Chapter 6.7, Problem 6.4ARQ

Explanation of Solution

Cloud:

The term cloud can be defined as the process that let the computer resources to be accessed anytime anywhere over the internet.

• The cloud can be represented as the elastic leasing of the various computer resources that are known as the pooled resources which can be accessed over the internet.

Cloud Category:

There are generally three categories of cloud, which are as follows:

SaaS (Software as a Service):

The SaaS provides the organization the service of hardware infrastructure as well as the operating system and the various application programs that are positioned on top of the hardware.

Example:

• Salesforce.com that provides the service for customer and sales tracking.
• Office 365 by Microsoft.
• iCloud developed by Apple Inc. for scheduling customer appointment on any iOS devices.

PaaS (Platform as a Service):

In PaaS, the vendors can be able to provide the hosted computer system, the Operating Systems and the Database Management System (DBMS) that include own application of the top of the hosted computer system.

Example:

• Microsoft Windows Azure that provides the server functionality for customers.
• SQL (Structured Query Language) Azure developed by Microsoft.
• Oracle On demand for supporting hosted server within Oracle database.

IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service):

This is the most basic form of cloud that is hosting bare server computer or any hard disk implementation.

Example:

• Amazon EC2 also known as Elastic Cloud 2 that can be considered as unlimited, efficient and reliable storage server in the cloud.
• Amazon S3 also known as Amazon Simple Storage Service.

Business situation for each cloud category:

Before choosing the cloud services for any business situation, user must know the merits and demerits of each cloud categories.

• The choice of cloud service gets determined by the user’s competitive background, business approach and technical resources.

Example:

Consider the “transportation as a service” representation; it helps to explain how organization will use the cloud services. Depends on the service, organization will manage their infrastructure framework and software functions...