Cloud Computing Defined Essay

Cloud computing was a completely new term a short 9 years ago, in 2007. The basis of this technology is to move the workload of IT activities away from an organization, and to one or more third parties that have resources dedicated to processing such things. These can be, but are not limited to, networking, storage, software systems, and applications. Rather than having to create and maintain their own expensive datacenters, companies can pay a fee to use someone else’s. This makes growing businesses extremely flexible, as they can easily gain or remove storage space per their needs. Being able to purchase the use of online storage space is known as “hardware as a service,” or, more simply, “virtualization.” Being able to purchase the use of online software is known as “software as a service.” Both are very powerful tools that allow the minimization of a company’s IT budget.

Cloud computing is a fast growing information technology trend that many companies including Google, Microsoft, and IBM are currently looking to get a stake in as demand for the service grows. Cloud computing is the concept of allowing both individuals and businesses to store data and applications on remote servers (owned and operated by a third party company), rather than on their own hard drives and data centers. The service boasts the ability to securely access data and applications from just about any device with an internet connection, allowing for such services as streaming music from a personal collection from multiple devices, and even to business

Cloud computing is an internet based computing which provides various applications and services like storage, servers, infrastructure, networking with low cost, on-demand self service, pay as you go model, location independent resource pooling, reasonable price , rapid elasticity etc. Cloud computing is one way to increase the capacity add capabilities without investing in new infrastructures like computer hardware involves storage memory, licensing for new software, training for a person and in a dynamic way.

Cloud computing - we hear the term almost daily. But really, just what is cloud computing all about? That seems to be a common question. In June of this year, TELUS and IDC Canada released a study on cloud computing which surveyed 200 Canadian business and IT executives and directors at large Canadian companies (500+ employees) across a range of industry sectors. The study found that 63% of Canadian companies surveyed did not have enough or had only a base level of knowledge to make decisions on whether to use a cloud service or their internal IT department.

Though the actual history of cloud computing is not that old (the first business and consumer cloud computing services websites – salesforce.com and Google, were launched in 1999), the story of cloud computing is intertwined directly with the creation of the Internet and business, the answer to the unsolved question of how internet utilization can help improve business technology was and is cloud computation. Business technology history is both extensive and interesting, almost as extensive as business itself, but the invention of computers are most responsible for the influence on business technology. Cloud computing, like all other innovation was nurtured in the right environment to take off, as multi-tenant architectures, highly

To better understand let us consider the web based email services like Gmail or Hotmail which delivers the Cloud Computing service to the user. Here the Gmail/Hotmail user can access their emails in the cloud from any computer with a browser and the internet connection without bothering the type of hardware in that computer. Here the emails are hosted on the Google’s or Microsoft’s servers and is not stored locally on the user’s

By 2020, Forbes (McKendrick, 2012) has estimated that the cloud market will be worth $270 billion; this suggests that the market is expanding rapidly and users are becoming more aware of this feature. Many people, though, still ponder over the exact purpose of cloud computing: Cloud computing is a group of offline servers that are networked together to allow data to be stored centrally. For example, Drop box is an established cloud storage company that allows users to store documents, images and videos on their servers. This type of cloud computing is known as ‘Software-as-a-Service’, which are business applications that are hosted by the provider and delivered as a service (Hurwitz, 2010). Hurwitz also mentions two other types of cloud computing: ‘Platform as a Service (PaaS)’ and ‘Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)’. ‘Platform as a service’ is where the consumer will create an application, using tools and software from the provider, then the provider will administer the consumer with networks, storage and servers. ‘Infrastructure’ as a service is where the provider will provide the consumer with physical computer or virtual machine.

The idea of cloud computing was first initially introduced by J.C.R Licklider in 1969 who introduced the idea as “Intergalactic Computer Network” [1]. He envisioned a future where everyone on the planet was connected/interconnected together accessing information, data, programs and so on from anywhere in the world. A comments was made by Margaret Lewis who is the product marketing director at AMD who said in 2010 that J.C.R Licklider idea in 1969 “the idea sounds a lot like what we are calling cloud computing” [1, 2]. Some believe the idea was first discussed by John McCarthy who discussed it in a public venue at a speech that was celebrating MIT centennial who said “that computer time-sharing technology might result in a future in which computing power and even specific applications could be sold through the utility business model (like water or electricity)”[3].

Cloud computing is an emergent computing paradigm that has the potential to make ‘computing as a utility’ a reality in the near future (Buyya et al., 2009). These days many organizations have adopted cloud computing or in the process of

Cloud computing comes in three distinct implementations or models, each with its own pros and cons. The advantage is that each can be tailored to meet a specific need. The three different implementations are Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS). In IaaS, an organization uses the cloud to provide virtual resources, such as storage space for data or online databases. Amazon’s Simple Storage Service (S3) is an example of IaaS, with customers utilizing the S3 cloud to store information. PaaS implementations run on top of IaaS, giving the organization flexibility to implement customized applications, such as specific portions of Google apps. Finally, SaaS is the transition to almost all operations to the cloud. In SaaS, a small blade system is used to connect to the cloud through an Internet connection where all the software and major computing power is stored. Instead of having an OS installed on each desktop system, the OS and everything else needed is stored on the cloud servers and accessed through a web browser or custom plug-in. (Neamtiu & Dumitras, 2011)

The word "cloud" is used to represent the internet and other communications systems. Cloud computing is the result of an evolution of the widespread adoption of virtualization, service-oriented architecture, autonomic, and utility computing in the past, telecommunications companies mainly gave simply dedicated, point-to-point data circuits to their users. Starting from the 1990's, virtual private network services was included in their contributions. It made the telecommunication companies offer equally improved services whereby cutting down on cost as well as using resources effectively.

Cloud computing, in its most basic form, is “using computer services [such as computer and data storage, management and processing] that are delivered over a network” (Kim & Solomon, 2013, p. 189). For example, an organization may require a great deal of storage for their data but may not want to purchase the servers, the physical space for the servers, or the personnel to manage the infrastructure. Instead, they take advantage of the many cloud computing options and outsource their needs, hiring someone to do everything off-site usually with the goal of reducing their overall cost of ownership. As defined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), cloud computing has five essential characteristics, three service models, and four deployment models (Mell & Grance, 2011) which will be covered, briefly, in the next few sections.

Cloud computing paved the way to the specific type of service known as Software as a Service (SaaS) in the 1990s, as well as programs like Salesforce, which gave businesses the ability to have better “customer relationship management” (Goodrich 2013). As more SaaS programs became available, it was clear that agencies like The National Institute of Standards and Technology and Legal Cloud

The cloud is growing incessantly because it could provide high performance computational services at cheaper rates. Famous IT companies such as Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Rake space have provided cloud service on the Internet. Organizations and companies are moving and extending their business by adopting the cloud computing to reduce their cost.

Cloud Computing is the use of common software, functionality or business applications from a remote server that is accessed via the Internet. Basically, the Internet is the "cloud" of applications and services that are available for access by subscribers utilizing a modem from their computer. With Cloud Computing, one simply logs into desired computer applications - such as sales force or office automation programs, web services, data storage services, spam filtering, or even blog sites. Generally, access to such programs is by monthly or annual paid subscription. Through Cloud Computing, businesses may prevent financial waste, better track