Introduction to the Cloud

The journey from the computer.

First there were computers

Pros

Do difficult math consistently

Cons

Only do one thing at a time

Big

Expensive

Large centralized machine with physical inputs and hard wired software

Main Frames and Dumb Terminals

• Pros

• Simultaneous use

• Shared resources

• Rarely crashed

• Central to maintain/upgrade

• Cons

• Difficult to get/keep networked

• Expensive investment

• Single point of failure

• Hard to scale

• Always on

Large centralized machine with remote inputs and loaded software

Desktops and Servers

• Pros

• Work disconnected

• Could be turned off when not using

• Cheaper investment

• Distributed

• Cons

• Hard to scale (impossible above a certain bar)

• Required constant syncing and upgrades

• Duplicate investment depending on use

Small decentralized machine with local inputs and loaded software syncing with each other and larger centralized machines with loaded

software

Datacenters and CoLo

• Pros

• Great connectivity (internet)

• Incredible physical security

• Cons

• Expensive investment

• Difficult to fix issues and upgrade

• Usually single point of failure

• Always on

Many servers centrally located in a secure facility with really good internet

Clouds

• Pros

• All the pros of a datacenter

• Cheap investment

• Scale up and down as needed

• Never deal with hardware issues

• Cons

• Requires connectivity for ANYTHING

• Reduced control of data and access

Large corporate datacenters with infrastructure to manage the complexities

What makes a cloud a cloud?Clouds have common infrastructural components to

abstract server interaction

Azure (Microsoft) AWS (Amazon)

Binary Storage Azure Blobs S3 (Simple Storage Service)

Structured Storage Azure Tables SDB (Simple Database)

Relational Storage SQL Azure RDS (Relational Data Service)

Abstract “Computer” Azure Web/Worker Roles Elastic Beanstalk

Real “Computer” Azure Virtual Machines EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud)

Queues Azure Queue SQS (Simple Queue Service)

Big Data Processing HDInsight EMR (Elastic Map Reduce)

How most people use the cloud…

Same as Datacenter/CoLo with N-Tier architectures

• Pros

• Easy to port to cloud

• Understood

• Cons

• Single point of failure

• Difficult to scale/upgrade/manage

How people should use the cloud!Break the problem apart and abstract the logic from

the computer

• Pros

• Easier to scale

• Easier to upgrade

• Easier to change

• Tolerant of failures (no single point)

• Cons

• New to many people

• More moving pieces to track/understand

Resources

Azure: http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/

Amazon Web Services (AWS): http://aws.amazon.com/

Author: Lawson Caudill – http://www.getthinktank.com