A Literature Survey on the Buzzword of Internet: Cloud Computing

I BLEXON PREM & SAJANDER C BOSE

FINAL IT, DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FRANCIS XAVIER ENGINEERING COLLEGE, TIRUNELVELI

Abstract:
Cloud Computing, the long-held dream of computing as a utility, has the potential to transform a large part of the IT industry, making software even more attractive as a service and shaping the way IT hardware is designed and purchased. Cloud Computing refers to both the applications delivered as services over the Internet and the hardware and systems software in the datacenters that provide those services. The services themselves have long been referred to as Software as a Service (SaaS). The datacenter hardware and software is what we will call a Cloud. When a Cloud is made available in a pay-as-you-go manner to the general public, we call it a Public Cloud; the service being sold is Utility Computing.

without worrying about any maintenance or management of actual resources. Besides, databases in cloud are very dynamic and scalable. Cloud computing is utility computing, or autonomic computing. The best example of cloud computing is Google Apps where any application can be accessed using a browser and it can be deployed on thousands of computer through the Internet. A large-scale distributed computing paradigm that is driven by economics of scale, in which a pool of abstracted virtualized, dynamically scalable, managed computing power, storage, platforms, and services are delivered on demand to external customers over the Internet The key points in this definition are: First, Cloud Computing is a specialized distributed computing paradigm; it differs from traditional ones in that 1) it is massively scalable,2) can be encapsulated as an abstract entity that delivers different levels of services to customers outside the Cloud, 3) it is driven by economies of scale and 4) the services can be dynamically configured (via virtualization or other approaches) and delivered on demand.

KEYWORDS:
Cloud Computing, Utility Computing, Internet Datacenters, Distributed System Economics

1.Introduction:
"Cloud Computing," to put it simply, means "Internet Computing." The Internet is commonly visualized as clouds; hence the term cloud computing for computation done through the Internet. With Cloud Computing users can access database resources via the Internet from anywhere, for as long as they need,

2. Why Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing has matured from buzzword to a dynamic infrastructure used today by several

organizations, yet many technology experts have differing views about what it means to the IT landscape and what cloud computing can do for business. However, leading analystsincluding thought leaders from Gartner, Forrester, and IDCagree that this new model offers significant advantages for fastpaced startups, SMBs and enterprises alike. In the following sections, you'll learn about cloud computing defined, cloud characteristics, drivers for adoption, public clouds vs. private clouds, how enterprises are using the cloud, and the future of cloud computing. Cloud computing users can avoid capital expenditure (CapEx) on hardware, software, and services when they pay a provider only for what they use. Consumption is usually billed on a utility (e.g. resources consumed, like electricity) or subscription (e.g. time based, like a newspaper) basis with little or no upfront cost. A few cloud providers are now beginning to offer the service for a flat monthly fee as opposed to on a utility billing basis. Other benefits of this time sharing style approach are low barriers to entry, shared infrastructure and costs, low management overhead, and immediate access to a broad range of applications. Users can generally terminate the contract at any time (thereby avoiding return on investment risk and uncertainty) and the services are often covered by service level agreements (SLAs) with financial penalties.

expense and recurring expenses are much lower than traditional computing. Maintenance cost is reduced as a third party maintains everything from running the cloud to storing data. Cloud is characterized by features such as platform, location and device independency, which make it easily adoptable for all sizes of businesses, in particular small and mid-sized. However, owing to redundancy of computer system networks and storage system cloud may not be reliable for data, but it scores well as far as security is concerned. In cloud computing, security is tremendously improved because of a superior technology security system, which is now easily available and affordable. Yet another important characteristic of cloud is scalability, which is achieved through server virtualization.

4.Cloud Computing Architecture

Cloud computing architecture, just like any other system, is categorized into two main sections: Front End and Back End. Front End can be end user or client or any application (i.e. web browser etc.) which is using cloud services. Back End is the network of servers with any computer program and data storage system. It is usually assumed that cloud contains infinite storage capacity for any software available in market. Cloud has different applications that are hosted on their own dedicated server farms

3. Key Characteristics
Cloud computing is cost-effective. Here, cost is greatly reduced as initial

. Cloud has centralized server administration system. Centralized server administers the system, balances client supply, adjusts demands, monitors traffic and avoids congestion. This server follows protocols, commonly known as middleware. Middleware controls the communication of cloud network among them. Cloud Architecture runs on a very important assumption, which is mostly true. The assumption is that the demand for resources is not always consistent from client to cloud. Because of this reason the servers of cloud are unable to run at their full capacity. To avoid this scenario, server virtualization technique is applied. In sever virtualization, all physical servers are virtualized and they run multiple servers with either same or different application. As one physical server acts as multiple physical servers, it curtails the need for more physical machines.

Google Apps., Salesforce.com, Zoho Office and various other online applications use cloud computing as Software-As-Service (SAAS) model. These applications are delivered through browser, and multiple customers can access it from various locations. This model has become the most common form of cloud computing because it is beneficial and practical for both the customers and the services providers. For customers, there is no upfront investment and they can Pay-As-TheyGo and Pay-As-They-Grow. On the other hand, the service providers, can grow easily as their customer base grows. Aamzon.com, Sun and IBM offer on-demand storage and computing resources. Web service and APIs enable developers to use all the cloud from internet and allow them to create largescale, full-featured application. Cloud is not simply limited to providing data storage or computing resources, it can also provide managed services or specific application services through web.

6. Challenges and Barriers to Adoption

Although the cloud presents tremendous opportunity and value for organizations, the usual IT requirements (security, integration, and so forth) still apply. In addition, some new issues come about because of the multi-tenant nature (information from multiple companies may reside on the same physical hardware) of cloud computing, the merger of applications and data, and the fact that a companys workloads might reside outside of their physical onpremise datacenter. This section examines five main challenges that

5. Different forms of Cloud Computing

cloud computing must address in order to deliver on its promise.

6.4Governance and Management

As IT departments introduce cloud solutions in context of their traditional datacenter, new challenges arise. Standardized mechanisms for dealing with lifecycle management, licensing, and chargeback for shared cloud infrastructure are just some of the management and governance issues cloud providers must work together to resolve.

6.1 Security
Many organizations are uncomfortable with storing their data and applications on systems they do not control. Migrating workloads to a shared infrastructure increases the potential for unauthorized exposure. Consistency around authentication, identity management, compliance, and access technologies will become increasingly important. To reassure their customers, cloud providers must offer a high degree of transparency into their operations. 4

6.5 Metering and Monitoring

Business leaders will want to use multiple cloud providers in their IT solutions and will need to monitor system performance across these solutions. Providers must supply consistent formats to monitor cloud applications and service performance and make them compatible with existing monitoring systems.

6.2 Data and Interoperability

Application

It is important that both data and applications systems expose standard interfaces. Organizations will want the flexibility to create new solutions enabled by data and applications that interoperate with each other regardless of where they reside (public clouds, private clouds that reside within an organizations firewall, traditional IT environments or some combination). Cloud providers need to support interoperability standards so that organizations can combine any cloud providers capabilities into their solutions.

7. Conclusion
Building truly robust applications that make it easy for organizations to take advantage of the cloud's characteristics is a difficult, timeconsuming task that can severely tax an organization's resources. Cloud- based application platforms dramatically simplify the delivery of cloud-enabled applications by abstracting the complexity and dynamic nature to quickly and inexpensively bring new capabilities to market, with the agility, reliability and scale demanded by their businesses.

6.3Data and Portability

Application

Without standards, the ability to bring systems back in-house or choose another cloud provider will be limited by proprietary interfaces. Once an organization builds or ports a system to use a cloud providers offerings, bringing that system back in-house will be difficult and expensive.

8. References
J. Brodkin. Gartner: Seven cloud-computing security risks, http://www.networkworld.com/news/200 8/070208-cloud.html, 2008 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2),

http://aws.amazon.com/ec2, 2008. Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), http://aws.amazon.com/s3, 2008.