Fundamentals of Clouds - E1 : "CLOUD COMPUTING"

What is “Cloud Computing”?

Cloud Computing is the latest trend in Information Technology, where we can use internet facilities to remotely create the computing resources & higher level services, mostly at the premise of service providers, instead of making our own local IT infrastructure and manage it.

NIST (National Institute of Standards & Technology) defines it as : “Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configured computing resources.”

These computing resources mainly comprises (but not limited to) of :

·        Virtual Servers

·        Virtual Storage

·        Virtual Networks

·        Applications

·        Services

The cloud computing resources can be rapidly created, provisioned and released; with least support needed from experts, management and service providers.

It’s economic advantage comes mainly from “sharing of resources”, just like public utilities. This mostly eliminates the cost of unused resources if we compare with traditional computing.

General Benefits of “Cloud Computing” :

In addition to the very clear benefits of the Cloud Computing mentioned in above figure, collectively the three major advantages are as below:

·        It helps organizations to focus on their main business expertise, instead of developing the IT infrastructure and managing it.

·        It helps development teams to get applications up and running much faster.

·        It helps to meet the fluctuating and unpredictable demands on computing resources, by automatically up-scaling and down-scaling the cloud facilities.

Traditional IT Infrastructure Vs Modern Cloud Infrastructure :

Cloud technologies are emerging very fast as Reliable, Scalable, Cost effective IT solution for the major of business and scientific computing needs. Still many organizations and applications are highly relying on traditional IT infrastructure because of few important factors like privacy, security, better control, and special applications. Though Cloud Infrastructure is the latest upgradation in the IT industry, it is not full replacement of traditional IT system. Hence, in upcoming time, we will see most of the applications and business models based on Hybrid IT models (including traditional IT as well as Cloud IT). The proportion of the Traditional and Cloud maybe different in different solutions, but both have their unique advantages and disadvantages, which are important to be understood, before designing and deploying the new solutions.

Features of Traditional IT System

·        Traditional IT system consists of various hardware, and connected mostly with a single network via remote servers.

·        The servers are normally installed in the premises of the organization, and are accessible to the employees and managers, for their business applications and data storages.

·        It needs to buy additional hardware to scale up its usage; in case of increased users, increased data size and increased compute processing needs.

·        To ensure fail-safe business and scientific computing, it needs regular updates of hardware and software.

·        An in-house IT department is needed, to manage and maintain their IT system for regular activities as well as periodic maintenance.

Features of Modern Cloud IT System :

·        Cloud computing is considered as Virtual Hosting Solution, i.e. users can use the IT resources virtually and remotely, provided by the cloud service provider; instead of buying hardware & software, handling real estate costs, and hiring IT engineers to manage it.

·        Instead of having On-premise hardware access, it has all Servers, Software, Networks being hosted in the cloud as virtual infrastructure.

·        It is a real-time virtual environment, and can be hosted between multiple resources and multiple locations at the same time. Hence better uptime, redundancy and availability of the resources; even in the peak load or crisis situations.

·        Instead of buying IT infrastructure, we can use it on rent. So, high Capital Expense (Capex) budgets can be converted into lower Operational Expense (Opex) budgets. 

Advantages of Cloud over Traditional IT Systems :

·        The applications and data hosted in the clouds are distributed evenly across all the servers and resources, which are interconnected to work as a single resource. So, if one server or resource fails, there is no loss of data and hence downtime is saved.

·        In case of unexpected increase in workload, the cloud offers more storage space, increased computing power, and additional server resources. This means the applications will still run faster, even in increased workloads. This brings the power of horizontal and virtual scalability. Traditional servers can not guarantee such consistent server performance, especially during peak loads or abrupt increase in the number of user accounts; which can result into unwanted breakdowns and downtimes frequently; and hence lower productivity.

·        The on-demand virtual space facility on the cloud, has unlimited storage and server addition capacity. During peak load spikes, the cloud resources can upscale or downscale whenever required. In traditional system, we can use only the available resources. In case there is a shortage of resources or capacity to match the optimum computing needs, the only solution is to buy and install.

·        Cloud Infrastructure is managed by the Cloud Service Providers, who take care of responsible hardware, software, upgrades, security etc. and keep the infrastructure running. Since they are doing it collectively for all their clients, their IT running costs are very much lower comparatively. On the other hand, traditional IT systems require in-house administration, fully trained IT professionals to manage the system, and the whole process of purchase, budgets, finance, vendor management etc.

·        Cloud computing is more cost effective, as it works mainly on the model of “pay per usage of resources”. It means we have to pay only for what we use. While in traditional systems, we design the installation capacity seeing the peak load requirements and business road maps for few years in advance; and hence most of the time the resources are unutilized. Also, if the peak load demands increase with time or there is an abrupt growth in business process or number of user accounts; the situation gets worsen because we have to increase the investment on infrastructure, where it will also increase the unutilized resources. Furthermore, the resale value of the self owned IT resources decreases much faster; and hence overall ROIC (Return On Invested Capital) is too low comparing to the cloud resources.

A brief comparison of broad features is mentioned in below diagram:

Need for Hybrid Computing Infrastructure :

Despite of Clouds having major advantages, the traditional IT system still has their own advantages over the clouds, especially more control over the precise features, safety and granularity of administration. Although almost every organization is either switched to the modern Cloud systems, or planning to do the migration within the decade; there are still many concepts due to which traditional systems can not be entirely replaced. However the proportion and ratio of the same could vary for different business models and economies, I am trying to put here some points for considerations of a mix of both models.

·        Security : Organizations can put less sensitive data into the high performance clouds, while retaining the most sensitive data and critical applications to their traditional on-premise IT systems.

·        Cost : Clouds have the advantages of cost effectiveness, comparing to the traditional on-premise IT infrastructure. By implementing the Hybrid IT models, organizations can make a balance of cost effectiveness of their IT systems, while retaining the higher level of security and control on the most critical applications.

·        Scalability : The applications and data storages, which may need higher level of scalability, can be migrated to the clouds, while holding the standard applications and data in traditional systems.

·        Data safety : The hybrid models can provide the data safety and hence business continuity to the organizations, in case of disaster events (political, natural, technological disasters).

·        Research and Innovations : In the cloud environment, new concepts and innovations can be developed, tested and deployed rapidly and economically; without investing much on capital expenses. Most of the research organizations are now a days relying on cloud computing for the development, testing, deployment and production of new products and services.

Despite of having major advantages for running and managing the computing needs effectively and reliably; cloud computing sometimes are debated for various issues like security threats, dependency on internet availability, legal & political compliances within countries etc. However, such challenges have different perceptions for different organizations and business use cases, and are gradually improved. Most of the major business organizations on globe have already migrated to the clouds; and their learnings and case studies are helping the other existing and start-up companies to make themselves ready for this transition from standard IT infrastructure to the legacy of Modern Cloud Computing architecture.

In the first episode of the "Fundamental of Clouds" series, I tried to bring out the very basic points from a business owner or investor's point of views. In next episodes of the series, I will bring the topics from an engineers point of views. Next few articles in this series will cover mainly simple terms and concepts of the Cloud Computing and related Infrastructure; before the topics will be more technically advanced. I am trying to make this series more understandable to majority of the readers. However, the queries and support extensions are always welcomed from the medium and advanced level readers, for the general benefit of everyone. In next session, i will cover what are the components, services, and applications behind the Cloud Solutions, and how do they orchestrate to run the Cloud Computing Infrastructure to match the business needs. Thanks for reading this Article. Stay connected, and please share with the concerned Cloud Technology aspirants too. Any suggestions and supports for this series are welcome to "[email protected]".

--Rahul Rathore