UNIT IV

Cloud Computing Providers (Usecase on any one Service Provider) - Infrastructure as a Service
(IaaS) providers - Google Compute Engine, Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure; Cloud Database
providers - Google Cloud SQL, Microsoft Cloud SQL Database; Cloud Storage providers: Google
Drive API, Google Cloud Storage, Azure Blob Storage. Platform as a Service (PaaS) providers for
Web Rapid Application Development (RAD) - Google App Engine

Cloud Computing Providers (Usecase on any one Service Provider)

What is IaaS & who are their top vendors?

Infrastructure as a service is based on the delivery of computational infrastructure resources.

Of all the possible models of cloud services, IaaS is the most flexible. In it, the contracting

company has more power of action and creation on its servers. In this way, the customer does

not need to buy the equipment linked to these resources. However, the customer is

responsible for its applications, its data, and the operating system.

Below mentioned are the top 5 vendors of IaaS till this day:

 Amazon Web Services (AWS)

 Microsoft Azure

 Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

 Alibaba Cloud

 IBM Cloud

For those looking for greater flexibility, control and use of their own applications, IaaS is the

most suitable option. When choosing to purchase an IaaS service, the company can expect to

obtain great control over its infrastructure resources.

Top 6 Use Cases for IaaS

IaaS is used in several cases. It is useful for backing up, storing, and recovering data and

helps manage fluctuating storage needs. Setting up test and development environments is also
faster and cheaper with IaaS. In addition, companies working with Big Data often use IaaS,

which allows them to significantly increase their computing power. Below mentioned are the

top use cases for IaaS:

Disaster Recovery or Backup Solutions

Building centralized file storage and backup option for many users is a very complicated task

that can be performed in a few steps with Infrastructure as a Service. It helps the user to use a

wide range of services with excellent infrastructure. This can include computing, disaster

recovery, analytics or BI as a service.

Program Testing and Development

Software firms can benefit considerably from the scalability of an IaaS solution. With just a

small amount of work, the testing and development environments can be set up and scaled

again. IaaS can be trusted to run critical business projects with higher scalability due to its

SLAs in place and higher security.

Hosting Complex Websites

While IaaS is not always appropriate for simple websites, it can be the optimal basis for more

complex web projects. Particularly for sites with profoundly fluctuating traffic. A website

hosted in the cloud, for instance, can profit from the verbosity rendered by a massive network

of physical servers and demand scalability to manage unanticipated demands.

High Computing Performance

Encountering complex tasks including several million variables or calculations usually entails

the use of supercomputers or clusters. Here, IaaS can be a better alternative because of its

scalability. As the complexity of the networks always continues to grow, IaaS services are

being considered for networking as support.

Big Data Analysis

One of the building blocks of modern marketing is collecting huge amounts of user data.

Processing them is even more important than collecting this information.

IaaS can manage, store and analyze big data because it can handle large workloads and can

incorporate with business intelligence tools. This helps get business insights, with which

users can build relations with their clients and predict current trends.

Some Real-life Examples

GE Health Cloud on AWS

Recognized for its medical imaging facilities, GE Healthcare has continued its digital

transformation in the past few years. With a new cloud-based solution from AWS, GE

Healthcare designed the GE Health Cloud to accomplish its purpose of empowering

consumers to obtain value from data.

The GE Health Cloud works on Amazon EC2 cases. Nearly one petabyte of medicinal

imaging information is collected in Amazon S3. By operating GE Health Cloud on Amazon

Web Services, GE Healthcare is able to collect, store, access, and process information

worldwide from different types of medical devices, including imaging.

Coca-Cola Amatil Improved their CRM with SoftLayer

The beverage giant Coca-Cola collaborated with SoftLayer to manage their CRM system

effectively during peak seasons.The reason collaborating with SoftLayer was helpful, in

particular, because they followed a pay-as-you-go architecture.

Google Compute Engine

Google Compute Engine (GCE) is an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offering that allows
clients to run workloads on Google's physical hardware. 
Google Compute Engine provides a scalable number of virtual machines (VMs) to serve as
large compute clusters for that purpose.  GCE can be managed through a RESTful API,
command line interface (CLI) or Web console. Compute Engine is a pay-per-usage service
with a 10-minute minimum. There are no up-front fees or time-period commitments. GCE
competes with Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Microsoft Azure.

GCE's application program interface (API) provides administrators with virtual

machine, DNS server and load balancing capabilities. VMs are available in a number
of CPU and RAM configurations and Linux distributions, including Debian and CentOS.
Customers may use their own system images for custom virtual machines. Data at rest is
encrypted using the AEC-128-CBC algorithm.

GCE allows administrators to select the region and zone where certain data resources will be
stored and used. Currently, GCE has three regions: United States, Europe and Asia. Each
region has two availability zones and each zone supports either Ivy Bridge or Sandy Bridge
processors. GCE also offers a suite of tools for administrators to create advanced networks on
the regional level.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

 AWS, like Amazon itself, has a vast toolset that's growing at an exponential
rate. 
 It's been in the cloud computing market for more than 10 years, which means
that AWS is the frontrunner and has been for some time.  
 AWS offering services are categorised as Platform as a Service (PaaS),
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS).

AWS has significantly more services, and more features within those services, than
any other cloud provider–from infrastructure technologies like compute, storage, and
databases–to emerging technologies, such as machine learning and artificial
intelligence, data lakes and analytics, and Internet of Things. This makes it faster,
easier, and more cost effective to move your existing applications to the cloud and
build nearly anything you can imagine.
AWS also has the deepest functionality within those services. For example, AWS
offers the widest variety of databases that are purpose-built for different types of
applications so you can choose the right tool for the job to get the best cost and
performance.
The full form of AWS is Amazon Web Services. It is a platform that offers flexible,
reliable, scalable, easy-to-use and, cost-effective cloud computing solutions.

AWS is a comprehensive, easy to use computing platform offered Amazon. The platform is
developed with a combination of infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service
(PaaS) and packaged software as a service (SaaS) offerings.
Cloud Compute Services offered by Amazon:

1. EC2(Elastic Compute Cloud)- EC2 is a virtual machine in the cloud on which you

have OS level control. You can run this cloud server whenever you want.
2. LightSail- This cloud computing tool automatically deploys and manages the
computer, storage, and networking capabilities required to run your applications.
3. Elastic Beanstalk- The tool offers automated deployment and provisioning of
resources like a highly scalable production website.
4. EKS (Elastic Container Service for Kubernetes)- The tool allows you
to Kubernetes on Amazon cloud environment without installation.
5. AWS Lambda- This AWS service allows you to run functions in the cloud. The tool
is a big cost saver for you as you to pay only when your functions execute.

Microsoft Azure

Microsoft has leveraged its constantly-expanding worldwide network of data centers to create
Azure, a cloud platform for building, deploying, and managing services and applications,
anywhere. Azure lets you add cloud capabilities to your existing network through its platform
as a service (PaaS) model, or entrust Microsoft with all of your computing and network needs
with Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Either option provides secure, reliable access to your
cloud hosted data—one built on Microsoft’s proven architecture. Azure provides an ever
expanding array of products and services designed to meet all your needs through one
convenient, easy to manage platform.

Google Cloud SQL

Google Cloud SQL offers the flexibility to set up database infrastructure once done with
cloud application development. If you have existing databases running in MySQL, SQL
Server, or PostgreSQL BETA, you can conveniently shift them to Cloud SQL.

Google Cloud SQL in all web projects to increase security and reliable backup. When any errors in
the initial database are interrupted or occurred, the system switches to the replica DB version
according to the settings already defined for it, so that users can access the site and platform or
application DB information. As a SAAS platform, it has excellent monitoring capabilities, multi-
platform, high security, and agility in queries, and ultra-fast data analysis and the Google support
team is very responsive.

What exactly Google Cloud SQL does.

1. Fully-Managed : In a fully-managed setup, the business pays fees to the provider
and gains access to the database infrastructure. It is the provider’s responsibility to
manage the databases (migration, backup & recovery, patching). With the fully-
managed database service, the business can focus on productivity and collaboration
while scaling its applications.

2. Relational Database : A relational database is a type of database management system that

stores related data. The database is established in the form of rows and tables which hold

interrelated data items.The characteristics of a relational database include:

 Structured Query Language (SQL): This is a primary interface

that helps build communication with relational databases. It can be

used to add, update, delete, and extract data or subsets of data as

and when required.

 Data Integrity: Relational databases maintain accuracy,

consistency, and completeness of data.

Three relational database engines Supported by Google Cloud SQL

The three relational database engines covered by Google Cloud SQL include:

1. MySQL : It is an open-source, fully-managed, relational database management system

used for cloud app development and deployment.

2. PostgreSQL : PostgreSQL is a free, open-source, advanced relational database

management system that can handle web services supporting many users at the same time. It

focuses on extensibility and is referred to as enterprise-class RDBMS.

3. SQL Server

SQL Server is a relational database management software product that helps store and extract

data when requested by the applications. These applications can be running on the same

system or a network of systems spread across a network.

 Benefits of Google Cloud SQL

The benefits of choosing Google Cloud SQL are manifold. Some of which include:
 1. Less Maintenance Cost

Being attributed as fully-managed, you do not have to worry about the maintenance of the

application data. This gives you the flexibility to focus on improving your cloud applications,

i.e., framing strategies that give you a competitive edge.

2. Ensure Business Continuity

Cloud SQL ensures data backup and recovery. In case of any disaster, you can easily retrieve

the application data and continue operations without worrying interruptions.

3. Ensures Security and Compliance

Cloud SQL provides data encryption and firewall protection. It is a secure RDBMS service

that focuses on providing private connectivity through authentication and user-controlled

network access. Google service is compliant with SSAE 16, ISO 27001, PCI DSS, and

HIPAA.

4. Easy-Setup

The standard connection drivers and migration tools enable you to set up your first Google

database app within minutes. Google’s easy-to-use SQL service provides a hassle-free first-

time experience.
 5. Automated Tasks

Cloud SQL supports automatic task management to ensure you can focus on scaling your

business on the go. Whether it is storage management, backup or redundancy management,

undergoing updates, capacity management, or providing data access, the Google service

offers it all.

6. Easy Integration

Google provides easy access to cloud SQL instances and ensures easy integration with

Kubernetes Engine, App Engine, and Compute Engine. Also, it helps build analytics

possibilities and lets you make SQL queries to the databases through BigQuery.
 Google Cloud SQL — Advantages and Disadvantages

Here are some prominent advantages of choosing Google Cloud SQL:

 Easy to create and is user-friendly

 Enables automatic data encryption

 Supports well-built APIs, which ensures easy access

 Data replication across locations

 Daily automatic backup

 Automatic failover (moving an application to a standby Google

Cloud SQL server in case an instance fails)

Here are some prominent disadvantages of choosing Google Cloud SQL:

 Limited databases vendors availability

 Google Cloud SQL increases as you scale operations

 You cannot customize an instance’s IP

 Lack of latency

 Common promptness slower when compared to AWS

Microsoft Cloud SQL Database

Azure SQL Database is an intelligent, scalable, relational database service built for the

cloud. Optimise performance and durability with automated, AI-powered features

that are always up to date. With serverless compute and Hyperscale storage options

that automatically scale resources on demand, you are free to focus on building new

applications without worrying about storage size or resource management.

Microsoft Azure SQL Database (formerly SQL Azure, SQL Server Data

Services, SQL Services, and Windows Azure SQL Database) is a managed cloud

database (PaaS) provided as part of Microsoft Azure. A cloud database is

a database that runs on a cloud computing platform, and access to it is provided as a

service. Managed database services take care of scalability, backup, and high

availability of the database. Azure SQL Database is a managed database service which

is different from AWS RDS which is a container service.

Azure SQL Database is a cloud-computing database service, that is offered by Microsoft Azure
Platform which helps to host and use a relational SQL database in the cloud without requiring
any hardware or software installation. Also, it provides various advanced features to its users and
some of them can be listed as the following;

 Long-term backup retention enables us to keep backups for up to 10 years

 Geo-replication provides to create readable secondary databases in different data center
locations
 Automatic tuning is an autonomous artificial intelligence-based performance tuning
option that fixes the performance problems automatically
 Business continuity
 High-availability
 Scaling database resources feature is the most powerful feature that provides scaling
the database resources either up or down
 Automated backups

Cloud Storage providers

Google Drive API

The Google Drive API allows you to create apps that leverage Google Drive cloud
storage. You can develop applications that integrate with Google Drive, and create
robust functionality in your application using Google Drive API.

This diagram shows the relationship between your Google Drive app, Google Drive,
and Google Drive API:
Figure 1. Google Drive API Relationship Diagram

These terms define the key components shown in Figure 1:

Google Drive

Google's cloud file storage service that provides users with a personal storage space,
called My Drive, and the option to access collaborative shared folders, called shared
drives.

Google Drive API

The REST API that allows you to leverage Google Drive storage from within your app.

Google Drive app

An app that leverages Google Drive as its storage solution.

Google Drive UI

Google's user interface that manages files stored on Google Drive. If your app is an
editor-type app, such as a spreadsheet or word processor app, you can integrate with
the Drive UI to create and open files within your app.

You can use Google Drive API to:

 Download files from Google Drive and Upload files to Google Drive.

 Search for files and folders stored in Google Drive. Create complex search queries
that return any of the file metadata fields in the Files resource.

 Let users share files, folders and drives to collaborate on content.

  Combine with the Google Picker API to search all files in Google Drive, then return the
file name, URL, last modified date, and user.

 Create third-party shortcuts that are external links to data stored outside of Drive, in a

different data store or cloud storage system.

 Create a dedicated Drive folder to store your application’s data so that the app
cannot access all the user's content stored in Google Drive. See Store application-
specific data.

 Integrate with the Google Drive UI, which is Google's standard web UI you can use to
interact with Drive files. To learn all that you can do with a Drive app that you
integrate with the Google Drive UI, see Drive UI integration overview

Google Cloud Storage

Cloud Storage is a service for storing your objects in Google Cloud. An object is an
immutable piece of data consisting of a file of any format. You store objects in containers
called buckets. All buckets are associated with a project, and you can group your projects
under an organization.

After you create a project, you can create Cloud Storage buckets, upload objects to your
buckets, and download objects from your buckets. You can also grant permissions to make
your data accessible to principals you specify, or - for certain use cases such as hosting a
website - accessible to everyone on the public internet.

Example of Google Cloud hierarchy

Here's how the Cloud Storage structure can apply to a real-world case:

 Organization: Your company, called Example Inc., creates a Google Cloud

organization called exampleinc.org.
 Project: Example Inc. is building several applications, and each one is associated
with a project. Each project has its own set of Cloud Storage APIs, as well as other
resources.
 Bucket: Each project can contain multiple buckets, which are containers to store your
objects. For example, you might create a photos bucket for all the image files your
app generates and a separate videos bucket.
 Object: An individual file, such as an image called puppy.png.

Basic tools for Cloud Storage

Here are some basic ways you can interact with Cloud Storage:

 Console: The Google Cloud Console provides a visual interface for you to manage

your data in a browser.
 gsutil: gsutil is a command-line tool that allows you to interact with Cloud Storage
through a terminal. If you use other Google Cloud services, you can download the
Cloud SDK, which includes gsutil along with the gcloud tool for other services.
 Client libraries: The Cloud Storage client libraries allow you to manage your data
using one of your preferred languages, including C++, C#, Go, Java, Node.js, PHP,
Python, and Ruby.
  REST APIs: Manage your data using the JSON or XML API.

Securing your data

Once you upload your objects to Cloud Storage, you have fine-grained control over how you
secure and share your data. Here are some ways to secure the data you upload to Cloud
Storage:

 Identity and Access Management: Use IAM to control who has access to the
resources in your Google Cloud project. Resources include Cloud Storage buckets and
objects, as well as other Google Cloud entities such as Compute Engine instances.
You can grant principals certain types of access to buckets and objects, such
as update, create, or delete.
 Data encryption: Cloud Storage uses server-side encryption to encrypt your data by
default. You can also use supplemental data encryption options such as customer-
managed encryption keys and customer-supplied encryption keys.
 Authentication: Ensure that anyone who accesses your data has proper credentials.
 Bucket Lock: Govern how long objects in buckets must be retained by specifying a
retention policy.
 Object Versioning: When a live version of an object is replaced or deleted, it can be
retained as a noncurrent version if you enable Object Versioning.
Azure Blob Storage

Azure Blob storage is a feature of Microsoft Azure. It allows users to store large amounts of
unstructured data on Microsoft’s data storage platform. In this case, Blob stands for Binary
Large Object, which includes objects such as images and multimedia files. These are known
as unstructured data because they don’t follow any particular data model.

While Azure data storage is generally associated with data lakes and analytics, Azure Blob
storage is more focused on common storage purposes. In other words, it  includes objects
which personal users would be used to storing, such as photos, videos, and documents. On an
enterprise level, the amount of these files, as well as log files and backups is considerably
higher, hence the need for Azure. 

Blob storage for an organization, for example, would mean keeping backups of previous
versions of a site and its content and images, which would need to be accessible from
different locations. By using Azure data storage, a company can make this material easier and
quicker to access compared to it being kept on a single-location server.
With Azure Blob storage, the files (photos, videos, training documents, etc.), which are
known as blobs, are put in containers which function similar to directories. These are then
linked to the storage account. When creating the address to give access to a file in Azure data
storage, it will simply join the storage account and the location of the blob. The address will
be in a .net format.

One of the big advantages for businesses is that Azure Blob storage allows them to collect all
of their content assets in one place. These will then be available all across their different
departments and internationally. The speed, scalability, ease of access, and security (both
from accidents and criminals) make such cloud storage very attractive for all mid-sized and
large organizations.

Platform as a Service (PaaS) providers for Web Rapid Application

Development (RAD)

Rapid Application Development (RAD) is a form of agile software development

methodology that prioritizes rapid prototype releases and iterations. Unlike the
Waterfall method, RAD emphasizes the use of software and user feedback over strict
planning and requirements recording.

Some of the key benefits and advantages of RAD are:

 Enhanced flexibility and adaptability as developers can make adjustments

quickly during the development process.
 Quick iterations that reduce development time and speed up delivery.
 Encouragement of code reuse, which means less manual coding, less room
for errors, and shorter testing times.
 Increased customer satisfaction due to high-level collaboration and
coordination between stakeholders (developers, clients, and end users).
 Better risk management as stakeholders can discuss and address code
vulnerabilities while keeping development processes going.
 Fewer surprises as, unlike the Waterfall method, RAD includes integrations
early on in the software development process.

5 steps or phases in RAD

Step 1. Define and finalize project requirements

During this step, stakeholders sit together to define and finalize project requirements
such as project goals, expectations, timelines, and budget. When you have clearly
defined and scoped out each aspect of the project’s requirements, you can seek
management approvals.

Step 2: Begin building prototypes

As soon as you finish scoping the project, you can begin development. Designers and
developers will work closely with clients to create and improve upon working
prototypes until the final product is ready.

Step 3: Gather user feedback

In this step, prototypes and beta systems are converted into working models. Developers
then gather feedback from users to tweak and improve prototypes and create the best
possible product.
Step 4: Test, test, test

This step requires you to test your software product and ensure that all its moving parts
work together as per client expectations. Continue incorporating client feedback as the
code is tested and retested for its smooth functioning.

Step 5: Present your system

This is the final step before the finished product goes to launch. It involves data
conversion and user training.

Google App Engine

Google App Engine (often referred to as GAE or simply App Engine) is a cloud

computing platform as a service for developing and hosting web applications in Google-
managed data centers. Applications are sandboxed and run across multiple servers. App
Engine offers automatic scaling for web applications—as the number of requests increases
for an application, App Engine automatically allocates more resources for the web
application to handle the additional demand.[3]
Google App Engine primarily supports Go, PHP, Java, Python, Node.js, .NET,
and Ruby applications, although it can also support other languages via "custom runtimes".