Architecture of Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing , which is one of the demanding technology of the current time
and which is giving a new shape to every organization by providing on demand
virtualized services/resources. Starting from small to medium and medium to large,
every organization use cloud computing services for storing information and
accessing it from anywhere and any time only with the help of internet. In this
article, we will know more about the internal architecture of cloud computing.
Transparency, scalability, security and intelligent monitoring are some of the most
important constraints which every cloud infrastructure should experience. Current
research on other important constraints is helping cloud computing system to come up
with new features and strategies with a great capability of providing more advanced
cloud solutions.
Cloud Computing Architecture :
The cloud architecture is divided into 2 parts i.e.
1. Frontend
2. Backend
The below figure represents an internal architectural view of cloud computing.

Architecture of Cloud Computing

Architecture of cloud computing is the combination of both SOA (Service Oriented

Architecture) and EDA (Event Driven Architecture). Client infrastructure, application,
service, runtime cloud, storage, infrastructure, management and security all these are
the components of cloud computing architecture.
1. Frontend :
Frontend of the cloud architecture refers to the client side of cloud computing system.
Means it contains all the user interfaces and applications which are used by the client
to access the cloud computing services/resources. For example, use of a web browser
to access the cloud platform.
• Client Infrastructure – Client Infrastructure is a part of the frontend
component. It contains the applications and user interfaces which are
required to access the cloud platform.
• In other words, it provides a GUI( Graphical User Interface ) to interact
with the cloud.
2. Backend :
Backend refers to the cloud itself which is used by the service provider. It contains the
resources as well as manages the resources and provides security mechanisms. Along
with this, it includes huge storage, virtual applications, virtual machines, traffic
control mechanisms, deployment models, etc.
1. Application –
Application in backend refers to a software or platform to which client
accesses. Means it provides the service in backend as per the client
requirement.
2. Service –
Service in backend refers to the major three types of cloud based services
like SaaS, PaaS and IaaS. Also manages which type of service the user
accesses.
3. Runtime Cloud-
Runtime cloud in backend provides the execution and Runtime
platform/environment to the Virtual machine.
4. Storage –
Storage in backend provides flexible and scalable storage service and
management of stored data.
5. Infrastructure –
Cloud Infrastructure in backend refers to the hardware and software
components of cloud like it includes servers, storage, network devices,
virtualization software etc.
6. Management –
Management in backend refers to management of backend components like
application, service, runtime cloud, storage, infrastructure, and other
security mechanisms etc.
7. Security –
Security in backend refers to implementation of different security
mechanisms in the backend for secure cloud resources, systems, files, and
infrastructure to end-users.
8. Internet –
Internet connection acts as the medium or a bridge between frontend and
backend and establishes the interaction and communication between
frontend and backend.
9. Database– Database in backend refers to provide database for storing
structured data, such as SQL and NOSQL databases. Example of Databases
 services include Amazon RDS, Microsoft Azure SQL database and Google
CLoud SQL.
10. Networking– Networking in backend services that provide networking
infrastructure for application in the cloud, such as load balancing, DNS and
virtual private networks.
11. Analytics– Analytics in backend service that provides analytics capabillities
for data in the cloud, such as warehousing, bussness intellegence and
machine learning.
Benefits of Cloud Computing Architecture :
• Makes overall cloud computing system simpler.
• Improves data processing requirements.
• Helps in providing high security.
• Makes it more modularized.
• Results in better disaster recovery.
• Gives good user accessibility.
• Reduces IT operating costs.
• Provides high level reliability.
• Scalability.

Cloud Computing Infrastructure

Cloud Computing which is one of the demanding technology of current scenario and
which has been proved as a revolutionary technology trend for businesses of all sizes.
It manages a broad and complex infrastructure setup to provide cloud services and
resources to the customers. Cloud Infrastructure which comes under the backend part
of cloud architecture represents the hardware and software component such as server,
storage, networking, management software, deployment software and virtualization
software etc. In backend, cloud infrastructure enables the complete cloud computing
system.
Why Cloud Computing Infrastructure :
Cloud computing refers to providing on demand services to the customer anywhere
and anytime irrespective of everything where the cloud infrastructure represents the
one who activates the complete cloud computing system. Cloud infrastructure has
more capabilities of providing the same services as the physical infrastructure to the
customers. It is available for private cloud, public cloud, and hybrid cloud
systems with low cost, greater flexibility and scalability.
Cloud infrastructure components :
Different components of cloud infrastructure supports the computing requirements of
a cloud computing model. Cloud infrastructure has number of key components but not
limited to only server, software, network and storage devices. Still cloud infrastructure
is categorized into three parts in general i.e.
1. Computing
2. Networking
 3. Storage
The most important point is that cloud infrastructure should have some basic
infrastructural constraints like transparency, scalability, security and intelligent
monitoring etc.
The below figure represents components of cloud infrastructure

Components of Cloud Infrastructure

1. Hypervisor :
Hypervisor is a firmware or a low level program which is a key to enable
virtualization. It is used to divide and allocate cloud resources between several
customers. As it monitors and manages cloud services/resources that’s why hypervisor
is called as VMM (Virtual Machine Monitor) or (Virtual Machine Manager).
2. Management Software :
Management software helps in maintaining and configuring the infrastructure. Cloud
management software monitors and optimizes resources, data, applications and
services.
3. Deployment Software :
Deployment software helps in deploying and integrating the application on the cloud.
So, typically it helps in building a virtual computing environment.
4. Network :
It is one of the key component of cloud infrastructure which is responsible for
connecting cloud services over the internet. For the transmission of data and resources
externally and internally network is must required.
5. Server :
Server which represents the computing portion of the cloud infrastructure is
responsible for managing and delivering cloud services for various services and
partners, maintaining security etc.
6. Storage :
Storage represents the storage facility which is provided to different organizations for
storing and managing data. It provides a facility of extracting another resource if one
of the resource fails as it keeps many copies of storage.
Along with this, virtualization is also considered as one of important component of
cloud infrastructure. Because it abstracts the available data storage and computing
power away from the actual hardware and the users interact with their cloud
infrastructure through GUI (Graphical User Interface).

Layers of Cloud Architecture

Layer 1 (User/ Client Layer)

1. It is the topmost layer of cloud architecture.

2. The actors of this layer are the end users or the clients.

3. The clients are the devices that can either be a thick client, a thin client, or a mobile device
capable of accessing the web application.

4. Here a thick client is a computer that is capable of working independently. Whereas, the thin
client is the one with the low processing capability. It depends on another device for complete
functionality.
 5. At layer 1, the user or client initiate to connect themselves to the cloud. Accessing cloud
applications is similar to accessing web applications.

6. It has Access to both types of applications requires the internet or other computer
networks. Although the internal properties of the cloud application are different from web
applications. Hence, we require layer 1 to set up the connection between the user/client and
the cloud.

Layer 2 (Network Layer)

1. Layer 2 or the network layer is responsible for connecting users to the cloud. The
absence of a network layer wouldn’t work for the cloud. Because the entire infrastructure
of the cloud depends on the connection where it offers the services to the users.

2. For accessing the public cloud we make connections using the internet. For accessing the
private cloud, the connectivity is established using the local area network, i.e. (LAN).
Each kind of connection requires a minimum bandwidth specified by the cloud providers.

3. However, the network layer is beyond the cloud SLA i.e. service level agreement. SLA
promises a minimum level of services to cloud customers. SLA does not consider the
connection between the cloud and the user for quality of service (QoS).

Layer 3 (Cloud Management Layer)

The layer is responsible for managing the cloud services. It includes the software that manages the
working of the cloud. The software used at this layer can be:

• Cloud OS (Operating System)

• responsible for creating an interface between the cloud and its users.

• for managing the resources.

The software at the cloud management layer is responsible for:

➢ Managing resources (scheduling the cloud services, provisioning resources, etc.)

➢ Optimization (Server consolidation i.e. reducing the total number of servers of the company
by making efficient use of server resources, workload consolidation i.e. integrating
multiple computational operations onto fewer platforms, storage consolidation i.e.
centralizing the data storage and minimizing the time required to access data)

➢ Internal cloud governance, the network layer comes under close surveillance of SLA.
Thus, the operations that take place at this layer will affect the agreement that SLA decide
between the cloud users and the providers.

Layer 4 (Hardware Resource Layer)

1. It defines the provision of hardware resources. Layer 4 of a public cloud is the huge data
centre. Whereas layer 4 of the private cloud is constructed with a huge collection of
hardware resources.

2. These resources are interconnected to each other and are present at a specific location or
it may be a high configuration system.

3. The hardware resource layer comes under the purview of service layer agreements (SLAs).
We can even say that the layer governs SLAs.
 4. As we have discussed previously that the user must be able to access the cloud services as
quick as possible.

5. If there occurs any discrepancy in the provisioning of the hardware resources then the
provider might have to pay the penalty.

Cloud Management in Cloud Computing

Cloud computing management is maintaining and controlling the cloud services and
resources be it public, private or hybrid. Some of its aspects include load balancing,
performance, storage, backups, capacity, deployment etc. To do so a cloud managing
personnel needs full access to all the functionality of resources in the cloud. Different
software products and technologies are combined to provide a cohesive cloud
management strategy and process.
As we know Private cloud infrastructure is operated only for a single organization, so
that can be managed by the organization or by a third party. Public cloud services are
delivered over a network that is open and available for public use. In this model, the
IT infrastructure is owned by a private company and members of the public can
purchase or lease data storage or computing capacity as needed. Hybrid cloud
environments are a combination of public and private cloud services from different
providers. Most organizations store data on private cloud servers for privacy concerns,
while leveraging public cloud applications at a lower price point for less sensitive
information. The combination of both the public and private cloud are known as
Hybrid cloud servers.
Need of Cloud Management :
Cloud is nowadays preferred by huge organizations as their primary data storage. A
small downtime or an error can cause a great deal of loss and inconvenience for the
organizations. So as to design, handle and maintain a cloud computing service specific
members are responsible who make sure things work out as supposed and all arising
issues are addressed.
Cloud Management Platform :
A cloud management platform is a software solution that has a robust and extensive
set of APIs that allow it to pull data from every corner of the IT infrastructure. A CMP
allows an IT organization to establish a structured approach to security and IT
governance that can be implemented across the organization’s entire cloud
environment.
Cloud Management Tasks :
The below figure represents different cloud management tasks :
 Cloud Management Tasks

• Auditing System Backups –

It is required to audit the backups from time to time to ensure restoration of
randomly selected files of different users. This might be done by the
organization or by the cloud provider.
• Flow of data in the system –
The managers are responsible for designing a data flow diagram that shows
how the data is supposed to flow throughout the organization.
• Vendor Lock-In –
The managers should know how to move their data from a server to another
in case the organization decides to switch providers.
• Knowing provider’s security procedures –
The managers should know the security plans of the provider, especially
Multitenant use, E-commerce processing, Employee screening and
Encryption policy.
• Monitoring the Capacity, Planning and Scaling abilities –
The manager should know if their current cloud provider is going to meet
their organization’s demand in the future and also their scaling capabilities.
• Monitoring audit log –
In order to identify errors in the system, logs are audited by the managers
on a regular basis.
 • Solution Testing and Validation –
It is necessary to test the cloud services and verify the results and for error-
free solutions.
Need of Inter-Cloud

Due to their Physical Resource limits, Clouds have certain Drawbacks:

• When a cloud’s computational and storage capacity is completely
depleted, it is unable to serve its customers.
• The Inter-Cloud addresses these circumstances when one cloud would
access the computing, storage, or any other resource of the infrastructures
of other clouds.
Benefits of the Inter-Cloud Environment include:
• Avoiding vendor lock-in to the cloud client
• Having access to a variety of geographical locations, as well as enhanced
application resiliency.
• Better service level agreements (SLAs) to the cloud client
• Expand-on-demand is an advantage for the cloud provider.

Inter-Cloud Resource Management

A cloud’s infrastructure’s processing and storage capacity could be exhausted.
combining numerous various separate clouds into a single fluid mass for on-demand
operations. Simply put, the intercloud would ensure that a cloud could utilize
resources outside of its range combining numerous various separate clouds into a
single fluid mass for on-demand operations. Such requests for service allocations
received by its clients would still be met by it.
Types of Inter-Cloud Resource Management
1. Federation Clouds: A federation cloud is a kind of inter-cloud where
several cloud service providers willingly link their cloud infrastructures
together to exchange resources. Cloud service providers in the federation
trade resources in an open manner. With the aid of this inter-cloud
technology, private cloud portfolios, as well as government clouds (those
utilized and owned by non-profits or the government), can cooperate.
2. Multi-Cloud: A client or service makes use of numerous independent
clouds in a multi-cloud. A multi-cloud ecosystem lacks voluntarily shared
infrastructure across cloud service providers. It is the client’s or their
agents’ obligation to manage resource supply and scheduling. This
strategy is utilized to use assets from both public and private cloud
portfolios. These multi-cloud kinds include services and libraries.
Topologies used In InterCloud Architecture
1. Peer-to-Peer Inter-Cloud Federation: Clouds work together directly, but they
may also utilize distributed entities as directories or brokers. Clouds communicate and
engage in direct negotiation without the use of intermediaries. The peer-to-peer
federation intercloud projects are RESERVOIR (Resources and Services
Virtualization without Barriers Project).

2. Centralized Inter-Cloud Federation: In the cloud, resource sharing is carried out

or facilitated by a central body. The central entity serves as a registry for the available
cloud resources. The inter-cloud initiatives Dynamic Cloud Collaboration (DCC), and
Federated Cloud Management leverage centralized inter-cloud federation.

3. Multi-Cloud Service: Clients use a service to access various clouds. The cloud
client hosts a service either inside or externally. The services include elements for
brokers. The inter-cloud initiatives OPTIMUS, contrail, MOSAIC, STRATOS, and
commercial cloud management solutions leverage multi-cloud services.
4. Multi-Cloud Libraries: Clients use a uniform cloud API as a library to create their
own brokers. Inter clouds that employ libraries make it easier to use clouds
consistently. Java library J-clouds, Python library Apache Lib-Clouds, and Ruby
library Apache Delta-Cloud are a few examples of multiple multi-cloud libraries.

Difficulties with Inter-Cloud Research

The needs of cloud users frequently call for various resources, and the needs are often
variable and unpredictable. This element creates challenging issues with resource
provisioning and application service delivery. The difficulties in federating cloud
infrastructures include the following:
• Prediction of Application Service Behaviour: It is essential that the
system be able to predict customer wants and service Behaviour. It cannot
make rational decisions to dynamically scale up and down until it has the
ability to predict. It is necessary to construct prediction and forecasting
 models. Building models that accurately learn and fit statistical functions
suited to various behaviors is a difficult task. Correlating a service’s
various behaviors can be more difficult.
• Flexible Service-Resource Mapping: Due to high operational expenses
and energy demands, it is crucial to enhance efficiency, cost-effectiveness,
and usage. A difficult process of matching services to cloud resources
results from the system’s need to calculate the appropriate software and
hardware combinations. The QoS targets must be met simultaneously with
the highest possible system utilization and efficiency throughout the
mapping of services.
• Techniques for Optimization Driven by Economic Models: An
approach to decision-making that is driven by the market and looks for the
best possible combinations of services and deployment strategies is known
as combinatorial optimization. It is necessary to create optimization
models that address both resource- and user-centered QoS objectives.
• Integration and Interoperability: SMEs may not be able to migrate to
the cloud since they have a substantial number of on-site IT assets, such as
business applications. Due to security and privacy concerns, sensitive data
in an organization may not be moved to the cloud. In order for on-site
assets and cloud services to work together, integration and interoperability
are required. It is necessary to find solutions for the problems of identity
management, data management, and business process orchestration.
• Monitoring System Components at Scale: In spite of the distributed
nature of the system’s components, centralized procedures are used for
system management and monitoring. The management of multiple service
queues and a high volume of service requests raises issues with scalability,
performance, and reliability, making centralized approaches ineffective.
Instead, decentralized messaging and indexing models-based architectures
are required, which can be used for service monitoring and management
services.

Resource Provisioning (Providing) and Platform Deployment

There are techniques to provision computer resources or VMs. Parallelism is exploited at the
cluster node level.
1. Provisioning of Compute Resources (VMs)
Providers supply cloud services by signing SLAs with end users.

The SLAs must specify resources such as

CPU

Memory
 Bandwidth

Users can use these for a preset (fixed) period.

Under provisioning of resources will lead to broken SLAs and penalties.
Over provisioning of resources will lead to resource underutilization, and consequently, a
decrease in revenue for the provider.

Provisioning of resources to users is a challenging problem. The difficulty comes from the
following
o Unpredictability of consumer demand

o Software and hardware failures

o Heterogeneity of services

o Power management

o Conflict in signed SLAs between consumers and service providers.

Resource provisioning is the process of choosing, deploying, and managing software (like load
balancers and database server management systems) and hardware resources (including CPU,
storage, and networks) to assure application performance.
Types of cloud provisioning
The three models are
1. Advanced Provisioning,
2. Dynamic Provisioning And
3. User Self-provisioning.

Importance of Cloud Provisioning:

1. Scalability: Being able to actively scale up and down with flux in demand for resources
is one of the major points of cloud computing
 2. Speed: Users can quickly spin up multiple machines as per their usage without the need
for an IT Administrator
3. Savings: Pay as you go model allows for enormous cost savings for users, it is facilitated
by provisioning or removing resources according to the demand
Challenges of Cloud Provisioning:
1. Complex management: Cloud providers have to use various different tools and
techniques to actively monitor the usage of resources
2. Policy enforcement: Organisations have to ensure that users are not able to access the
resources they shouldn’t.
3. Cost: Due to automated provisioning costs may go very high if attention isn’t paid to
placing proper checks in place. Alerts about reaching the cost threshold are required.
Tools for Cloud Provisioning:
1. Google Cloud Deployment Manager
2. IBM Cloud Orchestrator
3. AWS CloudFormation
4. Microsoft Azure Resource Manager

Global Exchange of Cloud Resources

Cloud infrastructure providers (i.e., IaaS providers) have established data centers in multiple
geographical locations to provide redundancy and ensure reliability in case of site failures.

Amazon does not provide seamless/automatic mechanisms for scaling its hosted services
across multiple geographically distributed data centers.

This approach has many shortcomings

First, it is difficult for cloud customers to determine in advance the best location for hosting
their services as they may not know the origin of consumers of their services.

Second, SaaS providers may not be able to meet the QoS expectations of their service
consumers originating from multiple geographical locations.

Fig: Inter-cloud exchange of cloud resources through brokering

 It is not possible for a cloud infrastructure provider to establish its data centers at all possible
locations throughout the world.

This results in difficulty in meeting the QOS expectations of their customers

Hence, services of multiple cloud infrastructure service providers are used.

Cloud coordinator evaluates the available resources.

The availability of a banking system ensures that financial transactions related to SLAs are
carried out in a securely.

By realizing InterCloud architectural principles in mechanisms in their offering, cloud

providers will be able to dynamically expand or resize their provisioning capability based on
sudden spikes in workload demands by leasing available computational and storage capabilities
from other cloud.

They consist of client brokering and coordinator services that support utility-driven federation
of clouds:
o application scheduling
o resource allocation
o migration of workloads.
The architecture cohesively couples the administratively and topologically distributed storage
and compute capabilities of clouds as part of a single resource leasing abstraction.

The system will ease the crossdomain capability integration for on-demand, flexible, energy-
efficient, and reliable access to the infrastructure based on virtualization technology

The Cloud Exchange (CEx) acts as a market maker for bringing together service producers and
consumers.

It aggregates the infrastructure demands from application brokers and evaluates them against
the available supply currently published by the cloud coordinators.

It supports trading of cloud services based on competitive economic models such as

commodity markets and auctions.

CEx allows participants to locate providers and consumers with fitting offers.

Technologies and processes required when deploying web services

WEB

1. The web is vast inter connected global information system. Information on the web is hosted
on web sites which contain text, pictures and multimedia which can be viewed using Web
browsers like internet explorer, firefox and lynx.

2. A web site can be accessed by using browser. We need to type in the URL of the web site for
the browser to retrieve information on the web site. A typical URL is as follows.
 http://www.google.com

The first part of the URL is called the URI, which indicates the application protocol used to
access the resource.

A web site is hosted on a web server. The web server facilitates accessing of a web site using
browser.

A web service is also hosted on a web server. So, a web service uses the web(inter connected
global information system) to be accessed and used.

XML

1. XML is a mark up language. With a mark up language, we can structure a document using tags.
Using XML, we can customize the tags also.

2. Each bit of information in a document is defined by tags without overload of formatting present in
HTML.

3. This type of representation is suitable for application-to-application communication.

SOA

1. SOA stands for service-oriented architecture,which describes a set of well- established

patterns. Each pattern represents a mechanism to describe a service, to advertise and discover
a service, and to communicate with a service.

2. Web services rely on these patterns and client applications connect to a service using these
patterns.

3. In the SOA concept, three basic roles are defined. They are :

Service provider - who develops or supplies the service.

Service consumer - who uses the service.

The service broker facilitates the advertising and discovery process.

 Communication (SOAP)

1. Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) is an XML protocol. It is used by client applications
to communicate with Web services.

2. SOAP is a simple, consistent, and extensible mechanism allowing a client application to send
an XML message to any other application.

3. SOAP implements an envelope for sending an XML message. We put an XML message into
an envelope and send it across the networks.

4. In other words SOAP envelope is a container for the XML message.A SOAP envelope is
transported by various communication protocols. But, the most common way to transfer
SOAP messages is to use HTTP. Other Web protocols commonly used are SMTP and FTP.

Benefits of cloud architecture

There are many benefits of cloud architecture for organizations, including:

Cost-effective Faster time to market

Instead of investing upfront costs for servers, you You no longer need to wait to procure,
can opt to use the infrastructure of a cloud service set up, and configure computing
provider. Dynamic provisioning allows you to infrastructure. Cloud architectures
further optimize spending by paying only for the enable you to get up and running fast,
computing resources you use. so you spend more time focusing on
developing and delivering new
products.
Accelerated transformation High availability

Cloud-native architectures like Kubernetes let you Applications run and managed on
make the most of cloud services and automated cloud architectures benefit from high-
environments to speed up modernization and drive performance computing resources that
digital transformation. ensure continuous availability,
regardless of fluctuating loads.

Strong security Scalability

Cloud architectures give you more
Cloud service providers consistently upgrade and flexibility to scale computing
improve their security mechanisms with expert resources up (or down) based on your
infrastructure requirements. You can
professionals and the latest technologies to help
easily scale to meet higher demand,
secure your data, systems, and workloads. whether from growth or seasonal
spikes in traffic.

Limitations of Cloud Architecture

Cloud-Native is complex. Reworking and moving an existing application to the cloud is not an
easy job. They have to be re-architected for the cloud, and organizations also require the
underlying infrastructure that is required to support this migration.

Another cost is giving up portability. Applications that have been localized for one cloud
platform cannot be easily ported to another cloud platform. This involves a large amount of
rewriting the software and refactoring the code. Therefore, for all practical purposes, you are
locked into one cloud platform.