Chapter 3

Applications on the Cloud

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 Cloud Applications
• The power of a computer is realized through the applications. There are several types of applications.
• The first type of applications that was devel­oped and used was a stand-alone application. A stand-
alone application is developed to be run on a single system that does not use network for its func­
tioning.
• These stand-alone systems use only the machine in which they are installed. The functioning of these
kinds of systems is totally dependent on the resources or features available within the system. These
systems do not need the data or processing power of other systems; they are self-sustaining.
• But as the time passed, the requirements of the users changed and certain applications were
required, which could be accessed by other users away from the systems. This led to the inception of
web application.
• The web applications were different from the stand-alone applications in many aspects. The main
difference was the client server architecture that was followed by the web application. Unlike stand-
alone applica­tions, these systems were totally dependent on the network for its work­ing.
• Here, there are basically two components, called as the client and the server. The server is a high-end
machine that consists of the web appli­cation installed. This web application is accessed from other
client sys­tems.
• The client can reside anywhere in the network. It can access the web application through the
Internet. This type of application was very useful, and this is extensively used from its inception and
now has become an important part of day-to-day life. 2
Cloud Applications
• Though this application is much used, there are shortcomings as discussed in the
following:
• The web application is not elastic and cannot handle very heavy loads, that is, it
cannot serve highly varying loads.
• The web application is not multitenant.
• The web application does not provide a quantitative measurement of the services
that are given to the users, though they can monitor the user.
• The web applications are usually in one particular platform.
• The web applications are not provided on a pay-as-you-go basis; thus, a particular
service is given to the user for permanent or trial use and usually the timings of user
access cannot be monitored.
• Due to its nonelastic nature, peak load transactions cannot be handled.
• Primarily to solve the previously mentioned problem, the cloud applications were
developed.
• Figure 3.3 depicts the improvements in the applications.
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Cloud Applications

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 Cloud Applications
• A cloud application is different from other applications; they have unique features. A
cloud application usually can be accessed as a web application but its properties differ.
• According to NIST [3], the features that make cloud applications unique are described
in the following (Figure 3.4 depicts the features of a cloud application):
• 1. Multitenancy: Multitenancy is one of the important properties of cloud that make it
different from other types of application in which the software can be shared by
different users with full independence. Here, independence refers to logical
independence.
• Each user will have a separate application instance and the changes in one application
would not affect the other. Physically, the soft­ware is shared and is not independent.
The degree of physical isola­tion is very less. The logical independence is what is
guaranteed. There are no restrictions in the number of applications being shared.
• The difficulty in providing logical isolation depends on the physical isolation to a certain
extent. If an application is physically too close, then it becomes difficult to provide
multitenancy. Web application and cloud application are similar as the users use the
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same way to access both.
 Cloud Applications
• 2. Elasticity: Elasticity is also a unique property that enables the cloud to serve better. According to Herbst et
al. [4], elasticity can be defined as the degree to which a system is able to adapt to workload changes by
provisioning and deprovisioning resources in an autonomic man­ner such that at each point in time, the
available resources match the current demand as closely as possible.
• Elasticity allows the cloud providers to efficiently handle the number of users, from one to several hundreds
of users at a time. In addition to this, it supports the rapid fluctuation of loads, that is, the increase or
decrease in the number of users and their usage can rapidly change.
• 3. Heterogeneous cloud platform: The cloud platform supports hetero­geneity, wherein any type of
application can be deployed in the cloud. Because of this property, the cloud is flexible for the develop­ers,
which facilitates deployment. The applications that are usually deployed can be accessed by the users using a
web browser.
• 4. Quantitative measurement: The services provided can be quantitatively measured. The user is usually
offered services based on certain charges. Here, the application or resources are given as a utility on a pay-
per-use basis. Thus, the use can be monitored and measured. Not only the services are measureable, but also
the link usage and several other parameters that support cloud applications can be measured. This property
of measuring the usage is usually not available in a web application and is a unique feature for cloud-based
applications.
• 5. On-demand service: The cloud applications offer service to the user, on demand, that is, whenever the user
requires it. The cloud service would allow the users to access web applications usually without any
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restrictions on time, duration, and type of device used.
Cloud Applications

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Cloud Applications
• Cloud computing has gained huge popularity in industry due to its ability to host applications for which
the services can be delivered to consumers rapidly at minimal cost.
• Scientific applications
• Scientific applications are a sector that is increasingly using cloud computing systems and technologies.
The immediate benefit seen by researchers and academics is the potentially infinite availability of
computing resources and storage at sustainable prices compared to a complete in-house deployment.
• Cloud computing systems meet the needs of different types of applications in the scientific domain: high-
performance computing (HPC) applications, high-throughput computing (HTC) applications, and data-
intensive applications. The opportunity to use cloud resources is even more appealing because minimal
changes need to be made to existing applications in order to leverage cloud resources.
• The most relevant option is IaaS solutions, which offer the optimal environment for running bag-of-tasks
applications and work flows.
• Virtual machine instances are opportunely customized to host the required software stack for running
such applications and coordinated together with distributed computing middleware capable of interacting
with cloud-based infrastructures.
• PaaS solutions have been considered as well. They allow scientists to explore new programming models
for tackling computationally challenging problems. Applications have been redesigned and implemented
on top of cloud programming application models and platforms to leverage their unique capabilities 8
Cloud Applications
• Healthcare: ECG analysis in the cloud Healthcare is a domain in which computer technology has found
several and diverse applications: from supporting the business functions to assisting scientists in
developing solutions to cure diseases.
• An important application is the use of cloud technologies to support doctors in providing more effective
diagnostic processes. In particular, here we discuss electrocardiogram (ECG) data analysis on the cloud
[160].
• The capillary development of Internet connectivity and its accessibility from any device at any time has
made cloud technologies an attractive option for developing health-monitoring systems. ECG data
analysis and monitoring constitute a case that naturally fits into this scenario. ECG is the electrical
manifestation of the contractile activity of the heart’s myocardium.
• This activity produces a specific waveform that is repeated over time and that represents the heartbeat.
The analysis of the shape of the ECG waveform is used to identify arrhythmias and is the most common
way to detect heart disease.
• Cloud computing technologies allow the remote monitoring of a patient’s heartbeat data, data analysis in
minimal time, and the notification of first-aid personnel and doctors should these data reveal potentially
dangerous conditions.
• This way a patient at risk can be constantly monitored without going to a hospital for ECG analysis. At the
same time, doctors and first-aid personnel can instantly be notified of cases that require their attention.
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Cloud Applications
• Biology: protein structure prediction
• Applications in biology often require high computing capabilities and often operate on large data- sets that cause
extensive I/O operations. Because of these requirements, biology application shave often made extensive use of
supercomputing and cluster computing infrastructures. Similar capabilities can be leveraged on demand using cloud
computing technologies in a more dynamic fashion, thus opening new opportunities for bioinformatics applications.
Protein structure prediction is a computationally intensive task that is fundamental to different types of research in the
life sciences.
• The computational power required for protein structure prediction can now be acquired on demand, without owning a
cluster or navigating the bureaucracy to get access to parallel and distributed computing facilities. Cloud computing grants
access to such capacity on a pay-per-use basis.
• Geoscience: satellite image processing
• Geoscience applications collect, produce, and analyze massive amounts of geospatial and nonspatial data. As the
technology progresses and our planet becomes more instrumented (i.e., through the deployment of sensors and satellites
for monitoring), the volume of data that needs to be processed increases significantly. In particular, the geographic
information system (GIS) is a major element of geoscience applications. GIS applications capture, store, manipulate,
analyze, manage, and present all types of geographically referenced data.
• This type of information is now becoming increasingly relevant to a wide variety of application domains: from advanced
farming to civil security and natural resources management. As a result, a considerable amount of geo-referenced data is
ingested into computer systems for further processing and analysis. Cloud computing is an attractive option for executing
these demanding tasks and extracting meaningful information to support decision makers.
• Satellite remote sensing generates hundreds of gigabytes of raw images that need to be further processed to become the
basis of several different GIS products. This process requires both I/O and compute-intensive tasks. Large images need to
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be moved from a ground station’s local storage to compute facilities, where several transformations and corrections are
Cloud Applications
• Business and consumer applications
• The business and consumer sector is the one that probably benefits the most from cloud computing technologies. On one hand,
the opportunity to transform capital costs into operational costs makes clouds an attractive option for all enterprises that are IT-
centric. On the other hand, the sense of ubiquity that the cloud offers for accessing data and services makes it interesting for end
users as well.
• Moreover, the elastic nature of cloud technologies does not require huge up-front investments, thus allowing new ideas to be
quickly translated into products and services that can comfortably grow with the demand. The combination of all these elements
has made cloud computing the preferred technology for a wide range of applications, from CRM and ERP systems to productivity
and social-networking applications.
• CRM and ERP
• Customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications are market segments that are
flourishing in the cloud, with CRM applications the more mature of the two. Cloud CRM applications constitute a great opportunity
for small enterprises and start-ups to have fully functional CRM software without large up-front costs and by paying subscriptions.
• Moreover, CRM is not an activity that requires specific needs, and it can be easily moved to the cloud. Such a characteristic,
together with the possibility of having access to your business and customer data from everywhere and from any device, has
fostered the spread of cloud CRM applications.
• ERP solutions on the cloud are less mature and have to compete with well-established in-house solutions.
• ERP systems integrate several aspects of an enterprise: finance and accounting, human resources, manufacturing, supply chain
management, project management, and CRM. Their goal is to provide a uniform view and access to all operations that need to be
performed to sustain a complex organization.
• Because of the organizations that they target, the transition to cloud-based models is more difficult: the cost advantage over the
long term might not be clear, and the switch to the cloud could be difficult if organizations already have large ERP installations. For
this reason cloud ERP solutions are less popular than CRM solutions at this time.
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 Cloud Applications
• Productivity
• Productivity applications replicate in the cloud some of the most common tasks that we are used to performing on
our desktop: from document storage to office automation and complete desktop environments hosted in the cloud.
• Dropbox and iCloud
• One of the core features of cloud computing is availability anywhere, at any time, and from any Internet-connected
device. Therefore, document storage constitutes a natural application for such technology. Online storage solutions
preceded cloud computing, but they never became popular. With the development of cloud technologies, online
storage solutions have turned into SaaS applications and become more usable as well as more advanced and
accessible.
• Perhaps the most popular solution for online document storage is Dropbox, an online application that allows users to
synchronize any file across any platform and any device in a seamless manner. Dropbox provides users with a free
amount of storage that is accessible through the abstraction of a folder. Users can either access their Dropbox folder
through a browser or by downloading and installing a Dropbox client, which provides access to the online storage by
means of a special folder. All the modifications into this folder are silently synched so that changes are notified to all
the local instances of the Dropbox folder across all the devices.
• The key advantage of Dropbox is its availability on different platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux, and mobile) and the
capability to work seamlessly and transparently across all of them.
• Another interesting application in this area is iCloud, a cloud-based document-sharing application provided by Apple
to synchronize iOS-based devices in a completely transparent manner. Unlike Dropbox, which provides
synchronization through the abstraction of a local folder, iCloud has been designed to be completely transparent once
it has been set up. Documents, photos, and videos are automatically synched as changes are made, without any
explicit operation 12
Cloud Applications
• Google Docs
• Google Docs is a SaaS application that delivers the basic office automation capabilities with support
for collaborative editing over the Web. The application is executed on top of the Google distributed
computing infrastructure, which allows the system to dynamically scale according to the number of
users using the service.
• Google Docs allows users to create and edit text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, forms,
and drawings. It aims to replace desktop products such as Microsoft Office and OpenOffice and
provide similar interface and functionality as a cloud service. It supports collaborative editing over
the Web for most of the applications included in the suite. This eliminates tedious emailing and
synchronization tasks when documents need to be edited by multiple users.
• By being stored in the Google infrastructure, these documents are always available from anywhere
and from any device that is connected to the Internet. Moreover, the suite allows users to work
offline if Internet connectivity is not available. Support for various formats such as those that are
produced by the most popular desktop office solutions allows users to easily import and move
documents in and out of Google Docs, thus eliminating barriers to the use of this application.
• Google Docs is a good example of what cloud computing can deliver to end users: ubiquitous
access to resources, elasticity, absence of installation and maintenance costs, and delivery of core13
functionalities as a service.
 Cloud Applications
• Social networking
• Social networking applications have grown considerably in the last few years to become the most active sites
on the Web. To sustain their traffic and serve millions of users seamlessly, services such as Twitter and
Facebook have leveraged cloud computing technologies. The possibility of continuously adding capacity while
systems are running is the most attractive feature for social networks, which constantly increase their user
base.
• Facebook
• Facebook is probably the most evident and interesting environment in social networking. With more than 800
million users, it has become one of the largest Websites in the world. To sustain this incredible growth, it has
been fundamental that Facebook be capable of continuously adding capacity and developing new scalable
technologies and software systems while maintaining high performance to ensure a smooth user experience.
Currently, the social network is backed by two data centers that have been built and optimized to reduce costs
and impact on the environment. On top of this highly efficient infrastructure, built and designed out of
inexpensive hardware, a completely customized stack of opportunely modified and refined open-source
technologies constitutes the back-end of the largest social network. Taken all together, these technologies
constitute a powerful platform for developing cloud applications.
• This platform primarily supports Facebook itself and offers APIs to integrate third-party applications with
Facebook’s core infrastructure to deliver additional services such as social games and quizzes created by
others. The reference stack serving Facebook is based on LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP). This
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collection of technologies is accompanied by a collection of other services developed in-house.
Cloud Applications
• Media applications
• Media applications are a niche that has taken a considerable advantage from leveraging cloud computing
technologies. In particular, video-processing operations, such as encoding, transcoding, com- position, and rendering,
are good candidates for a cloud-based environment. These are computationally intensive tasks that can be easily
offloaded to cloud computing infrastructures.
• Animoto
• Animoto is perhaps the most popular example of media applications on the cloud. The Website provides users with a
very straightforward interface for quickly creating videos out of images, music, and video fragments submitted by
users. Users select a specific theme for a video, upload the photos and videos and order them in the sequence they
want to appear, select the song for the music, and render the video. The process is executed in the background and
the user is notified via email once the video is rendered. The core value of Animoto is the ability to quickly create
videos with stunning effects without user intervention. A proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) engine, which selects
the animation and transition effects according to pictures and music, drives the rendering operation. Users only have
to define the storyboard by organizing pictures and videos into the desired sequence.
• Multiplayer online gaming
• Online multiplayer gaming attracts millions of gamers around the world who share a common experience by playing
together in a virtual environment that extends beyond the boundaries of a normal LAN. Online games support
hundreds of players in the same session, made possible by the specific architecture used to forward interactions,
which is based on game log processing. Players update the game server hosting the game session, and the server
integrates all the updates into a log that is made available to all the players through a TCP port. The client software
used for the game connects to the log port and, by reading the log, updates the local user interface with the actions15
of other players.