Information Storage and Management, Chapter 13 Cloud Computing

On-demand self-service

A consumer can unilaterally provision computing capabilities, such as server time and network storage, as needed automatically without requiring human interaction with each service provider.

Service Level Agreement (SLA)

An agreement between a provider and the consumer of a service.

Broad Network Access

Capabilities available over the network and accessed through standard mechanisms that promote use by heterogeneous thin or thick client platforms.

Rapid Elasticity

Capabilities can be elastically provisioned and released, in some cases automatically, to scale rapidly outward and inward commensurate with demand. To the consumer, the capabilities available for provisioning often appear to be unlimited and can be appropriated in any quantity at any time.

Cloud Challenges

Challenges for Consumers: Security and regulations, network latency, supportability, vendor lock-in; Challenges for Providers: Service warranty and service cost, complexity in deploying vendor software in the cloud, and no standard cloud access interface.

Virtual Infrastructure

Cloud service providers employ virtualization technologies to build a virtual infrastructure layer on the top of the physical infrastructure. It includes other types of resource pools, such as memory pool, network pool, and storage pool.

Measured Service

Cloud systems automatically control and optimize resource use by leveraging a metering capability at some level of abstraction appropriate to the type of service

Physical Infrastructure

Consists of physical computing resources, which include physical servers, storage systems, and networks.

Security and Regulation

Consumers are indecisive to transfer control of sensitive data. Regulation may prevent organizations to use cloud services.

Cloud Adoption Considerations

Following are some key considerations for cloud adoption: Selection of a deployment model, Application suitability, financial advantage, Selection of a cloud service provider, and Service-level agreement (SLA).

Cloud Management and Service Creation Tools

It includes three types of software: Physical and virtual infrastructure management software, Unified management software, and User-access management software.

CAPEX (Capital Expenditure)

Money spent on physical assets.

Supportability

Service provider might not support proprietary environments. Incompatible hypervisors could impact VM migration

Resource Pool

The consolidated resources are managed as a single entity

OPEX (Operating Expenditure)

The expenses associated with transacting normal business operations.

Resource Pooling

The provider's computing resources are pooled to serve multiple consumers using a multi-tenant model, with different physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according to consumer demand.

Application and Platform Software

This layer includes a suite of business applications and platform software, such as the OS and database. Platform software provides the environment on which business applications run. Applications and platform software are hosted on virtual machines to create SaaS and PaaS. For SaaS, both the application and platform software are provided by cloud service providers.

Network Latency

Time taken for a packet to move from source to destination. It increases when the cloud infrastructure is not close to the access point.

Return on Investment (ROI)

a calculation of the financial benefits gained from investing money on developing/modifying a system.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

a cloud computing offering in which a vendor provides users access to computing resources such as servers, storage and networking.

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

a cloud computing offering that provides users with a cloud environment in which they can develop, manage and deliver applications.

Software as a Service (SaaS)

a cloud computing offering that provides users with access to a vendor's cloud-based software.

Quality of Service (QoS)

a defined measure of performance in a data communication system.

Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

a financial estimate of direct and indirect costs for owning software or hardware.

Grid Computing

a form of distributed computing that enables the resources of numerous heterogeneous computers in a network to work together on a single task at the same time.

Cloud Computing

a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.

Utility Computing

a service-provisioning model in which a service provider makes computing resources available to customers, as required, and charges them based on usage.

Online Transaction Processing (OLTP)

a system that processes transactions the instant the computer receives them and updates master files immediately.

Virtualization

a technique that abstracts the physical characteristics of IT resources from resource users. It enables the resources to be viewed and managed as a pool and lets users create virtual resources from the pool.

Multitenancy

an architecture in which multiple independent consumers (tenants) are serviced using a single set of resources. This lowers the cost of services for consumers.

Essential Cloud Characteristics

five essential characteristics: On-demand self-service, broad network access, resource pooling, rapid elasticity, and measured service

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)

provides a set of services that can communicate with each other. These services work together to perform some activity or simply pass data among services.

Hybrid Cloud

the cloud infrastructure is a composition of two or more distinct cloud infrastructures (private, community, or public) that remain unique entities, but are bound together by standardized or proprietary technology that enables data and application portability (for example, cloud bursting for load balancing between clouds).

Private Cloud

the cloud infrastructure is provisioned for exclusive use by a single organization comprising multiple consumers (for example, business units).

Community Cloud

the cloud infrastructure is provisioned for exclusive use by a specific community of consumers from organizations that have shared concerns (for example, mission, security requirements, policy, and compliance considerations).

Vendor Lock-in

the difficulty for consumers to change their cloud service provider. A lack of interoperability between the APIs of different cloud service providers could also create complexity and high migration costs when moving from one service provider to another.