Cloud Computing And Its Impact On Corporate It Infrastructure

Cloud Computing has given rise to variety of recent innovations by giving much flexibility to use resources and services at very low initial cost. Now a day’s most of the business organizations and companies move towards the cloud computing due to increases demand of resources and services as the business grow. In this paper different types of challenges are discussed that should be considered while adopting the cloud computing technology.

As previously mentioned, cloud computing has recently emerged as a pioneering model for hosting and distributing services over the Internet. Actually, the model entails sharing resources on a huge scale through a value effective and location independent process. While the resources on the cloud are deployed by the seller, they are utilized by the consumer (Belamkar, 2014). Cloud computing is very beneficial to organizations and companies because it is engaging to business organizations

A client/server architecture is an end-to-end systems that contains server hosts (contains the resources and services needed by the client) and clients (users or workstations in the network). “Most client/server networks have more than one client to a server so that the system shares computing power. There are a few different kinds of servers to include file sharing, printer services, email services, database services, web services, and a server can used for it power. Clients can access all of these different servers at one time and the servers can serve many clients.” (Techopedia, 2014) For large businesses with office throughout the country web based computing or cloud computing shows the greatest benefit. In web-based computing it is not the local computer doing all the work but rather computers off site that do the work. The user’s computer runs off of a cloud computing system’s interface software which uses the offsite network computers to do the work.

Public Cloud - The cloud infrastructure is made available to the general public or a large industry group and is owned by an organization selling cloud services.

Public Cloud is when services are rendered over a network that is open for public use. May be free. Little to no difference between public and private architecture, however security consideration may be substantially different for service.

Modern cloud computing is a delivery system for computing services either for free, or on a pay-as-you-go basis. In this system, users utilize the Internet and remote data centers to run applications and store data. Cloud technology can allow more efficient computing by removing most of the upfront costs of setting up an IT infrastructure. It also allows organizations to expand or reduce their computing facilities very quickly. Increasingly, cloud computing is perceived as a big step toward the long-held dream of computing as a managed utility similar to cable TV or electricity.(Buyya et al, 2010) Cloud computing can be defined by certain criteria. These features are what make cloud computing an attractive option for modern organizations.

Cloud computing, or “the cloud”, is defined by NIST as; “...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 promotes availability and is composed of five essential characteristics, three service models, and four deployment models.” [1]

PaaS provides sets of services and workflows that targets developers, who can use shared tools, technologies, processes and APIs to fast

Cloud computing is a web based utility model. The user does not need to maintain any infrastructure that is to be managed by the provider that is cloud provider. The cloud provides different solutions for the software, platform oriented and the infrastructure. There are three types of services offered which are classified as (IaaS) Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS). These services can be deployed by its cloud models that can be private, public, hybrid and community model.

There are four deployment models of cloud computing. Each one has its unique benefits, therefore, the most suitable to a business must be chosen wisely. In the public cloud model, the cloud computing infrastructure is hosted at the vendor’s premises by the cloud vendor. The customer doesn’t know about the structure of the cloud nor has control over the location where computing infrastructure is hosted. In the public cloud, the computing infrastructure is shared among organizations. In Private cloud, the computing infrastructure is for one single organization and not shared with any other entities. Some say that private clouds are not considered a part of cloud computing. In comparison to public clouds, private clouds tend to be more expensive but more secure. There are two types of private clouds: On-premise private clouds and externally hosted private clouds. Externally hosted private clouds are hosted by a third party that specializes in cloud computing

Private Cloud :- In this form of deployment a designated service provider will operate a cloud infrastructure for a private entity. The two variants in the private cloud are on premise private cloud and externally hosted private cloud(or off premise private cloud).

The cloud removes the need for you to be in the same physical location as the hardware that stores your data. There are number of functionally equivalent services in the cloud Due to unreliable internet connections different cloud applications may receive different levels of quality for same cloud services so that optimal service selection becomes important. Cloud computing provides three main services, namely Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). In Software as a Service (SaaS), Clients can use the software that is provided by the provider, which usually need not to be installed on their own machine and they can use the software

This report will explore and go into brief detail regarding the technology of cloud computing. It will cover subject areas such as, what is the cloud, the history, the benefits and the drawbacks.

Increased productivity and competitiveness – are another advantage of cloud computing. Being the ultimate virtual platform of storing, communicating, sending, and sharing data anywhere and everywhere, businesses are now able to stay on the competitive edge (“Advantages and Disadvantages of Cloud Computing”). As such, given the benefits of costs reduction, accessibility, and flexibility, productivity also takes a leap. Even small businesses now can compete with some of the giants in the industry because of cloud computing’s “pay as you go” service and applications at least costs (“Advantages and Disadvantages of Cloud Computing”).

Measured service- cloud systems automatically control and optimize resource use, by leveraging a metering capability at some level of abstraction appropriate to the type of service. Resource usage can be monitored, controlled, and reported, providing transparency for both the provider and consumer of the utilized service.