service, Rackspace can offer as-needed access to computing
resources for one-off projects. "Cloud looks a lot like our business today, it's just changing how
it's sold," Engates says.
c   !+ Web developers and software-as-a-service providers such as Zapproved,
which uses Mosso to deliver an online productivity tool.



+ O

-

+ 2006

 + Santa Barbara, Calif.

 + The RightScale Platform, software-as-a-service that helps customers manage
the IT processes they have outsourced to cloud providers such as Amazon and GoGrid.
RightScale helps customers build and clone virtual servers for the cloud, performs load balancing
in response to changing needs, automates storage backups, and offers monitoring and error
reporting.
c #.#
  + Because for all of the cloud's promises of simplicity, deploying new
virtual servers and applications in the cloud requires work on the part of the IT department,
particularly if a customer is using multiple cloud services. RightScale is automating the grunt
work required to use the cloud most effectively.
/+ Michael Crandell, RightScale co-founder who was held executive positions at software-
as-a-service companies including eFax and Celebros.
# O

+ Two of RightScale's three founders come from Citrix Online,
including CTO Thorsten von Eicken, who decided that software providers shouldn't be burdened
with the enormous task of building and maintaining data centers. Building data centers should be
for "other people who have a core competency in that," he says. "I build SaaS services and
there's no reason to go out and build a data center again."
c   !+ Social networking vendors and other companies that need help managing
cloud-based servers, including ShareThis, TagCow, DoInk, and iWidgets.



+O

-

+ 1999

 + San Francisco

 + Salesforce.com's flagship is a set of CRM tools including salesforce
automation, analytics, marketing and social networking tools. A second major offering is
Force.com, a platform for building Web applications and hosting them on the Salesforce
infrastructure.
c #.#
  + Salesforce.com helped pioneer the software-as-a-service market, which
has now been lumped into the umbrella term "cloud computing." With Force.com, Salesforce is
moving beyond SaaS into the platform-as-a-service market, which could revolutionize the way
businesses build and deliver applications to end users and customers.
/+ Marc Benioff, also the founder and chairman of Salesforce.com, spent 13 years at Oracle
in a variety of executive, sales and product development roles.
#O

+ Benioff founded Salesforce.com with the goal of creating an
information management service that could replace traditional business software technology, the
company says. Initial funding was provided by investors including Oracle CEO Larry Ellison.
c   !+ 55,400 customers in many industries including financial services,
communications and media, energy, healthcare and retail.
http://www.networkworld.com/su_pp/2009/ndc3/051809-cloud-companies-to-
watch.html?page=1

- ± (


  







Also known as external cloud or multi-tenant cloud, this model essentially represents a cloud
environment that is openly accessible. It generally provides an IT infrastructure in a third-party
physical data center that can be utilized to deliver services without having to be concerned with
the underlying technical complexities.

 



 *


 
+

‡ homogeneous infrastructure

‡ common policies

‡ shared resources and multi-tenant

‡ leased or rented infrastructure; operational expenditure cost model

‡ economies of scale

Note that public clouds can host individual services or collections of services, allow for the
deployment of service compositions and even entire service inventories.

 


Also referred to as internal cloud or on-premise cloud, a private cloud intentionally limits access
to its resources to service consumers that belong to the same organization that owns the cloud. In
other words, the infrastructure that is managed and operated for one organization only, primarily
to maintain a consistent level of control over security, privacy, and governance.

 



!



 
+

‡ heterogeneous infrastructure

‡ customized and tailored policies

‡ dedicated resources

‡ in-house infrastructure (capital expenditure cost model)

‡ end-to-end control

 


This deployment model typically refers to special-purpose cloud computing environments shared
and managed by a number of related organizations participating in a common domain or vertical
market.

i á 


 
 

The intercloud is not as much a deployment model as it is a concept based on the aggregation of
deployed clouds. Just like the Internet, which is a network of networks; intercloud refers to an
inter-connected global cloud of clouds. Also like the World Wide Web, intercloud represents a
massive collection of services that organizations can explore and consume.

From a service consumer's perspective, we can look at the intercloud as an on-demand SOA
environment where useful services managed by other organizations can be leveraged and
composed. In other words, services that are outside of an organization's own boundaries and
operated and managed by others can become a part of the aggregate portfolio of services of those
same organizations.
¢


A hybrid model for cloud computing combines both in-house servers and cloud services. While
some cloud offerings may include the entire operating system, like the Windows Azure Platform,
others may only offer specific software services. In the case of the former, a hybrid situation
would have the user¶s locally-hosted applications interface with the remote cloud platform. In the
latter case, locally-hosted applications would interface with cloud applications. In both cases,
there is a mix of cloud and traditional software.
The advantage of a hybrid model is that you still have your dedicated serverand all of the
flexibility that it gives you, but you also reap the benefits of having access to hosted services and
applications from cloud hosting providers. This allows you to expand your web presence and still
maintain some level of autonomy and privacy.



 
  

O 

` Security concerns arising because both customer data and program are residing in
Provider Premises.

` Security is always a major concern in Open System Architectures

O 
!









!  
*

±


ß Disrupts Services.

ß Theft of Information.

ß Loss of Privacy.

ß Damage information.

Ë  
*

ß Hostile Program.

ß Hostile people giving instructions to good programs.

ß Bad guys corrupting or eavesdropping on communications

 O 2  

O 
± !

c 
O 
# !+

` Server access security

` Internet access security

` Database access security

` Data privacy security

` Program access Security