UNIT 1

Cloud Introduction

Introduction:
It’s interesting to observe how our world has changed from traditional infrastructures to
becoming more cloud-based. Yes! We are discussing the omnipresent “cloud.” Cloud
computing has been there for almost two decades, and despite statistics showing commercial
savings, cost-benefit analyses were never conclusive. Nevertheless, it has changed how
companies communicate, store, and exchange information. It has also changed how they
manage computing resources.
Cloud computing provides modern organizations with cost savings, scalability, flexibility,
efficiency, and security. Instead of using internal systems, 70% of our enterprises operate in
the cloud. You may have noticed that buying flight tickets or accessing medical records is
no longer a Herculean task. That’s all due to the cloud network services.

“ The Flexera 2022 State of the Cloud report states that 59 % of

companies maximize current cloud usage (cost saving). 57 % of
enterprises are moving additional tasks to the cloud. And 42 % of
organizations switch to SaaS from on-premises software.”

Cloud services provide flexibility, excellent data storage, improved employee

synchronization, and data security. As a result, organizations can make more intelligent
decisions to develop and grow.
What is Cloud Computing
“The term cloud refers to a network or the internet. It is a technology that uses remote servers on
the internet to store, manage, and access data online rather than local drives. The data can be
anything such as files, images, documents, audio, video, and more.”

Or

“Delivering computing services across a network is referred to as cloud computing. This

is because massive volumes of data are stored, managed, and processed through a
network of shared and different servers (hosted on the Internet other than a local server
or PC), reducing the cost of IT infrastructure.”

There are the following operations that we can do using cloud computing:

 Developing new applications and services

 Storage, back up, and recovery of data
 Hosting blogs and websites
 Delivery of software on demand
 Analysis of data
 Streaming videos and audios

Why Cloud Computing?

Small as well as large IT companies, follow the traditional methods to provide the IT
infrastructure. That means for any IT company, we need a Server Room that is the basic need
of IT companies.

In that server room, there should be a database server, mail server, networking, firewalls, routers,
modem, switches, QPS (Query Per Second means how much queries or load will be handled by
the server), configurable system, high net speed, and the maintenance engineers.

To establish such IT infrastructure, we need to spend lots of money. To overcome all these
problems and to reduce the IT infrastructure cost, Cloud Computing comes into existence.
Characteristics of Cloud Computing:
The characteristics of cloud computing are given below:

1) Agility

The cloud works in a distributed computing environment. It shares resources among users
and works very fast.

2) High availability and reliability

The availability of servers is high and more reliable because the chances of infrastructure
failure are minimum.

3) High Scalability

Cloud offers "on-demand" provisioning of resources on a large scale, without having

engineers for peak loads.

4) Multi-Sharing

With the help of cloud computing, multiple users and applications can work more
efficiently with cost reductions by sharing common infrastructure.

5) Device and Location Independence

Cloud computing enables the users to access systems using a web browser regardless of their
location or what device they use e.g. PC, mobile phone, etc. As infrastructure is off-site
(typically provided by a third-party) and accessed via the Internet, users can connect from
anywhere.

6) Maintenance

Maintenance of cloud computing applications is easier, since they do not need to be

installed on each user's computer and can be accessed from different places. So, it
reduces the cost also.

7) Low Cost

By using cloud computing, the cost will be reduced because to take the services of cloud
computing, IT company need not to set its own infrastructure and pay-as-per usage of
resources.

8) Services in the pay-per-use mode

Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are provided to the users so that they can
access services on the cloud by using these APIs and pay the charges as per the usage of
services.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Cloud Computing
Advantages of Cloud Computing
As we all know that Cloud computing is trending technology. Almost every company
switched their services on the cloud to rise the company growth.

Here, we are going to discuss some important advantages of Cloud Computing-

1) Back-up and restore data

Once the data is stored in the cloud, it is easier to get back-up and restore that data using the
cloud.

2) Improved collaboration

Cloud applications improve collaboration by allowing groups of people to quickly and easily
share information in the cloud via shared storage.

3) Excellent accessibility

Cloud allows us to quickly and easily access store information anywhere, anytime in the
whole world, using an internet connection. An internet cloud infrastructure increases
organization productivity and efficiency by ensuring that our data is always accessible.
4) Low maintenance cost

Cloud computing reduces both hardware and software maintenance costs for organizations.

5) Mobility

Cloud computing allows us to easily access all cloud data via mobile.

6) Services in the pay-per-use model

Cloud computing offers Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to the users for access
services on the cloud and pays the charges as per the usage of service.

7) Unlimited storage capacity

Cloud offers us a huge amount of storing capacity for storing our important data such as
documents, images, audio, video, etc. in one place.

8) Data security

Data security is one of the biggest advantages of cloud computing. Cloud offers many
advanced features related to security and ensures that data is securely stored and handled.

Disadvantages of Cloud Computing

A list of the disadvantage of cloud computing is given below -

1) Internet Connectivity

As you know, in cloud computing, every data (image, audio, video, etc.) is stored on the
cloud, and we access these data through the cloud by using the internet connection. If you do
not have good internet connectivity, you cannot access these data. However, we have no any
other way to access data from the cloud.

2) Vendor lock-in

Vendor lock-in is the biggest disadvantage of cloud computing. Organizations may face
problems when transferring their services from one vendor to another. As different vendors
provide different platforms, that can cause difficulty moving from one cloud to another.

3) Limited Control

As we know, cloud infrastructure is completely owned, managed, and monitored by the

service provider, so the cloud users have less control over the function and execution of
services within a cloud infrastructure.
4) Security

Although cloud service providers implement the best security standards to store important
information. But, before adopting cloud technology, you should be aware that you will be
sending all your organization's sensitive information to a third party, i.e., a cloud computing
service provider. While sending the data on the cloud, there may be a chance that your
organization's information is hacked by Hackers.

Evolution of Cloud Computing

Before emerging the cloud computing, there was Client/Server computing which is
basically a centralized storage in which all the software applications, all the data and all the
controls are resided on the server side.

If a single user wants to access specific data or run a program, he/she need to connect to the
server and then gain appropriate access, and then he/she can do his/her business.

Then after, distributed computing came into picture, where all the computers are networked
together and share their resources when needed.

On the basis of above computing, there was emerged of cloud computing concepts that
later implemented.

At around in 1961, John MacCharty suggested in a speech at MIT that computing can be sold
like a utility, just like a water or electricity. It was a brilliant idea, but like all brilliant ideas,
it was ahead if its time, as for the next few decades, despite interest in the model, the
technology simply was not ready for it.

But of course time has passed and the technology caught that idea and after few years we
mentioned that:

In 1999, Salesforce.com started delivering of applications to users using a simple website.

The applications were delivered to enterprises over the Internet, and this way the dream of
computing sold as utility were true.

In 2002, Amazon started Amazon Web Services, providing services like storage, computation
and even human intelligence. However, only starting with the launch of the Elastic Compute
Cloud in 2006 a truly commercial service open to everybody existed.

In 2009, Google Apps also started to provide cloud computing enterprise applications.

Of course, all the big players are present in the cloud computing evolution, some were
earlier, some were later. In 2009, Microsoft launched Windows Azure, and companies like
Oracle and HP have all joined the game. This proves that today, cloud computing has become
mainstream.
Cloud Computing Architecture
As we know, cloud computing technology is used by both small and large organizations to
store the information in cloud and access it from anywhere at anytime using the internet
connection.

Cloud computing architecture is a combination of service-oriented architecture and event-

driven architecture.

Cloud computing architecture is divided into the following two parts -

 Front End
 Back End
The below diagram shows the architecture of cloud computing -

Front End

The front end is used by the client. It contains client-side interfaces and applications that are
required to access the cloud computing platforms. The front end includes web servers
(including Chrome, Firefox, internet explorer, etc.), thin & fat clients, tablets, and mobile
devices.
Back End

The back end is used by the service provider. It manages all the resources that are required to
provide cloud computing services. It includes a huge amount of data storage, security
mechanism, virtual machines, deploying models, servers, traffic control mechanisms, etc.

How does cloud computing work

Assume that you are an executive at a very big corporation. Your particular responsibilities
include to make sure that all of your employees have the right hardware and software they
need to do their jobs. To buy computers for everyone is not enough. You also have to
purchase software as well as software licenses and then provide these softwares to your
employees as they require. Whenever you hire a new employee, you need to buy more
software or make sure your current software license allows another user. It is so stressful that
you have to spend lots of money.

But, there may be an alternative for executives like you. So, instead of installing a suite of
software for each computer, you just need to load one application. That application will
allow the employees to log-in into a Web-based service which hosts all the programs for the
user that is required for his/her job. Remote servers owned by another company and that will
run everything from e-mail to word processing to complex data analysis programs. It is called
cloud computing, and it could change the entire computer industry.
 In a cloud computing system, there is a significant workload shift. Local
computers have no longer to do all the heavy lifting when it comes to run
applications. But cloud computing can handle that much heavy load easily and
automatically. Hardware and software demands on the user's side decrease.
The only thing the user's computer requires to be able to run is the cloud
computing interface software of the system, which can be as simple as a Web
browser and the cloud's network takes care of the rest.

Components of Cloud Computing Architecture

Here are the following components of cloud computing architecture -

1. Client Infrastructure
Client Infrastructure is a Front end component. It provides GUI (Graphical User Interface) to
interact with the cloud.

2. Application

The application may be any software or platform that a client wants to access.

3. Service

A Cloud Services manages that which type of service you access according to the client’s
requirement.

Cloud computing offers the following three type of services:

1. Software as a Service (SaaS)

It is also known as cloud application services. Mostly, SaaS applications run directly
through the web browser means we do not require to download and install these applications.
Some important example of SaaS is given below –
Example: Google Apps, Salesforce Dropbox, Slack, Hubspot, Cisco WebEx.

2. Platform as a Service (PaaS)

It is also known as cloud platform services. It is quite similar to SaaS, but the difference is
that PaaS provides a platform for software creation, but using SaaS, we can access software
over the internet without the need of any platform.

Example: Windows Azure, Force.com, Magento Commerce Cloud, OpenShift.

3. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

It is also known as cloud infrastructure services. It is responsible for managing
applications data, middleware, and runtime environments.

Example: Amazon Web Services (AWS) EC2, Google Compute Engine (GCE), Cisco
Metapod.

4. Runtime Cloud

Runtime Cloud provides the execution and runtime environment to the virtual machines.

5. Storage
Storage is one of the most important components of cloud computing. It provides a
huge amount of storage capacity in the cloud to store and manage data.

6. Infrastructure

It provides services on the host level, application level, and network level. Cloud
infrastructure includes hardware and software components such as servers, storage, network
devices, virtualization software, and other storage resources that are needed to support the
cloud computing model.

7. Management

Management is used to manage components such as application, service, runtime cloud,

storage, infrastructure, and other security issues in the backend and establish coordination
between them.

8. Security

Security is an in-built back end component of cloud computing. It implements a security

mechanism in the back end.

9. Internet

The Internet is medium through which front end and back end can interact and communicate
with each other.
Cloud Computing Applications
Cloud service providers provide various applications in the field of art, business, data storage
and backup services, education, entertainment, management, social networking, etc.

The most widely used cloud computing applications are given below -

1. Art Applications
Cloud computing offers various art applications for quickly and easily design attractive
cards, booklets, and images. Some most commonly used cloud art applications are given
below:

i Moo

Moo is one of the best cloud art applications. It is used for designing and printing business
cards, postcards, and mini cards.

ii. Vistaprint

Vistaprint allows us to easily design various printed marketing products such as business
cards, Postcards, Booklets, and wedding invitations cards.

iii. Adobe Creative Cloud

Adobe creative cloud is made for designers, artists, filmmakers, and other creative
professionals. It is a suite of apps which includes PhotoShop image editing programming,
Illustrator, InDesign, TypeKit, Dreamweaver, XD, and Audition.
 2. Business Applications

Business applications are based on cloud service providers. Today, every organization
requires the cloud business application to grow their business. It also ensures that business
applications are 24*7 available to users.

There are the following business applications of cloud computing -

i. MailChimp

MailChimp is an email publishing platform which provides various options to design, send,
and save templates for emails.

iii. Salesforce

Salesforce platform provides tools for sales, service, marketing, e-commerce, and more. It
also provides a cloud development platform.

iv. Chatter

Chatter helps us to share important information about the organization in real time.

v. Bitrix24

Bitrix24 is a collaboration platform which provides communication, management, and social

collaboration tools.

vi. Paypal

Paypal offers the simplest and easiest online payment mode using a secure internet account.
Paypal accepts the payment through debit cards, credit cards, and also from Paypal account
holders.

vii. Slack

Slack stands for Searchable Log of all Conversation and Knowledge. It provides a user-
friendly interface that helps us to create public and private channels for communication.

viii. Quickbooks

Quickbooks works on the terminology "Run Enterprise anytime, anywhere, on any

device." It provides online accounting solutions for the business. It allows more than 20
users to work simultaneously on the same system.

3. Data Storage and Backup Applications

Cloud computing allows us to store information (data, files, images, audios, and videos) on
the cloud and access this information using an internet connection. As the cloud provider is
responsible for providing security, so they offer various backup recovery application for
retrieving the lost data.
A list of data storage and backup applications in the cloud are given below -

i. Box.com

Box provides an online environment for secure content management, workflow, and
collaboration. It allows us to store different files such as Excel, Word, PDF, and images on
the cloud. The main advantage of using box is that it provides drag & drop service for files
and easily integrates with Office 365, G Suite, Salesforce, and more than 1400 tools.

ii. Mozy

Mozy provides powerful online backup solutions for our personal and business data. It
schedules automatically back up for each day at a specific time.

iii. Joukuu

Joukuu provides the simplest way to share and track cloud-based backup files. Many users
use joukuu to search files, folders, and collaborate on documents.

iv. Google G Suite

Google G Suite is one of the best cloud storage and backup application. It includes Google
Calendar, Docs, Forms, Google+, Hangouts, as well as cloud storage and tools for managing
cloud apps. The most popular app in the Google G Suite is Gmail. Gmail offers free email
services to users.

4. Education Applications
Cloud computing in the education sector becomes very popular. It offers various online
distance learning platforms and student information portals to the students. The
advantage of using cloud in the field of education is that it offers strong virtual classroom
environments, Ease of accessibility, secure data storage, scalability, greater reach for the
students, and minimal hardware requirements for the applications.

There are the following education applications offered by the cloud -

i. Google Apps for Education

Google Apps for Education is the most widely used platform for free web-based email,
calendar, documents, and collaborative study.

ii. Chromebooks for Education

Chromebook for Education is one of the most important Google's projects. It is designed for
the purpose that it enhances education innovation.

iii. Tablets with Google Play for Education

It allows educators to quickly implement the latest technology solutions into the classroom
and make it available to their students.

iv. AWS in Education

AWS cloud provides an education-friendly environment to universities, community colleges,

and schools.

5. Entertainment Applications
Entertainment industries use a multi-cloud strategy to interact with the target audience.
Cloud computing offers various entertainment applications such as online games and video
conferencing.

i. Online games

Today, cloud gaming becomes one of the most important entertainment media. It offers
various online games that run remotely from the cloud. The best cloud gaming services are
Shaow, GeForce Now, Vortex, Project xCloud, and PlayStation Now.

ii. Video Conferencing Apps

Video conferencing apps provides a simple and instant connected experience. It allows us to
communicate with our business partners, friends, and relatives using a cloud-based video
conferencing. The benefits of using video conferencing are that it reduces cost, increases
efficiency, and removes interoperability.

6. Management Applications
Cloud computing offers various cloud management tools which help admins to manage all
types of cloud activities, such as resource deployment, data integration, and disaster recovery.
These management tools also provide administrative control over the platforms, applications,
and infrastructure.

Some important management applications are -

i. Toggl
Toggl helps users to track allocated time period for a particular project.

ii. Evernote
Evernote allows you to sync and save your recorded notes, typed notes, and other notes in
one convenient place. It is available for both free as well as a paid version.

It uses platforms like Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, Browser, and Unix.

iii. Outright
Outright is used by management users for the purpose of accounts. It helps to track income,
expenses, profits, and losses in real-time environment.

iv. GoToMeeting
GoToMeeting provides Video Conferencing and online meeting apps, which allows you to
start a meeting with your business partners from anytime, anywhere using mobile phones or
tablets. Using GoToMeeting app, you can perform the tasks related to the management such
as join meetings in seconds, view presentations on the shared screen, get alerts for upcoming
meetings, etc.

7. Social Applications
Social cloud applications allow a large number of users to connect with each other using
social networking applications such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedln, etc.

There are the following cloud based social applications -

i. Facebook

Facebook is a social networking website which allows active users to share files, photos,
videos, status, more to their friends, relatives, and business partners using the cloud storage
system. On Facebook, we will always get notifications when our friends like and comment on
the posts.

ii. Twitter

Twitter is a social networking site. It is a microblogging system. It allows users to follow

high profile celebrities, friends, relatives, and receive news. It sends and receives short posts
called tweets.

iii. Yammer

Yammer is the best team collaboration tool that allows a team of employees to chat, share
images, documents, and videos.

iv. LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a social network for students, freshers, and professionals.

Cloud Computing Challenges

Emerging cloud computing technologies have created numerous challenges for different
areas of handling data and information. Therefore, if you decide to implement cloud
infrastructure services, here are some challenges of cloud computing and risks you can
encounter.
 1) Privacy and Data Security
Privacy and data security are the two most concerning factors to cloud computing models. Cloud
storage of user or business data is vital and private. Encryption, security hardware, and software
can solve security and privacy problems.

Identity theft, data breaches, malware infections, and other security issues on the cloud lead to a
decline in user confidence in your applications. This can lead to a heavy loss in revenue alongside
stature and reputation. In addition, dealing with cloud computing for small businesses needs
sending and receiving a massive amount of data quickly and is vulnerable to data leaks.

2) Cost Management
Without significant investments in new hardware, a company can rapidly increase its
processing capacity in the cloud. Instead, businesses can use public carriers’ pay-as-you-go
strategies to get additional processing. Most of the all-cloud providers offer a “pay-as-you-
go” model. It brings down the total cost of the resources being used. However, defining
and forecasting quantities and costs can occasionally be challenging due to cloud
computing services’ on-demand and scalable nature.

2) Multi-Cloud Environments
Companies now have more options at their disposal, so they no longer depend only on one
cloud provider but on a number of them. Nearly 84% of these organizations depend on
several clouds, most of which employ hybrid cloud strategies. The infrastructure team
frequently finds this to be hindering and challenging to manage. The process frequently
ends up being extremely complicated for the IT team due to the variations among
various cloud infrastructure services providers

4) Performance Challenges
Performance is a crucial factor when considering cloud-based solutions.  If the cloud’s
performance is subpar, users may stop using it, and businesses may suffer. For instance, the
minimum amount of latency when loading an app or website might cause a significant
decrease in the number of users. This latency may result from ineffective load balancing,
which indicates that the server cannot divide incoming traffic effectively for the optimal
user experience. Fault tolerance, which refers to the ability for operations to continue even
when one or more of the components fail, also presents difficulties.

5) Portability

Application migration from one cloud provider to another should be simple, which is
another challenge for cloud computing applications. Vendor lock-in must be avoided.
Vendor lock-in must be avoided. Because each cloud provider utilizes a separate standard
language for their systems, it is currently not practicable.

Benefits of Cloud Computing

There are various advantages of cloud computing, and some of them are
1) Cost Savings
Suppose users are worried about the cost associated with switching to cloud computing
infrastructure. It’s not only just you. The initial expense of adopting a cloud-based
solutions concerns 20% of companies. However, those who are attempting to balance the
benefits and drawbacks of using the cloud need to consider more than just the initial cost;
they also need to take ROI into account.
2) Security
When it comes to implementing a cloud based solution, many companies are concerned
about security. After all, how can you be sure that files, programs, and other data are
protected if they are not housed securely onsite? What stops a cybercriminal from doing
the same thing if you can access your data remotely? Well, actually, quite a bit.
One of the responsibilities of a cloud based solutions is to monitor security properly. This
is substantially more effective than a standard internal system. where a company must
divide its resources among a variety of IT issues, security being only one of them.
3) Rapid Deployment and High Speed
Software development’s agility and speed have changed as a result of the quick creation of
new cloud computing platforms. Developers may quickly test new concepts and create
application architecture without being constrained by on-site hardware.
4) Scalability
Distinct businesses have different IT requirements; a huge company with more than 1000
employees won’t have the same needs as a start-up. Implementing the cloud computing
platform is a fantastic solution since it enables companies to scale up, or down their IT
departments fast and efficiently.
5) Backup and Restore Data
Data storage on the cloud based solutions is not limited by available space, which is
beneficial for backup and restores operations. End-user data evolve and must be tracked for
regulations or compliance requirements. Older software versions can be saved for later
stages if a rollback or recovery is required.

Issues in Cloud

What are the Security Risks of Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing provides various advantages, such as improved collaboration,
excellent accessibility, Mobility, Storage capacity, etc. But there are also security risks
in cloud computing.
Some most common Security Risks of Cloud Computing are given below-

Data Loss
Data loss is the most common cloud security risks of cloud computing. It is also
known as data leakage. Data loss is the process in which data is being deleted,
corrupted, and unreadable by a user, software, or application. In a cloud computing
environment, data loss occurs when our sensitive data is somebody else's hands, one
or more data elements can not be utilized by the data owner, hard disk is not working
properly, and software is not updated.

Hacked Interfaces and Insecure APIs

As we all know, cloud computing is completely depends on Internet, so it is
compulsory to protect interfaces and APIs that are used by external users. APIs are
the easiest way to communicate with most of the cloud services. In cloud computing,
few services are available in the public domain. These services can be accessed by
third parties, so there may be a chance that these services easily harmed and hacked by
hackers.

Data Breach
Data Breach is the process in which the confidential data is viewed, accessed, or stolen
by the third party without any authorization, so organization's data is hacked by the
hackers.

Vendor lock-in
Vendor lock-in is the of the biggest security risks in cloud computing. Organizations
may face problems when transferring their services from one vendor to another. As
different vendors provide different platforms, that can cause difficulty moving one
cloud to another.

Increased complexity strains IT staff

Migrating, integrating, and operating the cloud services is complex for the IT staff. IT
staff must require the extra capability and skills to manage, integrate, and maintain
the data to the cloud.

Spectre & Meltdown

Spectre & Meltdown allows programs to view and steal data which is currently
processed on computer. It can run on personal computers, mobile devices, and in the
cloud. It can store the password, your personal information such as images, emails,
and business documents in the memory of other running programs.

Denial of Service (DoS) attacks

Denial of service (DoS) attacks occur when the system receives too much traffic to
buffer the server. Mostly, DoS attackers target web servers of large organizations such
as banking sectors, media companies, and government organizations. To recover the
lost data, DoS attackers charge a great deal of time and money to handle the data.

Account hijacking
Account hijacking is a serious security risk in cloud computing. It is the process in
which individual user's or organization's cloud account (bank account, e-mail account,
and social media account) is stolen by hackers. The hackers use the stolen account to
perform unauthorized activities.