Introduction to Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing is the delivery of computing services such as

servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics,
intelligence, and more, over the Cloud (Internet).
Cloud Computing provides an alternative to the on-premises data
centre. With an on-premises data centre, we have to manage
everything, such as purchasing and installing hardware,
virtualization, installing the operating system, and any other
required applications, setting up the network, configuring the
firewall, and setting up storage for data. After doing all the set-up,
we become responsible for maintaining it through its entire
lifecycle.

But if we choose Cloud Computing, a cloud vendor is responsible

for the hardware purchase and maintenance. They also provide a
wide variety of software and platform as a service. We can take any
required services on rent. The cloud computing services will be
charged based on usage.
The cloud environment provides an easily accessible online
portal that makes handy for the user to manage the compute,
storage, network, and application resources.
Advantages of cloud computing
Cost: It reduces the huge capital costs of buying hardware and
software.
Speed: Resources can be accessed in minutes, typically within a
few clicks.
Scalability: We can increase or decrease the requirement of
resources according to the business requirements.
Productivity: While using cloud computing, we put less
operational effort. We do not need to apply patching, as well as
no need to maintain hardware and software. So, in this way, the
IT team can be more productive and focus on achieving business
goals.
Reliability: Backup and recovery of data are less expensive and
very fast for business continuity.
Security: Many cloud vendors offer a broad set of policies,
technologies, and controls that strengthen our data security.
Types of Cloud Computing
Public Cloud: The cloud resources that are owned and
operated by a third-party cloud service provider are termed as
public clouds. It delivers computing resources such as servers,
software, and storage over the internet
Private Cloud: The cloud computing resources that are
exclusively used inside a single business or organization are
termed as a private cloud. A private cloud may physically be
located on the company’s on-site datacentre or hosted by a
third-party service provider.
Hybrid Cloud: It is the combination of public and private
clouds, which is bounded together by technology that allows
data applications to be shared between them. Hybrid cloud
provides flexibility and more deployment options to the
business.
Types of Cloud Services
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): In IaaS, we can rent IT
infrastructures like servers and virtual machines (VMs), storage,
networks, operating systems from a cloud service vendor. We can
create VM running Windows or Linux and install anything we want
on it. Using IaaS, we don’t need to care about the hardware or
virtualization software, but other than that, we do have to manage
everything else. Using IaaS, we get maximum flexibility, but still, we
need to put more effort into maintenance.
Platform as a Service (PaaS): This service provides an on-demand
environment for developing, testing, delivering, and managing
software applications. The developer is responsible for the
application, and the PaaS vendor provides the ability to deploy and
run it. Using PaaS, the flexibility gets reduce, but the management of
the environment is taken care of by the cloud vendors.
Software as a Service (SaaS): It provides a centrally hosted
and managed software services to the end-users. It delivers
software over the internet, on-demand, and typically on a
subscription basis. E.g., Microsoft One Drive, Dropbox,
WordPress, Office 365, and Amazon Kindle. SaaS is used to
minimize the operational cost to the maximum extent.
What Does Cloud Middleware Mean?
Simply put, middleware is a software platform that sits between an
application/device and another application/device. It makes the
connection between any two clients, servers, databases or even
applications possible; it is not used directly by end users. Cloud
middleware, however, is always accessible to the user in the form
of remote software platform for communication or management of
data.
Typically situated between the operating system and an application,
cloud middleware provides a number of functionalities to the user.
It helps in the creation of business applications; facilitates
concurrency, transactions, threading and messaging; and provides a
service component architecture framework for creating service-
oriented architecture (SOA) applications. Web servers, application
servers and databases are examples of cloud middleware.
Middleware programs generally provide communication
services and serve the purpose of a messenger so that different
applications can send and receive messages. Different
applications situated at different physical locations can be
"tied" together to perform a task through cloud middleware.
NIST Cloud Computing Reference Architecture
NIST cloud computing reference architecture, which identifies
the major actors, their activities and functions in cloud
computing. The diagram depicts a generic high-level architecture
and is intended to facilitate the understanding of the
requirements, uses, characteristics and standards of cloud
computing .
the NIST cloud computing reference architecture defines five
major actors: cloud consumer, cloud provider, cloud carrier,
cloud auditor and cloud broker. Each actor is an entity (a person
or an organization) that participates in a transaction or process
and/or performs tasks in cloud computing. Table 1 briefly lists
the actors defined in the NIST cloud computing reference
architecture
A cloud consumer may request cloud services from a cloud
provider directly or via a cloud broker. A cloud auditor conducts
independent audits and may contact the others to collect necessary
information.
A cloud consumer may request service from a cloud broker
instead of contacting a cloud provider directly. The cloud broker
may create a new service by combining multiple services or by
enhancing an existing service. In this example, the actual cloud
providers are invisible to the cloud consumer and the cloud
consumer interacts directly with the cloud broker.
 Cloud carriers provide the connectivity and transport of cloud
services from cloud providers to cloud consumers. As illustrated in
Figure 4, a cloud provider participates in and arranges for two
unique service level agreements (SLAs), one with a cloud carrier
(e.g. SLA2) and one with a cloud consumer (e.g. SLA1). A cloud
provider arranges service level agreements (SLAs) with a cloud
carrier and may request dedicated and encrypted connections to
ensure the cloud services are consumed at a consistent level
according to the contractual obligations with the cloud consumers.
Scenario 3: For a cloud service, a cloud auditor conducts
independent assessments of the operation and security of the
cloud service implementation. The audit may involve interactions
with both the Cloud Consumer and the Cloud Provider
Cloud Consumer The cloud consumer is the principal stakeholder
for the cloud computing service. A cloud consumer represents a
person or organization that maintains a business relationship with,
and uses the service from a cloud provider. A cloud consumer
browses the service catalog from a cloud provider, requests the
appropriate service, sets up service contracts with the cloud
provider, and uses the service. The cloud consumer may be billed
for the service provisioned, and needs to arrange payments
accordingly. Cloud consumers need SLAs to specify the technical
performance requirements fulfilled by a cloud provider. SLAs can
cover terms regarding the quality of service, security, remedies for
performance failures. A cloud provider may also list in the SLAs a
set of promises explicitly not made to consumers, i.e. limitations,
and obligations that cloud consumers must accept. A cloud
consumer can freely choose a cloud provider with better pricing
and more favorable terms.
SaaS applications in the cloud and made accessible via a network to the
SaaS consumers. The consumers of SaaS can be organizations that
provide their members with access to software applications, end users
who directly use software applications, or software application
administrators who configure applications for end users. SaaS consumers
can be billed based on the number of end users, the time of use, the
network bandwidth consumed, the amount of data stored or duration of
stored data. Cloud consumers of PaaS can employ the tools and
execution resources provided by cloud providers to develop, test, deploy
and manage the applications hosted in a cloud environment.
PaaS consumers can be application developers who design and
implement application software, application testers who run and test
applications in cloud-based environments, application deployers who
publish applications into the cloud, and application administrators who
configure and monitor application performance on a platform. PaaS
consumers can be billed according to, processing, database storage and
network resources consumed by the PaaS application, and the duration of
the platform usage.
Cloud Provider
A cloud provider is a person, an organization; it is the entity
responsible for making a service available to interested parties.
A Cloud Provider acquires and manages the computing
infrastructure required for providing the services, runs the
cloud software that provides the services, and makes
arrangement to deliver the cloud services to the Cloud
Consumers through network access.
For Software as a Service, the cloud provider deploys,
configures, maintains and updates the operation of the software
applications on a cloud infrastructure so that the services are
provisioned at the expected service levels to cloud consumers.
The provider of SaaS assumes most of the responsibilities in
managing and controlling the applications and the
infrastructure, while the cloud consumers have limited
administrative control of the applications.
Consumers of IaaS have access to virtual computers, network-
accessible storage, network infrastructure components, and
other fundamental computing resources on which they can
deploy and run arbitrary software. The consumers of IaaS can
be system developers, system administrators and IT managers
who are interested in creating, installing, managing and
monitoring services for IT infrastructure operations. IaaS
consumers are provisioned with the capabilities to access these
computing resources, and are billed according to the amount or
duration of the resources consumed, such as CPU hours used
by virtual computers, volume and duration of data stored,
network bandwidth consumed, number of IP addresses used
for certain intervals..
For PaaS, the Cloud Provider manages the computing
infrastructure for the platform and runs the cloud software
that provides the components of the platform, such as
runtime software execution stack, databases, and other
middleware components. The PaaS Cloud Provider
typically also supports the development, deployment and
management process of the PaaS Cloud Consumer by
providing tools such as integrated development
environments (IDEs), development version of cloud
software, software development kits (SDKs), deployment
and management tools. The PaaS Cloud Consumer has
control over the applications and possibly some the hosting
environment settings, but has no or limited access to the
infrastructure underlying the platform such as network,
servers, operating systems (OS), or storage.
For IaaS, the Cloud Provider acquires the physical computing
resources underlying the service, including the servers, networks,
storage and hosting infrastructure. The Cloud Provider runs the cloud
software necessary to makes computing resources available to the
IaaS Cloud Consumer through a set of service interfaces and
computing resource abstractions, such as virtual machines and virtual
network interfaces. The IaaS Cloud Consumer in turn uses these
computing resources, such as a virtual computer, for their fundamental
computing needs Compared to SaaS and PaaS Cloud Consumers, an
IaaS Cloud Consumer has access to more fundamental forms of
computing resources and thus has more control over the more
software components in an application stack, including the OS and
network. The IaaS Cloud Provider, on the other hand, has control over
the physical hardware and cloud software that makes the provisioning
of these infrastructure services possible, for example, the physical
servers, network equipments, storage devices, host OS and
hypervisors for virtualization.
Cloud Auditor A cloud auditor is a party that can perform an
independent examination of cloud service controls with the intent
to express an opinion thereon. Audits are performed to verify
conformance to standards through review of objective evidence. A
cloud auditor can evaluate the services provided by a cloud
provider in terms of security controls, privacy impact,
performance, etc.
Challenges
Hidden costs. Cloud use may incur expenses not factored into the
initial return on investment analysis. For example, unplanned data
needs can force a customer to exceed contracted amounts, leading to
extra charges. To be cost-effective, companies also must factor in
additional staffing needs for monitoring and managing cloud use.
Terminating use of on-premises systems also has costs, such as
writing off assets and data cleanup.
Cloud migration. Moving data to and from the cloud can take time.
Companies might not have access to their critical data for weeks, or
even months, while large amounts of data are first transferred to the
cloud.
Cloud security. When trusting a provider with critical data,
organizations risk security breaches, compromised credentials and
other substantial security risks. Also, providers may not always be
transparent about security issues and practices. Companies with
specific security needs may rely on open source cloud security tools,
in addition to the provider's tools.
.
Performance and outages. Outages, downtime and technical
issues on the provider's end can render necessary data and
resources inaccessible during critical business events.
Complicated contract terms. Organizations contracting cloud
service providers must actively negotiate contracts and service-
level agreements (SLAs). Failure to do so can result in the
provider charging high prices for the return of data, high prices
for early service termination and other penalties.
Vendor lock-in. High data transfer costs or use of proprietary
cloud technologies that are incompatible with competitor
services can make it difficult for customers to switch CSPs. To
avoid vendor lock-in, companies should have a cloud exit
strategy before signing any contracts
Benefits
Cost and flexibility. The pay-as-you-go model of cloud services
enables organizations to only pay for the resources they
consume. Using a cloud service provider also eliminates the need
for IT-related capital equipment purchases. Organizations should
review the details of cloud pricing to
accurately break down cloud costs.
Scalability. Customer organizations can easily scale up or down
the IT resources they use based on business demands.
Mobility. Resources and services purchased from a cloud service
provider can be accessed from any physical location that has a
working network connection.
Disaster recovery. Cloud computing services typically offer quick
and reliable disaster recovery.
Cloud Broker As cloud computing evolves, the integration of cloud
services can be too complex for cloud consumers to manage. A
cloud consumer may request cloud services from a cloud broker,
instead of contacting a cloud provider directly. A cloud broker is an
entity that manages the use, performance and delivery of cloud
services and negotiates relationships between cloud providers and
cloud consumers. In general, a cloud broker can provide services in
three categories [9]:
Service Intermediation: A cloud broker enhances a given service by
improving some specific capability and providing value-added
services to cloud consumers. The improvement can be managing
access to cloud services, identity management, performance
reporting, enhanced security, etc.
Service Aggregation: A cloud broker combines and integrates
multiple services into one or more new services. The broker
provides data integration and ensures the secure data movement
between the cloud consumer and multiple cloud providers.
Service Arbitrage: Service arbitrage is similar to service
aggregation except that the services being aggregated are not
fixed. Service arbitrage means a broker has the flexibility to
choose services from multiple agencies. The cloud broker, for
example, can use a credit-scoring service to measure and select
an agency with the best score.
Cloud Carrier A cloud carrier acts as an intermediary that provides
connectivity and transport of cloud services between cloud
consumers and cloud providers. Cloud carriers provide access to
consumers through network, telecommunication and other access
devices. For example, cloud consumers can obtain cloud services
through network access devices, such as computers, laptops, mobile
phones, mobile Internet devices (MIDs), etc [1]. The distribution of
cloud services is normally provided by network and
telecommunication carriers or a transport agent [8], where a
transport agent refers to a business organization that provides
physical transport of storage media such as high-capacity hard
drives. Note that a cloud provider will set up SLAs with a cloud
carrier to provide services consistent with the level of SLAs offered
to cloud consumers, and may require the cloud carrier to provide
dedicated and secure connections between cloud consumers and
cloud providers.
What is the introduction of Cloud of Things (CoT)
Cloud of Things (CoT) is an integration of Internet
of Things (IoT) with Cloud Computing (CC). The Cloud of
Things is a high-performance cloud-based IoT application
platform that allows remotely monitoring, managing and control
the IoT enabled devices.
Architecture of Cloud of Things
The CoT is used to represent the ongoing trend for the next
generation applications of IoT smart services.
The IoT objects which generate a large amount of data that will be
processed and analyzed in the Cloud in order to produce
important information. That information is very sensitive
information used by many smart services and/or applications.
Therefore, to achieve the objective of efficiently managing the
large amount of data, the existing cloud architecture needs to be
reinforced.
This enhancement is important to be more efficient and
practical for the IoT based real-time services in terms of energy
consumption, security, privacy, and end-to-end delays.
To overcome these two last problems, cloud architectures are
migrating to distributed architectures which are closer to the
network edge like it is the case for Cloudlets, micro-cloud and
fog nodes.
The CoT networks, with these distributed architectures, can
gain many facilities. The CoT ecosystem describes it as a tiered
architecture which is made of diverse devices interconnected.
These objects can be interconnected through various and
different networked environments. It acts as a plan for the
technology and describes its components.
The diagram given below depicts the architecture of
Cloud Of Things:
Applications of CoT
The CoT is applied in the following −
Healthcare
Smart city
Smart Home
Smart surveillance
Smart energy and smart grid.
Smart mobility
Smart logistics.
Environmental monitoring
CoT Platforms
The Designing CoT platforms lead to the development of smart
infrastructures that enable intelligent applications. This Platform
is an open source or proprietary.
These are concerned with addressing heterogeneity issues related
to both IoT and the CC by implementing a middleware towards
the Cloud and another one on the things’ side, in addition to
offering an API to ease the interaction with applications.
Challenges
The challenges faced by CoT and issues involved are as follows
−
CoT encourages the improvement of some interesting
applications in a considerable number of domains. Moreover,
CoT scenario imposes many challenges such as −
Security and privacy
Heterogeneity
Big data
Performance.
Legal and social aspects
Monitoring
Scaling
Fog computing
Energy conservation
Pricing and billing
Standardization.
Difference between Cloud computing and the Internet of
Things?
The key difference between Cloud Computing and the Internet
of Things is that Cloud Computing provides hosted services
over the Internet. In contrast, the Internet of Things connects
surrounding smart devices to the network to share and analyze
decision-making data.
Cloud computing and the Internet of things are modern
technology. The acronym for the Internet of Things is IoT.
Cloud computing provides the tools and services needed to
build IoT applications. Moreover, it helps in achieving efficient
and accurate IoT-based applications.
What is Cloud Computing?
Organizations need time and budget to scale up their IT
infrastructure. On-campus, expanding IT infrastructure is difficult
and requires more time. Cloud computing provides an optimal
solution to this problem. Cloud computing services consist of
virtual data centers that provide hardware, software, and resources
when needed. Therefore, organizations can directly connect to the
cloud and access the required resources. It helps reduce the cost
and scale up and down as per the business requirements.
There are two types of models in cloud computing called the
deployment model and service model. Deployment models
describe the access type to the cloud. These types are public,
private, community and hybrid. First, the public cloud provides
services to the general public.
Secondly, the private cloud provides services for the
organization. Third, the community cloud provides services to a
group of organizations. Finally, a hybrid cloud is a combination
of public and private clouds. The private cloud performs critical
activities in a hybrid while the public performs non-critical
activities.
IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS are the three service models in cloud
computing. Firstly, IaaS stands for Infrastructure as a Service. It
provides access to basic resources such as physical machines,
virtual machines, and virtual storage. Secondly, PaaS stands for
Platform as a Service. It provides a runtime environment for the
applications. Lastly, SaaS stands for Software as a Service. It
allows end-users to use software applications as a service.
Overall, cloud computing offers many advantages. It is highly
efficient, reliable, flexible, and cost-effective. It allows applications
to access and use resources in the form of utilities. In addition, it
provides online development and deployment tools. One drawback
is that there can be security and privacy issues.
What is the Internet of Things?
The Internet of Things connects all nearby smart devices to the
network. These devices use sensors and actuators to communicate
with each other. Sensors sense surrounding movements while
actuators respond to sensory activities. The devices can be a
smartphone, smart washing machine, smartwatch, smart TV, smart
car, etc.
Assume a smart shoe that is connected to the Internet. It can collect
data on the number of steps it can run. The smartphone can connect
to the Internet and view this data. It analyzes the data and provides
the user with the number of calories burned and other fitness
advice.
Which is better, IoT or cloud computing?
Over the years, IoT and cloud computing have contributed to
implementing many application scenarios such as smart
transportation, cities and communities, homes, the environment,
and healthcare.
Both technologies work to increase efficiency in our everyday
tasks. Cloud computing collects data from IoT sensors and
calculates it accordingly. Although the two are very different
paradigms, they are not contradictory technologies; They
complement each other.
Difference between the Internet of things and cloud computing
Meaning of Internet of things and cloud computing
IoT is a network of interconnected devices, machines, vehicles,
and other 'things' that can be embedded with sensors, electronics,
and software that allows them to collect and interchange data. IoT
is a system of interconnected things with unique identifiers and
can exchange data over a network with little or no human
interaction.
Cloud computing allows individuals and businesses to access on-
demand computing resources and applications
Internet of Things and Cloud Computing
The main objective of IoT is to create an ecosystem of
interconnected things and give them the ability to sense, touch,
control, and communicate with others. The idea is to connect
everything and everyone and help us live and work better. IoT
provides businesses with real-time insights into everything from
everyday operations to the performance of machines and
logistics and supply chains.
On the other hand, cloud computing helps us make the most of
all the data generated by IoT, allowing us to connect with our
business from anywhere, whenever we want.
Applications of Internet of Things and Cloud Computing
IoT's most important and common applications are
smartwatches, fitness trackers, smartphones, smart home
appliances, smart cities, automated transportation, smart
surveillance, virtual assistants, driverless cars, thermostats,
implants, lights, and more. Real-world examples of cloud
computing include antivirus applications, online data
storage, data analysis, email applications, digital video
software, online meeting applications, etc.
 Internet of Things vs. Cloud Computing: Comparison Chart

Internet of things Cloud Computing

Iot is a network of interconnected devices that are Cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of IT
capable of exchanging data over a network. resources and application via the internet.

The main purpose is to create an ecosystem of The purpose is to allow access to large amounts of
interconnected things and give them the ability to computing power virtually, and offering a single
sense, touch, control, and communicate. system view.

The role of IoT is to generate massive amounts of Cloud computing provides a way to store IoT data
data. and provides tools to create IoT applications.