Cloud Computing: Introduction and Enabling

Technologies
other computing techniques. Users can use the IT
infrastructure with Pay-per-Use-On-Demand
Abstract mode; this would benefit and save the cost to buy
Cloud computing is a relatively recent technology, the physical resources that may be vacant[16].
builds on decades of research in distributed computing, Cloud computing is independent computing it is
virtualization, utility computing, networking, web and
totally different from grid and utility computing.
software services. Cloud Computing implies a service
oriented architecture, it reduce information technology Google Apps is an example of Cloud Computing,
overhead for the end-user and provide great flexibility. it enables to access services of Cloud Computing
There are more offerings, more in-house development via the browser and deployed on millions of
in Cloud Computing and more experience in how best machines over the Internet[8]. Resources are
to use the technology. In this paper the enabling accessible from the cloud at any time and from
technologies in Cloud Computing and advantages are any location across the world using the internet.
described.
Keywords: Workflows, Virtualization, Cloud Cloud Computing concepts promise a cost-
Computing, Service Oriented Architecture. effective realization of the utility computing
principle. Cloud Computing allow users and
providers to easy access the resources in a self-
1. Introduction service, pay-per-use fashion, thus results in
decreasing cost for system administration and
Cloud computing is simply defined as Internet
improving resource utilization and accounting.
computing, generally the internet is seen as
Over the last few years, the Cloud Computing has
collection of clouds or nodes; thus the word cloud
generated a major impact on the global IT
computing can be defined as utilizing the internet
ecosystem, giving rise to new markets and new
or existing network to provide technology enabled
customer communities[3]. The concept of Cloud
services to the customers and organizations.
Computing is not a novel in itself – in fact, the
Cloud Computing allows consumers to access the
principles arose from a direct industrial need to
resources online through the internet, from any
improve resource utilization without affecting on
location at any time without worrying about
consumer requirements, i.e. using the available
technical or physical management and
resources more efficiently[1]. Initial data center
maintenance issues of the original resources[7].
server farms employed load balancing
Resources of Cloud Computing are dynamic and
mechanisms not unlike the base Cloud principles,
scalable.
to ensure great availability of resources according
to current usage. Cloud Computing involves the
Cloud Computing is a Pay-per-Use and On-
researchers and engineers from various fields
Demand mode that can conveniently access the
backgrounds, e.g., Software engineering, Grid
shared IT resources through the Internet[4].
computing, and database. They work on Cloud
Where the IT resources include network, server,
computing from different viewpoints[14].
storage, application, service and so on and they
Enabling Technologies of Cloud computing are
can be deployed with much quick and easy
still evolving and progressing, for example, Web
manner and least management and also
interactions with service providers. Cloud
computing can much improve the availability of
IT resources and owns many advantages over

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2.0 and Service Oriented Computing,
Virtualization etc. 2.3 Workflows
A Workflow is a simple flow graph. An integrated
2. Enabling Technologies view of service-based activities is provided by the
concept of a workflow[8]. An Information
Cloud computing is enabled by number of technology assisted workflow represents a series
technologies, several state-of-the-art techniques of structured activities and computations that arise
are identified here: in information-assisted problem solving[10].
Workflows have been drawing enormous
2.1 Programming Model attention in the database and information systems
research and development communities [9].
Users drive into the Cloud Computing with data Similarly, the scientific community has developed
and applications. Cloud Computing programming a number of problem solving environments, most
models should be designed for users to use the of them as integrated solutions. Scientific
Cloud infrastructure. For the simple and easy workflows merge advances in these two areas to
access of Cloud services or Cloud Computing automate support for sophisticated scientific
resources, the Cloud Computing programming problem solving [17]. A workflow can be
model should not be too complex for users[17]. represented by a directed graph of data flows that
The MapReduce 4, 5) is a programming model connect loosely and tightly coupled processing
and an associated implementation for processing modules. In the context of “cloud computing”, the
and generating large data sets across the Google key questions should be whether the underlying
worldwide infrastructures. The MapReduce model infrastructure is supportive of the workflow
firstly involves applying a “map” operation to oriented view of the world. This includes on
some data records – a set of key/value pairs, and demand and advance reservation based access to
then processes a “reduce” operation to all the users and aggregated computational and other
values that shared the same key[8]. resources, autonomics, ability to group resources
from different “clouds” to deliver workflow
2.2 Virtualization results, best level of security and privacy, etc[8].

Virtualization is another very important and 2.4 Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
useful concept. It allows abstraction and isolation
of lower level functionalities and underlying The services organization and services inside
hardware infrastructure. Virtualization enables Clouds aree managed in a Service Oriented
portability of higher level functions and sharing Architecture (SOA). Services of Computing
and/or aggregation of the physical resources used Cloud are normally exposed as Web services,
in Cloud Computing[3]. The virtualization which follow the industry standards such as
concept has been around since 1960s. Since then, WSDL 33), SOAP 28) and UDDI 25)[17]. A set
the concept has matured considerably and it has of Cloud Computing services furthermore could
been applied to all aspects of computing – be used in a SOA application environment, thus
memory virtualization, storage, processors making them available on various distributed
virtualization, software, networks, as well as platforms and could be further accessed across the
services that IT offers. It is the combination of the Internet by end users[6].
growing needs and the recent advances in the IT
architectures. Virtualization, through its economy 2.5 Distributed Storage System
of scale, and its ability to offer very advanced
services and complex IT services at a reasonable A distributed data storage system provides data
cost, is poised to become, along with wireless and sources access in a semantic way. Users could
highly distributed and pervasive computing locate data sources in a large distributed
devices, such as sensors and personal cell-based environment by the logical name or key instead of
access devices, the driving technology behind the physical locations. Virtual Data System (VDS)
next waive in IT growth [17]. 32) is good reference[8]. A network storage
system, which is handled by distributed storage
providers (e.g., data centers), offers storage
capacity for end users to lease[7]. The data
storage could be , merged, migrated, and managed

2
transparently to end users for any data formats.
Examples are Google File System 9) and Amazon allows for computing loads to be balanced on the
S3 14). A Mashup 11) is a Web application fly as more users join the system (the process of
system that combines data from more than one setting up the infrastructure has become so
source into a single integrated storage system. standardized that adding computing capacity has
The SmugMug 29) is an example of Mashup, become almost as simple as adding building
which is a digital photo sharing Web site, blocks to an existing grid). The beauty of the
allowing the upload of an unlimited number of arrangement is that as the number of users goes
photos for all account types and for any format, up, the demand load on the system gets more
providing a published API which allows balanced in a stochastic sense, even as its
programmers to create new functionality, and economies of scale expand [2].
supporting XML-based RSS.
(iii) Cloud computing makes it easier for
enterprises to scale their services – which are
3. Advantages of Cloud Computing increasingly reliant on accurate information –
according to client demand. Since the computing
Advantages of cloud computing Specifically, resources are managed through software, they can
cloud computing offers the following key be deployed very fast as new requirements arise.
advantages: In fact, the goal of cloud computing is to scale
resources up or down dynamically through
(i) It dramatically lowers the cost of entry for software APIs depending on client load with
smaller firms trying to benefit from compute- minimal service provider interaction. [2]
intensive business analytics that were hither to
available only to the largest of corporations[12]. (iv) Cloud computing also makes possible new
These computational exercises typically involve classes of applications and delivers services that
large amounts of computing power for relatively were not possible before. Examples include (a)
short amounts of time, and cloud computing mobile interactive applications that are location-,
makes such dynamic provisioning of resources environment- and context-aware and that respond
possible[2]. Cloud computing also represents a in real time to information provided by human
huge opportunity to many third-world countries users, nonhuman sensors (e.g. humidity and stress
that have been so far left behind in the IT sensors within a shipping container) or even from
revolution — as we discuss later, some cloud independent information services (e.g. worldwide
computing providers are using the advantages of a weather data); (b) parallel batch processing, that
cloud platform to enable IT services in countries allows users to take advantage of huge amounts of
that would have traditionally lacked the resources processing power to analyze terabytes of data for
for widespread deployment of IT services [7]. relatively small periods of time, while
programming abstractions like Google's
(ii) It can provide an almost immediate access to MapReduce or its open source counterpart
hardware resources, with no upfront capital Hadoop makes the complex process of parallel
investments for users, leading to a faster time to execution of an application over hundreds of
market in many businesses. Treating IT as an servers transparent to programmers[2]; (c)
operational expense (in industry-speak, business analytics that can use the vast amount of
employing an ‘Op-ex’ as opposed to a ‘Cap-ex’ computer resources to understand customers,
model) also helps in dramatically reducing the buying habits, supply chains and so on from
upfront costs in corporate computing[11]. For voluminous amounts of data; and (d) extensions
example, many of the promising new Internet of compute-intensive desktop applications that
startups like 37 Signals, Jungle Disk Gigavox, can offload the data crunching to the cloud
SmugMug and others were realized with leaving only the rendering of the processed data at
investments in information technology that are the front-end, with the availability of network
orders of magnitude lesser than that required just bandwidth reducing the latency involved. [14]
a few years ago. The cloud becomes an adaptive
infrastructure that can be shared by different end
users, each of whom might use it in very different
ways[9]. The users are completely separated from
each other, and the flexibility of the infrastructure

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4. Disadvantages of Cloud Computing
Establishing a track record of reliability will be a
Although there are many benefits to adopting prerequisite for widespread adoption [2].
cloud computing, there are also some significant
barriers to adoption [2]. 4.4 Interoperability
The interoperability and portability of information
4.1 Security and Privacy
between private clouds and public clouds are
Because cloud computing represents a new critical enablers for broad adoption of cloud
computing model, there is a great deal of computing by the enterprise. Many companies
uncertainty about how security at all levels (e.g., have made considerable progress toward
network, host, application, and data levels) can be standardizing their processes, data, and systems
achieved. That uncertainty has consistently led through implementation of ERPs. This process
information executives to state that security is has been enabled by scalable infrastructures to
their number one concern with cloud computing. create single instances, or highly integrated
The ability of cloud computing to adequately connections between instances, to manage the
address privacy regulations has been called into consistency of master and transaction data and
question. [15] Organizations today face numerous produce reliable consolidated information. Even
different requirements attempting to protect the with these improved platforms, the speed at which
privacy of individuals’ information, and it is not businesses change may still outpace the ability of
clear (i.e., not yet established) whether the cloud IT organizations to respond to these changes.
computing model provides adequate protection of SaaS applications delivered through the cloud
such information, or whether organizations will provide a low-capital, fast-deployment option.
be found in violation of regulations because of Depending on the application, it is critical to
this new model. integrate with traditional applications that may be
resident in a separate cloud or on traditional
4.2 Connectivity and Open Access technology. The standard for interoperability is
either an enabler or a barrier to interoperability,
The full potential of cloud computing depends on and permits maintenance of the integrity and
the availability of high-speed access to all. Such consistency of a company’s information and
connectivity, rather like electricity availability, processes [2,13].
globally opens the possibility for industry and a
new range of consumer products. Connectivity 4.5 Economic Value
and open access to computing power and
information availability through the cloud The growth of cloud computing is predicated on
promotes another era of industrialization and the the return on investment that accrues. It seems
need for more sophisticated consumer products intuitive that by sharing resources to smooth out
[15,13]. peaks, paying only for what is used, and cutting
upfront capital investment in deploying IT
4.3 Reliability solutions, the economic value will be there[16].
There will be a need to carefully balance all costs
Enterprise applications are now so critical that and benefits associated with cloud computing—in
they must be reliable and available to support both the short and long terms. Hidden costs could
24/7 operations. In the event of failure or outages, include support, disaster recovery, application
contingency plans must take effect smoothly, and modification, and data loss insurance. There will
for disastrous or catastrophic failure, recovery be threshold values whereby consolidating
plans must begin with minimum disruption. (See investments or combining cloud services makes
the Cloud Computing Incidents Database at sense; for example, it might not be efficient or
http://wiki.cloudcommunity.org/wiki/CloudComp cost effective to utilize multiple autonomous SaaS
uting:Incidents_Database.) Each aspect of applications. Each may contract for disaster
reliability should be carefully considered when recovery program services. There is a point where
engaging with a CSP, negotiated as part of the economies of scale mean these functions should
SLA, and tested in failover drills. Additional costs be combined in a similar service. Application
may be associated with the required levels of usage may begin with a low volume of
reliability; however, the business can do only so transactions that can be supported with semi-
much to mitigate risks and the cost of a failure. automated master data management [3]. As usage
expands and interoperability requirements for the

4
business process become more onerous, a new
approach is needed. This evolution may be the Act, Canada has recently asked that its
most cost-effective approach; however, there is a government not use computers in the global
risk that the business transition costs from one network that are operating within U.S. borders,
solution to another may change the cost and fearing for the confidentiality and privacy of the
benefit equation, and hence the solution that Canadian data stored on those computers[2].
should be employed. Providers have been unable to guarantee the
location of a company's information on specified
4.6 Changes in the IT Organization set of servers in a specified location. Cloud
computing depends largely on global politics to
The IT organization will be affected by cloud survive. Imagine if the telecommunications
computing, as has been the case with other companies in the United States get their way and
technology shifts. There are two dimensions to do away with the current Internet standard of
shifts in technology. The first is acquiring the new network neutrality completely. Having data
skill sets to deploy the technology in the context throttled and information filtered goes against the
of solving a business problem, and the second is basic concept of cloud computing and global
how the technology changes the IT role. During knowledge. You can’t have a working cloud of
the COBOL era, users rarely programmed, the information and services to draw from and build
expectations of the user interface varied, and the on if someone or something is constantly
adaptability of the solution was low. Training was manipulating the data held within it, or worse, if
delivered in separate manuals and the user used something is blocking it from your view to
the computer to solve problems only down achieve a hidden agenda. Politics are affecting the
predefined paths [5]. With the advent of fourth- scalability of the Internet, the availability of
generation languages, roles within IT, such as Internet access, the free flow of information, and
system analyst and programmer, became merged the cloud-based global economy on a daily basis
into analyst/programmer, users started to write [13].
their own reports, and new applications, including
operational data stores, data entry, and query
programs, could be rapidly deployed in 5. Conclusion
weeks[17]. IT’s role will change once again: the
speed of change will impact the adoption of cloud Cloud Computing builds from decades of research
technologies and the ability to decompose mature in distributed computing, utility computing,
solutions from hype to deliver real value from virtualization, and, more recently, networking,
cloud technology; and the need to maintain the web and software services. It implies a service-
controls to manage IT risk in the business will oriented architecture, reduced information
increase. technology overhead for the end-user, great
flexibility, reduced total cost of ownership, on
4.7 Political Issues Due to Global demand services and many other things. This
Boundaries paper discusses the concept of Cloud Computing,
and various enabling techniques of Cloud
In the cloud computing world, there is variability Computing. The perspective study aims to
in terms of where the physical data resides, where contribute the evolution of the paradigm of Cloud
processing takes place, and from where the data is Computing.
accessed. Given this variability, different privacy
rules and regulations may apply[13]. Because of
these varying rules and regulations, by definition References
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