CLOUD COMPUTING

Cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of IT resources like infrastructure,

application, data storage etc. over the Internet with pay-as-you-go pricing. Instead of
buying, owning, and maintaining physical data centers and servers. These resources
are hosted on a remote data center managed by a cloud service provider (CPM).
For example: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Google
Drive, Dropbox and many more.
WHY CLOUD COMPUTING
Small as well as some large IT companies follows 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, 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.
DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING
There are various disadvantages of cloud computing technology. The important
disadvantages of cloud computing are given below.
1.Require a constant Internet Connection: Cloud computing is impossible without
Internet connection. To access any applications and documents you need a constant
Internet connection.
2.Require High Speed Internet connection: Similarly, a low-speed Internet connection
makes cloud computing painful at best and often impossible. Web based apps often
require a lot of bandwidth to download, as need to download large documents.
3.Stored Data Might Not Be Secure: With cloud computing, all your data is stored in the
cloud. That's all well and good, but how secure is the cloud? Can't unauthorized users
gain access to your confidential data?
CHARACTERISTICS OF SAAS
Here are the characteristics of SaaS service model:
1. SaaS makes the software available over the Internet. 2. The software applications
are maintained by the vendor. 3. The license to the software may be subscription
based or usage based. And it is billed on a recurring basis.
4. SaaS applications are cost-effective since they do not require any maintenance at
the end user side. 5. They are available on demand. 6. They can be scaled up or down on
demand. 7. They are automatically upgraded and updated. 8. SaaS offers shared data
model. Therefore, multiple users can share a single instance of infrastructure. It is not
required to hard code the functionality for individual users. 9. All users run the same
version of the software.

CHARACTERISTICS OF CLOUD COMPUTING

The characteristics of cloud computing are given below:
1. Agility: The cloud works in the distributed computing environment. It shares resources
among users and works amazingly fast.
2. High availability and reliability: Availability of servers is high and more dependable
because the chances of infrastructure failure are minimal.
3. High Scalability: Means "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. Services in 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.
6. 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 the infrastructure is off-site and accessed via the Internet, users can connect
from anywhere.
7. 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 various places. So, it
reduces the cost also.
8. Low Cost: By using cloud computing, the cost will be reduced because to take the services
of cloud computing, IT company no need to set its own infrastructure and pay-as-per usage
of resources.
ADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING
There are various advantages of cloud computing technology. The important advantages of
cloud computing are given below.
1. Low-cost computer for users: In cloud, you don't require a high-powered computer to run
cloud computing's web-based applications. because applications run on cloud not on your
local machine.
2. Low IT infrastructure cost: By using cloud computing, you do not need to invest in larger
numbers of more powerful servers, you also do not need to require the IT staff for handling
such powerful servers.
3. Low maintenance cost: The maintenance cost in cloud computing greatly reduces both
hardware and software maintenance for organizations of all sizes.
4. Low Software Cost: It reduces the software cost because you don't need to purchase
separate software packages for each computer in the organization.
5. Instant software updates: Another software-related advantage in cloud computing is
that users don't need to face the choice between obsolete software and high upgrade costs.
If the app is web-based, updates happen automatically and are available next time when
the user logs in to the cloud.
6. No Version complication: Cloud pushes the same version of application to all the user of a
subscription so there are no applications version complication.
7.Increased computing Power: The execution capacity of cloud servers is very high. It
processes the application very fast.
8.Unlimited storage capacity: Cloud offers you a huge amount of storage capacity like 2000
GB or more than that if required.
9.Support: Most of the cloud services providers provide 24/7 hours support.

ADVANTAGES OF SAAS
1.SaaS is easy to buy: SaaS pricing is based on a monthly fee or annual fee; SaaS allows
organizations to access business functionality at a low cost which is less than licensed
applications. Unlike traditional software which is sold as a licensed based with an up-
front cost (and often an optional ongoing support fee), SaaS providers generally pricing
the applications using a subscription fee, most commonly a monthly or annual fee.
2.Less hardware required for SaaS: The software is hosted remotely, so organizations don't
need to invest in additional hardware.
3.Low Maintenance required for SaaS: Software as a service removes the necessity of
installation, set-up, and often daily upkeep and maintenance for organizations. Initial
set-up cost for SaaS is typically less than the enterprise software. SaaS vendors pricing
their applications based on some usage parameters, such as number of users using the
application. So, SaaS is easy to monitor and automatic updates.
4.No special software or hardware versions required: All users will have the same
version of software and typically access it through the web browser. SaaS reduces IT
support costs by outsourcing hardware and software maintenance and support to the
IaaS provider.
DISADVANTAGES OF SAAS
1.Security: Data is stored in clouds, so security may be an issue for some users.
However, cloud computing is not more secure than in-house deployment. Learn more
about cloud security.
2.Latency issue: Because the data and application are stored in cloud at a variable
distance from the end user, there is a possibility that there may be more latency while
interacting with the application than a local deployment. So, SaaS model is not suitable
for applications whose demand response times are in milliseconds.
3.Total Dependency on Internet: Without internet connection, most SaaS applications
are not usable.
4.Switching between SaaS vendors is difficult: Switching SaaS vendors involves the
difficult and slow task of transferring the very large data files over the Internet and
then converting and importing them into another SaaS also.

DISADVANTAGES OF PAAS
1.Vendor lock-in: One must write the applications according to the platform provided
by PaaS vendor so migration of an application to another PaaS vendor would be a
problem.
2.Data Privacy: Corporate data, whether it can be critical or not, will be private so if it is
not located within the walls of the company there can be a risk in terms of the privacy
of data.
3.Integration with the rest of the systems applications: It may happen that some
applications are local, and some are in cloud. So there will be chances of increased
complexity when we want to use data which is in the cloud with the local data.
TYPES OF CLOUD COMPUTING
Cloud computing can be broken up into three main services:
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS): Software as a service (SaaS) is a software distribution
model in which a cloud provider hosts applications and makes them available to end
users over the internet. In this model, an independent software vendor (ISV) may
contract a third-party cloud provider to host the application. Or, with larger companies,
such as Microsoft, the cloud provider might also be the software vendor. Some
common SaaS applications are as follows:
a) Billing and invoicing system b) Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
applications c) Help desk applications. c) Human Resource (HR) solutions
Some of the SaaS applications are not customizable such as Microsoft Office Suite. But
SaaS provides us with an Application Programming Interface (API), which allows the
developer to develop a customized application.
Infrastructure as a service (IaaS): Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is a form of cloud
computing that provides virtualized computing resources over the internet. In this
model, the cloud provider manages IT infrastructures such as storage, server, and
networking resources, and delivers them to subscriber organizations via virtual
machines accessible through the internet.
Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS): Platform as a service (PaaS) is a cloud computing
model where a third-party provider delivers hardware and software tools to users
over the internet. Usually, these tools are needed for application development. A PaaS
provider hosts the hardware and software on its own infrastructure. As a result, PaaS
frees developers from having to install in-house hardware and software to develop or
run a new application.
ADVANTAGES OF PAAS
1.Simplified Development: Developers can focus on development and innovation
without worrying about the infrastructure.
2.Lower risk: No requirements of up-front investment in hardware and software.
Developers only need a PC and an internet connection to start building applications.
3.Prebuilt business functionality: Some PaaS vendors also provide already defined
business functionality so that users can avoid building everything from scratch and
hence can directly start the projects only.
4.Instant community: PaaS vendors frequently provide online communities where
developers can get ideas, share experiences, and seek advice from others.
5.Scalability: Applications deployed can scale from one to thousands of users without
any changes to the applications.

ADVANTAGES OF IAAS
1) You can dynamically choose a CPU, memory, and storage configuration as per your
needs.
2) You easily access the vast computing power available on IaaS cloud platform.
3) You can eliminate the need for investment in rarely used IT hardware.
4) IT infra will be handled by the IaaS cloud computing platform vendors.
DISADVANTAGES OF IAAS
1) There is a risk of IaaS cloud computing platform vendor by gaining access to the
organizations data. But it can be avoided by opting for private cloud.
2) IaaS cloud computing platform model is dependent on internet availability.
3) It is also dependent on the availability of virtualization services.
4) IaaS cloud computing platform can limit the user privacy and customization options.

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 your employees have the right hardware
and software they need to do their jobs. To buy computers for everyone is not enough.
You also must purchase software as well as software licenses and then provide these
software’s 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 must 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 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 no
longer must do all the heavy lifting when it comes to running applications. But cloud
computing can handle that much heavy load easily and automatically. Hardware and
software demand on the user's side decreases. 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.

TOP VENDORS WHO ARE PROVIDING PAAS

• Google Apps Engine (GAE)
• SalesFroce.com
• Windows Azure
• AppFog
• Openshift
• Cloud Foundary from VMware