Demystifying The Cloud

In a Not Safe For Work movie that was released in 2014, the character, Jay Segal, accidentally uploads questionable media content to “The Cloud”. In a panic to retract the upload, Jay’s wife Annie, asks frantically why he cannot get rid of the content (now quite a cult quote).

"Nobody understands the cloud. It's a mystery."

(English, 2014)

But what is the Cloud really, what does it offer us in terms of benefits, what are some of the challenges and concerns, and how are the models offered and deployed.

So What Is "The Cloud"

Cloud Computing in its most basic form is the on-demand availability of computer resources such as storage, computing, memory and software to users or customers which is managed by another party such as a cloud provider, organization or government.

Cloud Computing Characteristics

Cloud Computing Characteristics include (Agrawal & Tapaswi, 2017) (Rashid & Chaturvedi, 2019) (Caithness, et al., 2017)

• On-demand self-service – users can log onto a website or portal and provision additional resources whenever they need to
• Cost effectiveness – cloud providers offer multiple billing models aimed at accommodating usage optimization and cost reduction from per second billing to fixed term contracts
• Broad Network Access (mobility) – ubiquitous access via internet protocols from anywhere using multiple internet enabled devices
• Resource Pooling – underlying infrastructure and resources are pooled to optimize shared usage
• Rapid Elasticity – computing, memory and storage services can easily be scaled automatically or manually as the need arises
• Measured Services – all resources and services are monitored for consumption and usage to provide detailed cost and billing information
• Multitenancy – many users are housed on the same platform or infrastructure to allow for shared resource usage
• Scalability – horizontal scaling can happen very easily with the addition of more commodity resources and infrastructure
• Reliability – using redundant infrastructure and resources and sophisticated network technologies, cloud providers can ensure high availability and continuity across data centers and even geographical regions
• Economies of scale – by employing economies of scale with large pools of resources and infrastructure, cloud providers can easily offer the benefits of cost, scalability and reliability

Cloud Computing Benefits

So given the above technical mumbo-jumbo, why would you want to go with “The Cloud” (Abd Elmonem, et al., 2016)

• Greater flexibility – organizations can explore new value propositions creating minimal viable products delivering quicker time to market using available cloud and 3rd party market place components and capabilities
• Lower upfront costs – reduced cost and investment into infrastructure and platform setup. Resources can be allocated as needed based on usage, and platforms can be acquired as a service and licensed as usage increases
• Lower operating costs – reduced infrastructure management and employees cost to oversee daily operations. Lower capital cost for periodic renewal of redundant and out of support infrastructure and software
• Availability and Business Continuity – the ability to scale horizontally offers organizations the ability scale up and down based on the increase or decrease in traffic or processing needs. Redundancy built into and across data centers allow for maximum availability, and geo-distributed data centers offer regional redundancy and provide for quicker throughput by allocating resources closer to the edge. Recovery from a local failure is as simple as cutting over to a backup resource, or even automating the failover
• Accessibility and Mobility – as simple as where you can access the internet. If you can connect, you will have access to your resources, from any supported device
• Rapid Implementation – Resources and Infrastructure can be configured through a few clicks of a button, or even automated through the deployment of templates. Many standard offerings are available that allow for low code configuration and integration, and many components and features are available from 3rd party vendors

(mycloudehdf, 2017)

Cloud Computing Challenges

Well, as good as that sounds, there are some serious considerations when deciding about cloud adoption and reviewing cloud readiness such as:

• Governance – if not managed correctly, with lack of appropriate standards, principles, process and practices things can go terribly wrong, form as simple as redundant resources or idle unused compute, to lack of standards in configuration, provisioning, to as great as failures on production platforms, data breaches and privacy violations, and failures to deliver on daily customer and regulatory obligations.
• Business adoption – selling “The Cloud” to the business can initially be difficult, with resistance to change and fear of loss of control over data, process control and cost management. Once you have managed to over come the initial fear, you next challenge will be to manage the pace of adoption by balancing speed and flexibility with governance and best practice
• Security and compliance – many regulations and laws have been introduced to manage cloud computing in line with security and privacy ranging from regulations such as POPIA, GDPR, HIPAA and European Data Protection Directive to Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) and Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). The cloud providers are also held to specific laws and regulations about physical security, network and infrastructure security, multi-tenancy and local legislation based on the location of the data center
• Testing – introducing cloud environment into your SDLC adds new complexities which has not been considered before. Segregation of networks, provisioning of the appropriate environments to ensure to test and management of cost for these environments all add to new challenges
• Integration – distributed integration between on-premise, cloud platforms and vendors or partners will offer additional challenges and complexities to consider when adopting a cloud strategy
• Data – migration from on-premise data stores to cloud hosted data stores with consideration for data encryption in transit and at rest, classification of data to comply with regulatory needs and consideration for future integration and consumption needs will add additional needs and require consideration for data used as part of daily processes and reporting, and for mobile usage

(Kelley, 2019)

Cloud Deployment Models. So How Does It Work?

The very basic offerings can be categorized into three models: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Sotware-as-a-Service (SaaS). Many more have since evolved such as Data-as-a-Service, Business Process-as-a-Service, and many more, but these are beyond the scope of this piece.

To describe this using a simple analogy, think of having to get from point A to point B.

• You can use your personal vehicle which you need to drive, maintain and support (On-Premise)
• You can borrow your friends vehicle for a while (which you then don’t own), which you would have to maintain and support (IaaS)
• You can rent a vehicle from your local outlet, which you would still have to drive, but would not have to maintain or support (PaaS)
• You can get an Uber, no driving, no support, no maintenance (SaaS)

(Watts & Raza, 2019)

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)

Basically, you have ownership of a virtualized server that you need to maintain and support, form the operating system, patching and upgrading to the deployed software, security and resourcing. Only difference to on-premise is that you don’t own the bare metal servers that house the VMs.

Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)

Mainly focused at enabling application development, this level offers developers the ability to integrate capabilities such as database, website, server and integration services, focusing on the task of developing their software without having to focus on the management of server, operating system or platform. It allows for highly available, cost effective platforms integrated with automated deployment and testing and provides for easily scalable platforms to accommodate large volumes of traffic

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)

This is the model with the lowest level of control. Basically, a provider will offer some sort of service (lest say CRM, Business Process, Email or Office Processing tools) and all you have to worry about is you business and processes. If you are OK with the lack of control, this is the simplest option, with the least amount of overhead and maintenance, but comes at exactly that cost. When the provider wishes to do maintenance or upgrades, you are at their mercy.

Cloud Deployment Models

OK, so that’s still not so bad. But where can I get “The Cloud”? In general, we know the cloud to be provided by public corporate entities such as Amazon (AWS), Microsoft (Azure) and Google (GCP). These are known as public clouds and are typically available to everyone.

There also exists private clouds, clouds owned by organizations or global enterprises that are for their exclusive use. They are the sole owners and oversee the direction of development, the pace of expansion.

An expansion of the private cloud concept is a community cloud that is managed by a group of organizations for their integrated use, but exclusive to these groups. No external parties are allowed to access the infrastructure without consent and the infrastructure can be managed by the community or outsourced to a cloud provider.

Finally, we look at hybrid clouds as the combination of private and public clouds through the concept of virtual integrated networks, which allows for critical workloads to be managed in the private cloud with scaling spilling out into the public cloud or offloading of less critical tasks.

(Bamiah, 2015)

There is a lot more detail that you can delve into, and the below will give you a good reference to start your Cloud discovery journey.

(Arcitura, 2020)

(Arcitura, 2020)

References

Abd Elmonem, M. A., Nasr, E. S. & Geith, M. H., 2016. Benefits and challenges of cloud ERP systems – A systematic literature review. Future Computing and Informatics Journal, 1(2), pp. 1-9.

Agrawal, N. & Tapaswi, S., 2017. Defense schemes for variants of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks in cloud computing: A survey. Information security journal, 26(2), pp. 61-73.

Arcitura, 2020. Cloud Technology Concepts. [Online] Available at: https://www.arcitura.com/cloud-school/courses/ccp-module-2-cloud-technology-concepts/ [Accessed 21 Mar 2020].

Arcitura, 2020. Fundamental Cloud Computing. [Online] Available at: https://www.arcitura.com/cloud-school/courses/ccp-module-1-fundamental-cloud-computing/ [Accessed 21 Mar 2020].

Bamiah, M. A., 2015. TRUSTED CLOUD COMPUTING FRAMEWORK IN CRITICAL INDUSTRIAL APPLICATION. [Online] Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Cloud-Computing-Deployment-Models-Mell-and-Grance-2011_fig2_275036700 [Accessed 21 Mar 2020].

Caithness, N., Drescher, M. & Wallom, D., 2017. Can functional characteristics usefully define the cloud computing landscape and is the current reference model correct?. Journal of Cloud Computing: Advances, Systems and Applications, 6(10), pp. 1-13.

English, J., 2014. Can a 'Sex Tape' really get stuck in the cloud?. [Online] Available at: https://www.cnbc.com/2014/07/17/using-sex-tape-to-explain-the-cloudcommentary.html [Accessed 21 Mar 2020].

Kastrenakes, J., 2014. The cloud is the villain in Jason Segel comedy 'Sex Tape'. [Online] Available at: https://www.theverge.com/2014/4/1/5571002/sex-tape-trailer-blames-problems-on-the-cloud-ipad [Accessed 21 Mar 2020].

Kelley, R., 2019. How to really realise the benefits of moving to the cloud. [Online] Available at: https://pwc.blogs.com/business_transformation/2019/06/how-to-really-realise-the-benefits-of-moving-to-the-cloud.html [Accessed 21 Mar 2020].

mycloudehdf, 2017. Shift to Cloud Computing to Benefit your Business. [Online] Available at: https://mycloudehdf.wordpress.com/2017/11/20/shift-to-cloud-computing-to-benefit-your-business/ [Accessed 21 Mar 2020].

Rashid, A. & Chaturvedi, A., 2019. Cloud Computing Characteristics and Services: A Brief Review. International Journal of Computer Sciences and Engineering, 7(2), pp. 421-426.

Watts, S. & Raza, M., 2019. SaaS vs PaaS vs IaaS: What’s The Difference and How To Choose. [Online] Available at: https://www.bmc.com/blogs/saas-vs-paas-vs-iaas-whats-the-difference-and-how-to-choose/ [Accessed 21 Mar 2020].