Everything on Cloud…

August 24, 2011 at 3:34 PM (Technical Articles)

Whenever we sing a song, our voice floats through the air that is fine but what if your digital data floats in the air ? Ah ha What am I talking ?? of course wireless technology is nothing but the same which I said right? . But still , I want to make it big and very big? . Sorry !! Am I confusing you guys? . Ok let me tell you directly , what if our huge data floats through the clouds ?? Yes I am talking about cloud computing . This is not a very new topic but some one did request me to write an article on cloud computing and I thought of doing it. Even I was not knowing it completely but I just did little Investigation and collected information . So let me eat your head 🙂

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Cloud Computing :

It can be defined as , ” A model for, on demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources. A resource here may be a network , server , storage , applications and services” .

A simple plain definition does not give any clear picture , let me explain you how a cloud computing works . Think that you are an executive at a large corporation . Your responsibility is making sure that all of your employees have right hardware and softwares. Whenever you have a new hire then you need to provide necessary software and hardware for the new employee. Your current software license should allow another user . It is so stressful that you find it difficult to handle all once the organization grows in big size . Instead of installing an application in every system , what if , it is installed somewhere in a server and a simple web based service hosts the necessary application upon successful log in ? . No need to install in each and very system .

Remote machines will run the actual applications , may be a e-mail client, word processors or any other complex data analysis programs , everything will run somewhere else, but you can access it in your system with a simple web based application. It is called as cloud computing. A users machine need not worry about the necessary hardware or software , the demands on the users side decrease greatly . The only thing the user’s computer needs to be able to run is cloud computing system’s interface.

This is all about how an application be in cloud , but what if a data ? Say I have a big company , every day huge amount of data I need to store for the future . My requirement demands 100s of GBs storage for every day . Is it not a big problem to handle such a huge data? . Yes ultimate solution for it is , cloud computing . Give all your data to a trusted cloud computing service provider , he will maintain your data and he will store the data. you don’t bother about the storage . This is how a your data store in cloud . What about a data security ? Yes it is a serious matter . Your all confidential data will be given to some one else ! . Guys one good example for cloud computing is dropbox , I hope many people knew about it . If not search in net and read about dropbox . It provides every user of about 2GB space for free. You can store photos, videos anything you want and share with your friends .

I was working on a project , and suddenly my client request for a big server , to store huge data base . What should I do? buy a big server , install it , do necessary set up and make use of it in your project . But how long it takes to install a server? what are the difficulties I need to face to achieve this? My god very hectic !! . I will not bother about server , I will raise a request to my cloud computing service provider , he will install a server for me . Imagine how long he take time to install it ? one day? may be it is too much . They may able to do it within hours . Over my need of server got a solution within hours .

In this way a cloud computing does provide all necessary resources like softwares, hardwares . But Still many companies does not go for cloud computing due to data security. Because our valuable data will be stored somewhere in other’s machine . Even though cloud computing services are trusted , each person need to think before giving that confidential data. Keeping this matter aside , let us think about the benefits and functionality of the cloud computing also let us study its architecture .

Cloud computing Architecture: 

Cloud computing is fully enabled by virtualization technology and virtual appliances. This is a key advantage to cloud computing. The ability to launch new instances of an application with minimal labor and expense allows application providers to :

1> Scale up and down rapidly .

2> Recover from failure .

Its architecture can be divide into two sections: the front end and the back end. They connect each other through a network. The front end is the side the computer user or client sees. The back end is the “Cloud ” section of the system.

Front end includes the clients computer and a web based application required to access the cloud computing service. It is also known as Cloud computing interface. Services like web based e-mail programs also a cloud computing interface. Like gmail, yahoomail , hotmail are all examples for cloud computing. On the back end of the system, there are various computers, servers and data storage systems that create “Cloud” of computing services.

A central server administers the system , monitoring the traffic and client demands to ensure everything runs smoothly. It follows set of rules called protocols and uses a special kind of software called middleware. Middleware allows networked computers communicate with each other. What protocols are being used? this is little bit difficult for me to understand , but I have given a link , if you are interested read it and teach me :).

 Cloud computing design Considerations:

To be successful in cloud computing , it should be designed to take care of the following things.

1> Easily scalable

2> Tolerate Failures

3> Include management tools.

Cloud Computing Applications:  Where you can apply ? and what are the benefits?

1> It brings hardware costs down: A client side system need not be having too much processing power with huge memory. The cloud computing system provides the necessary needs for you. Instead of buying a faster computer with huge memory , just buy a monitor , keyboard , mouse and enough processing power to run one simple middleware application to interact with cloud computing system.

2> Anywhere anytime Access : Clients can access their data, applications anywhere at anytime. They can access cloud computing device anywhere from any computer that is connected to the internet.

3> No need to buy the softwares : No need to buy the applications and their licenses , cloud computing service provides everything for you.

These are few applications of the cloud computing technology, still there are many more .

Benefits of cloud computing:  Let me give you some real time examples for this.

1> Reduced provisioning cycle time:

According to the research , new resources, softwares are provided in short time, this reduces the overall provisioning cycle time for an organization.

examples:

1> New server: A new server provision time can be reduced to 3 minutes from 7.5 weeks.

2> New Collaboration environment: this can be reduced to 5 minutes from 8 weeks.

3> 64-node Linux cluster: A 64 node linux cluster can be provided in 5 minutes instead of 12 weeks.

See the differences, and there are such many real time examples , which give the proof for the benefits of cloud computing.

Realtime Examples: 

1> Wipro – Private first , Public Later. 

Benefits:

• 1> Internal Server provisioning : 46 days to 35 minutes.
• 2> Utilization : <10% to 40%
• 3> Average server cost – from $2000 to $800

2> Japan Post – Business – Critical Cloud

Benefits:

• Average development time of 3-4 months . This is 3 to 4 times faster than traditional development.
• High user satisfaction ( functional, performance)
• No performance and security issues.

3> Japan Ministry of Economy : Trade and Industry – consumer site

Benefits:

• Built in only 3 weeks
• 40 million consumers expected to access site at peak times
• Expected to support more than 20 million transactions per month.

4> Packaged Shipping company : FedEx Express.

Benefits:

• Able to develop new analytical application that was not economically feasible using earlier infrastructure models.
• 4 hour batch process can now runs in 20 minutes, developing applications in 60% less time.

So these few such examples shows the benefits of the cloud computing.

So when you will be experiencing it ??? 🙂 🙂

Read the case-studies in cloud computing  .