Is Cloud Computing Really Ready For Prime Time?

Neil LevittPresented by : Vaishnavi Chigarapalle

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Overview• Problem• Introduction.• Computing in the cloud.• Under the hood.• Types of cloud services.• Adopting the cloud.• Challenges on the horizon.• What’s Ahead ?• Conclusion.

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Problem

• Cloud Computing has been regarded as evolutionary paradigm recently.

• It has much strength, such as large storage, ubiquitous network access, cost effective and so on.

• However it also faces security and privacy concerns. • In this paper, they discussed several major security and

privacy issues. • And also proposed effective methods to handle such issues.• This paper is original that we consider the characteristics of

Cloud Computing adequately, so the methods are well functioned and can be developed further to solve other problems.

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Introduction• Resources are kept on providers servers rather than on

users systems.• Proponents tout the technology’s advantages, including

cost saving, high availability and easy scalability.• Industry observers say the technology’s growth potential

is enormous.• According to proponents, working via large platform

owned by providers and shared by numerous users makes cloud computing less expensive.

• Cloud computing also lowers the cost of application development and makes the process more scalable.

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• It frees customers from the expense and hassle of having to install and maintain applications.

• Nonetheless, the approach is still relatively new and has not yet been widely adopted.

• IT departments are still wary of it because they don’t control the cloud computing platform.

• The key Risks involved in cloud computing include reliability, security, the additional cost of the necessary bandwidth and getting locked into a specific cloud computing vendors.

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Computing in the cloud• Initially, companies utilized unused general- purpose data-center

capacity to provide cloud computing services.• However, major providers began creating separate cloud-

computing business units and dedicated centers to make sure the systems function optimally and maximize their revenue-generation potential.

• Smaller providers, on the other hand, generally base their services in bigger companies data centers.

• Cloud computing precursors include:– Thin clients – Grid computing– Utility computing.

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• Major cloud computing services include:– Amazon.com’s Amazon web services.– Google’s Google Apps– Salesforce.com’s Force.com.

• Microsoft’s Windows Azure provides general cloud-based computing resources to users.

• Other cloud providers include AppNexus, GoGrid, Mosso and Xcalibre Communications.

• Cisco Systems and Oracle are working on the technology.• Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Sun Microsystems have shown

interest in providing cloud computing services or tools, according to James Staten, principal analyst at Forrester Research.

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Under the Hood• At their most basic, cloud-computing providers’

infrastructures consists of internet-connected servers, at one site or distributed across several locations, that house applications and data.

• They also include virtualization, grid, management, database, and other types of software

• They also include a communications infrastructure for connecting users over the internet or a private network and a usage monitoring and billing mechanism.

• Clients generally use browsers or dedicated software to access cloud applications, which they frequently use via APIs.

• Cloud service infrastructures must be designed to host multiple tenants with high service levels over long period of time.

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• Some of the under the hood features are :– Grids, blades, virtualization:

• Some companies use grids of distributed servers or multiple blade servers run by a master controller to provide cloud-computing services.

– Dynamic infrastructure software:• Most cloud systems employ infrastructure software that dynamically, rapidly, and

efficiently scales as needed to meet customer demand with little intervention by service providers.

– Control:• Companies use an API or web interface to control their cloud-based IT

infrastructures.• Software developers use the APIs to control the systems programmatically.

– Implementation and billing:• To implement cloud computing, organizations generally just have to set up a secure

account with the provider.• In some cases, they must also download additional software.

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Types of Cloud Services

• There are four types of cloud services. They are :– Services:

• Include internet based services.

– IaaS:• Infrastructure as a service.

– Paas:• Platform as a service.

– Saas:• Software as a service.

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Adopting the cloud• Most early cloud computing adopters have been Web 2.0

companies and start-ups.• The ability to control costs and provision infrastructure as

needed particularly appeals to new businesses with fewer resources.

• Web 2.0 companies also traditionally have fewer resources and want the ability to easily ramp demand up or down as needed.

• Bigger companies, which generally wait to adopt new technologies, are using cloud computing for occasional or temporary projects that demand a lot of additional resources.

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Challenges on the Horizon

• Control.• Performance, latency and reliability.• Security and privacy.• Related bandwidth costs.• Vendor lock-in and standards.• Transparency.• Reliability.• Other Concerns.

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What’s Ahead • Because cloud computing is relatively new, particularly for large

companies, it promises to develop and change quickly.• People suggest that there will be more providers, richer services,

established standards, and best practices.• They also predict that organizations will develop private clouds behind

their firewalls for the use with employees, partners, and others.• Research:

– HP labs , Intel and Yahoo have launched the distributed cloud Research Test Bed – with facilities in Asia, Europe, and North America- to develop innovations such as cloud-computing-specific chips.

– HP’s Daniels said they will conduct advanced research in areas such as intelligent infrastructure, dynamic cloud services and scaling.

– “A fundamental challenge is that the cloud depends on handling increasing demand by scaling out, doing more work simultaneously in parallel,” he noted.

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Prospects

• The current difficult economic climate will boost cloud computing appeal, particularly to companies without a lot of money for infrastructure investment, predicted AppNexus chief technology officer Mike Nolet.

• If clients can trust the uptime, speed, and security of a cloud, we can’t see any reason not to use it.

• In addition, corporate data-center managers are facing increasing problems with power consumption, space, and IT costs.

• Experts say that it will become easier this year to move data from one cloud-computing system to another and that this will boost the technology’s prospects.

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Summary• Though Cloud computing has some problem’s and risks involved in it, the

future looks bright enough as the problems now being faced can be solved in more effective methods than the present day.

• The problem’s such as reliability, security, the additional cost of the necessary bandwidth and getting locked into a specific cloud computing vendors, are temporary problems which can be dealt.

• The establishment of certain cloud computing firms which can be certified and recognized can solve the basic issues such as reliability and security, the additional cost of selecting the bandwidth will prove to be advantageous because through cloud computing you can avoid other costs such as maintaining and monitoring.

• Hence we can come to a conclusion that though cloud-computing is having its hassles, now it has a very bright future perspectives’, as the advantages dominate the flaws.

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Questions ?