Er.

Rohit Handa
Lecturer, CSE-IT Department 1
IBM-ICE Program, BUEST Baddi
Topics: Cloud Computing Overview, Characteristics, Applications, Internet & Cloud,
Benefits, Limitations, Challenges
Topic-1: Cloud Computing Overview
Computing implies to the process of utilizing computer technology to complete a
task.
Computing may involve computer hardware and/or software, but must involve some
form of a computer system.
Examples can be
o Swiping a debit card
o sending an email or
o using a cell phone

Cloud computing is a computing

paradigm shift where computing is moved
away from personal computers or an
individual application server to a cloud of
computers.
It is a service that charges based on the
amount of computing resources that we use.
Cloud computing gets its name as a metaphor for the Internet. Typically, the
Internet is represented in network diagrams as a cloud. The cloud icon represents
all that other stuff that makes the network work. Its kind of like etc. for the rest
of the solution map. It also typically means an area of the diagram or solution that is
someone elses concern, so why diagram it all out? Its probably this notion that is
most applicable to the cloud computing concept.
The name comes from
the use of a cloud-
shaped symbol as an
abstraction for the
complex infrastructure it
contains in system
diagrams.
It involves:
Shared pool of
configurable computing
resources
On-demand network
access
Provisioned by the
Service Provider

Cloud Components
In a simple, topological sense, a cloud computing solution is made up of several
elements: clients, the datacenter, distributed servers & internet.
Each element has a purpose and plays a specific role in delivering a functional cloud
based applications.
 Er. Rohit Handa
Lecturer, CSE-IT Department 2
IBM-ICE Program, BUEST Baddi

1. Clients
The computers that just sit
on your desk. But they
might also be laptops,
tablet computers, mobile
phones, or PDAsall big
drivers for cloud computing
because of their mobility.
Anyway, clients are the
devices that the end users
interact with to manage
their information on the cloud.
Clients generally fall into three categories:
I. Mobile: Mobile devices include PDAs or smartphones, like a Blackberry, Windows
Mobile Smartphone, or an iPhone.
II. Thin Clients are computers that do not have internal hard drives, but rather let
the servers do all the work, but then display the information.
III. Thick: This type of client is a regular computer, using a web browser like Firefox
or Internet Explorer to connect to the cloud.
Thin clients are becoming an increasingly popular solution, because of their price and
effect on the environment. Some benefits to using thin clients include
i. Lower hardware costs: Thin clients are cheaper than thick clients because they do not
contain as much hardware. They also last longer before they need to be upgraded or
become obsolete.
ii. Lower IT costs: Thin clients are managed at the server and there are fewer points of
failure.
iii. Security: Since the processing takes place on the server and there is no hard drive,
theres less chance of malware invading the device. Also, since thin clients dont work
without a server, theres less chance of them being physically stolen.
iv. Data security: Since data is stored on the server, theres less chance for data to be lost
if the client computer crashes or is stolen.
v. Less power consumption: Thin clients consume less power than thick clients. This
means youll pay less to power them, and youll also pay less to air-condition the office.
vi. Ease of repair or replacement: If a thin client dies, its easy to replace. The box is
simply swapped out and the users desktop returns exactly as it was before the failure.
vii. Less noise: Without a spinning hard drive, less heat is generated and quieter fans can
be used on the thin client.

2. Datacenter
The datacenter is the collection of servers where the application to which you
subscribe is housed.
It could be a large room in the basement of your building or a room full of servers on
the other side of the world that you access via the Internet.
A growing trend in the IT world is virtualizing servers. That is, software can be
installed allowing multiple instances of virtual servers to be used. In this way, you
can have half a dozen virtual servers running on one physical server.
3. Distributed Servers
 Er. Rohit Handa
Lecturer, CSE-IT Department 3
IBM-ICE Program, BUEST Baddi
The servers dont all have to be housed in the same location. Often, servers are in
geographically disparate locations. But to you, the cloud subscriber, these servers
act as if theyre humming away right next to each other.
This gives the service provider more flexibility in options and security.
For instance, Amazon has their cloud solution in servers all over the world. If
something were to happen at one site, causing a failure, the service would still be
accessed through another site. Also, if the cloud needs more hardware, they need
not throw more servers in the safe roomthey can add them at another site and
simply make it part of the cloud.

Topic-2: Characteristics:
Common Characteristics
1. Massive Scale: Scalability and elasticity via dynamic ("on-demand") provisioning of
resources on a fine-grained, self-service basis near real-time, without users having
to engineer for peak loads
2. Resilient Computing
3. Homogeneity
4. Geographical Distribution
5. Multitenancy enables sharing of resources and costs across a large pool of users
thus allowing for:
a. centralization of infrastructure in locations with lower costs)
b. peak-load capacity increases (users need not engineer for highest possible
load-levels)
c. utilisation and efficiency improvements for systems that are often only 10
20% utilised.
6. Virtualization: Virtualization technology allows sharing of servers and storage
devices and increased utilization. Applications can be easily migrated from one
physical server to another.
7. Reliability improves with the use of multiple redundant sites, which makes well-
designed cloud computing suitable for business continuity and disaster recovery
8. Service Oriented
9. Device and location independence enable users to access systems using a web
browser regardless of their location or what device they use (e.g., PC, mobile phone).
As infrastructure is off-site (typically provided by a third-party) and accessed via the
Internet, users can connect from anywhere.
10. Low Cost Software: Cloud providers claim that computing costs reduce. A public-
cloud delivery model converts capital expenditure to operational expenditure. This
purportedly lowers barriers to entry, as infrastructure is typically provided by a
third-party and does not need to be purchased for one-time or infrequent intensive
computing tasks. Pricing on a utility computing basis is fine-grained, with usage-
based options and fewer IT skills are required for implementation (in-house). The e-
FISCAL project's state-of-the-art repository[33] contains several articles looking into
cost aspects in more detail, most of them concluding that costs savings depend on
the type of activities supported and the type of infrastructure available in-house.
11. Advanced Security: Security can improve due to centralization of data, increased
security-focused resources, etc., but concerns can persist about loss of control over
certain sensitive data, and the lack of security for stored kernels.[43] Security is often
as good as or better than other traditional systems, in part because providers are
 Er. Rohit Handa
Lecturer, CSE-IT Department 4
IBM-ICE Program, BUEST Baddi
able to devote resources to solving security issues that many customers cannot
afford to tackle.[44] However, the complexity of security is greatly increased when
data is distributed over a wider area or over a greater number of devices, as well as
in multi-tenant systems shared by unrelated users. In addition, user access to
security audit logs may be difficult or impossible. Private cloud installations are in
part motivated by users' desire to retain control over the infrastructure and avoid
losing control of information security.
12. Maintenance of cloud computing applications is easier, because they do not need
to be installed on each user's computer and can be accessed from different places.

Essential Characteristics
1. MeasuredService: Cloud systems automatically control and optimize resource use
by leveraging a metering capability at some level of abstraction appropriate to the
type of service (e.g., storage, processing, bandwidth, and active user accounts).
Resource usage can be managed, controlled, and reported providing transparency
for both the provider and consumer of the utilized service. Going back to the
affordable nature of the cloud, you only pay for what you use. You and your cloud
provider can measure storage levels, processing, bandwidth, and the number of user
accounts and you are billed appropriately. The amount of resources that you may
use can be monitored and controlled from both your side and your cloud providers
side which provides transparency.
2. On Demand Self-Service: computer services such as email, applications, network
or server service can be provided without requiring human interaction with each
service provider. A consumer can unilaterally provision computing capabilities, such
as server time and network storage, as needed automatically without requiring
human interaction with each services provider.
3. BroadNetworkAccess: Cloud Capabilities are available over the network and
accessed through standard mechanisms that promote use by heterogeneous thin or
thick client platforms such as mobile phones, laptops and PDAs. Your team can
access business management solutions using their smartphones, tablets, laptops,
and office computers. They can use these devices wherever they are located with a
simple online access point. This mobility is particularly attractive for businesses so
that during business hours or on off-times, employees can stay on top of projects,
contracts, and customers whether they are on the road or in the office. Broad
network access includes private clouds that operate within a companys firewall,
public clouds, or a hybrid deployment
4. RapidElasticity: Capabilities can be rapidly and elastically provisioned, in some
cases automatically, to quickly scale out and rapidly released to quickly scale in. To
the consumer, the capabilities available for provisioning often appear to be unlimited
and can be purchased in any quantity at any time. If anything, the cloud is flexible
and scalable to suit your immediate business needs. You can quickly and easily add
or remove users, software features, and other resources.
5. ResourcePooling: 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. There is a
sense of location-independence in that the customer generally has no control or
knowledge over the exact location of the provided resources but may be able to
specify location at a higher level of abstraction (e.g., country, state, or data center).
 Er. Rohit Handa
Lecturer, CSE-IT Department 5
IBM-ICE Program, BUEST Baddi
Examples of resources include storage, processing, memory, network bandwidth,
and virtual machines. The cloud enables your employees to enter and use data
within the business management software hosted in the cloud at the same time,
from any location, and at any time. This is an attractive feature for multiple
business offices and field service or sales teams that are usually outside the office.
______________________________________________________________________________________

Topic-3: Advantages
In essence, cloud computing is a construct that allows you to access applications
that actually reside at a location other than your computer or other Internet-
connected device; most often, this will be a distant datacenter.
The beauty of cloud computing is that another company hosts your application (or
suite of applications, for that matter). This means that they handle the costs of
servers, they manage the software updates, anddepending on how you craft your
contractyou pay less for the service.
Dont forget the equipment that you wont need to buywhich will result in fewer
capital expenditures. By having someone else host the applications, you need not
buy the servers nor pay for the electricity to power and cool them.
Its also convenient for telecommuters and traveling remote workers, who can simply
log in and use their applications wherever they are.

1. Infrastructure: Cloud
computing isnt a one-
size-fits-all affair. There
are several different ways
the infrastructure can be
deployed. The
infrastructure will depend
on the application and
how the provider has
chosen to build the cloud
solution. This is one of the
key advantages for using
the cloud. Your needs
might be so massive that the number of servers required far exceeds your desire or
budget to run those in-house. Alternatively, you may only need a sip of processing
power, so you dont want to buy and run a dedicated server for the job. The cloud
fits both needs.
2. Lower computer costs: You do not need a high-powered and high-priced computer
to run cloud computing's web-based applications. Since applications run in the
cloud, not on the desktop PC, your desktop PC does not need the processing power
or hard disk space demanded by traditional desktop software. When you are using
web-based applications, your PC can be less expensive, with a smaller hard disk,
less memory, more efficient processor. In fact, your PC in this scenario does not even
need a CD or DVD drive, as no software programs have to be loaded and no
document files need to be saved.
 Er. Rohit Handa
Lecturer, CSE-IT Department 6
IBM-ICE Program, BUEST Baddi
3. Improved performance: With few large programs hogging your computer's memory,
you will see better performance from your PC. Computers in a cloud computing
system boot and run faster because they have fewer programs and processes loaded
into memory.
4. Reduced software costs: Instead of purchasing expensive software applications,
you can get most of what you need for free-ish! It is better than paying for similar
commercial software
5. Instant software updates: Another advantage to cloud computing is that you are no
longer faced with choosing between obsolete software and high upgrade costs. When
the application is web-based, updates happen automatically and are available the
next time you log into the cloud. When you access a web-based application, you get
the latest version without needing to pay for or download an upgrade.
6. Improved document format compatibility: You do not have to worry about the
documents you create on your machine being compatible with other users'
applications or OSes. There are potentially no format incompatibilities when
everyone is sharing documents and applications in the cloud.
7. Unlimited storage capacity: Cloud computing offers virtually limitless storage.
Your computer's current 1 Tbyte hard drive is small compared to the hundreds of
Pbytes available in the cloud.
8. Increased data reliability: Unlike desktop computing, in which if a hard disk
crashes and destroy all your valuable data, a computer crashing in the cloud should
not affect the storage of your data. If your personal computer crashes, all your data
is still out there in the cloud, still accessible. In a world where few individual
desktop PC users back up their data on a regular basis, cloud computing is a data-
safe computing platform!
9. Universal document access: That is not a problem with cloud computing, because
you do not take your documents with you. Instead, they stay in the cloud, and you
can access them whenever you have a computer and an Internet connection.
Documents are instantly available from wherever you are.
10. Latest version availability: When you edit a document at home, that edited
version is what you see when you access the document at work. The cloud always
hosts the latest version of your documents as long as you are connected, you are not
in danger of having an outdated version
11. Easier group collaboration: Sharing documents leads directly to better
collaboration. Many users do this as it is an important advantages of cloud
computing. Multiple users can collaborate easily on documents and projects.
12. Device independence: You are no longer tethered to a single computer or network.
Changes to computers, applications and documents follow you through the cloud.
Move to a portable device, and your applications and documents are still available.
13. Simplicity: Again, not having to buy and configure new equipment allows you and
your IT staff to get right to your business. The cloud solution makes it possible to get
your application started immediately, and it costs a fraction of what it would cost to
implement an on-site solution.
14. Knowledgeable Vendors: Typically, when new technology becomes popular, there
are plenty of vendors who pop up to offer their version of that technology. This isnt
always good, because a lot of those vendors tend to offer less than useful technology.
By contrast, the first comers to the cloud computing party are actually very
reputable companies. Companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, IBM, and Yahoo!
 Er. Rohit Handa
Lecturer, CSE-IT Department 7
IBM-ICE Program, BUEST Baddi
have been good vendors because they have offered reliable service, plenty of
capacity, and you get some brand familiarity with these well-known names.
15. More Internal Resources: By shifting your non-mission-critical data needs to a
third party, your IT department is freed up to work on important, business-related
tasks. You also dont have to add more manpower and training that stem from
having to deal with these low-level tasks.

Topic-4: Limitations
1. Weak Links: While an Internet outage or problems with your Internet service
provider (ISP) are rare, you may not be able to access your applications and do your
work. Not that everyone sits in one office much anymore, but if you currently have
the application on your own local servers, and all those who access it are not
remote, youd be at least somewhat assured that an Internet outage wouldnt affect
your application. What if the site youre accessing has problems? Its happened
already. In July 2008, Amazons S3 cloud storage service went down for the second
time that year. A lot of applications were hosted by the company and all those
services could not be accessed until techs could fix the problem. Some applications
were down for eight hours.
2. Also, there may simply be applications or data that you want located on-site. If you
have sensitive or proprietary information, your IT security group may simply
mandate that you not store it on
someone elses machines.
3. Application Integration Issues:
You might also find that its more
difficult to integrate your
applications if they are
geographically dispersed. That is, it
is easier to manage and access
your data if it is nearby, and not
under someone elses control. For
instance, if you need two
applications to exchange
information, its easier to do if they both reside in the same place. If you have one
application in-house and it has to contact another application on the cloud, it
becomes far more complicated, and more prone to failure.
4. Requires a constant Internet connection: Cloud computing is impossible if you
cannot connect to the Internet. Since you use the Internet to connect to both your
applications and documents, if you do not have an Internet connection you cannot
access anything, even your own documents. A dead Internet connection means no
work and in areas where Internet connections are few or inherently unreliable, this
could be a deal-breaker.
5. Does not work well with low-speed connections: Similarly, a low-speed Internet
connection, such as that found with dial-up services, makes cloud computing
painful at best and often impossible. Web-based applications require a lot of
bandwidth to download, as do large documents.
6. Features might be limited: This situation is bound to change, but today many
web-based applications simply are not as full-featured as their desktop-based
 Er. Rohit Handa
Lecturer, CSE-IT Department 8
IBM-ICE Program, BUEST Baddi
applications. For example, you can do a lot more with Microsoft PowerPoint than
with Google Presentation's web-based offering.
7. Can be slow: Even with a fast connection, web-based applications can sometimes be
slower than accessing a similar software program on your desktop PC. Everything
about the program, from the interface to the current document, has to be sent back
and forth from your computer to the computers in the cloud. If the cloud servers
happen to be backed up at that moment, or if the Internet is having a slow day, you
would not get the instantaneous access you might expect from desktop applications.
8. Stored data might not be secure: With cloud computing, all your data is stored on
the cloud. The questions is How secure is the cloud? Can unauthorised users gain
access to your confidential data?
9. Stored data can be lost: Theoretically, data stored in the cloud is safe, replicated
across multiple machines. But on the off chance that your data goes missing, you
have no physical or local backup. Put simply, relying on the cloud puts you at risk if
the cloud lets you down.
10. General Concerns: Each cloud systems uses different protocols and different APIs.
May not be possible to run applications between cloud based systems. Amazon has
created its own DB system (not SQL 92), and workflow system (many popular
workflow systems out there). So your normal applications will have to be adapted to
execute on these platforms.
11. Applications Not Ready: In some cases the applications themselves are not ready
to be used on the cloud. They may have little quirks that prevent them from being
used to their fullest abilities, or they may not work whatsoever. First, the application
might require a lot of bandwidth to communicate with users. Remember, since cloud
computing is paid based on how much you use, it might turn out to be less
expensive in the long run to simply house the application locally until it can be
rewritten or otherwise modified to operate more efficiently.
The application might also take a lot of effort to integrate with your other
applications. If you try to relocate it to a cloud, you may find that the savings are
erased by the additional effort required to maintain the integration. In this case it
may end up being more costeffective to continue to host it locally.
If the application has to talk with a database that you have onsite, it may be better
to also have the application hosted locally until you can move the entire
infrastructure to the cloud. Again, this helps you avoid the service cost of having to
transfer to and from the cloud. Its also more efficient, because the application can
talk to the database without having to reach out across the network to do so.
Some applications may not be able to communicate securely across the Internet. If
they cannot communicate securely or through a tunnel, then your data is at risk. In
the event the application cannot communicate securely, you will need to host it
locally where you can have other means of security to protect data as it is
transported across networks.
Also, since you are displaying the application results on an interface like a web
browser, you need to ensure that your application is compatible with a variety of
browsers and will operate properly using encryption, like SSL, for some or all of the
interaction your user has within the application. If you are unable to display the
applications results securely when necessary, then a cloud-based solution will be
essentially worthless to you.
If you are relying on applications to be available on the cloud, that may or may not
be the case. It depends on whether the developer has created a cloud-friendly
 Er. Rohit Handa
Lecturer, CSE-IT Department 9
IBM-ICE Program, BUEST Baddi
version of the application you want. In the event that your application is not ready,
you might be out of luck.

Topic-5: Opportunities
It enables services to be used without any understanding of their infrastructure.
Cloud computing works using economies of scale:
o It potentially lowers the outlay expense for start up companies, as they would
no longer need to buy their own software or servers.
o Cost would be by on-demand pricing.
Data and services are stored remotely but accessible from anywhere.

Challenges
a) Data location - cloud computing technology allows cloud servers to reside
anywhere, thus the enterprise may not know the physical location of the server used
to store and process their data and applications. Although from the technology
point of view, location is least relevant, this has become a critical issue for data
governance requirements. It is essential to understand that many Cloud Service
Providers (CSPs) can also specifically define where data is to be located.
b) Commingled data - application sharing and multi-tenancy of data is one of the
characteristics associated with cloud computing. Although many CSPs have multi-
tenant applications that are secure, scalable and customisable, security and privacy
issues are still often concerns among enterprises. Data encryption is another
control that can assist data confidentiality.
c) Cloud security policy / procedures transparency - some CSPs may have less
transparency than others about their information security policy. The
rationalisation for such difference is the policies may be proprietary. As a result, it
may create conflict with the enterprises information compliance requirement. The
enterprise needs to have detailed understanding of the service level agreements
(SLAs) that stipulated the desired level of security provided by the CSPs.
d) Cloud date ownership - in the contract agreements it may state that the CP owns
the data stored in the cloud computing environment. The CSP may demand for
significant service fees for data to be returned to the enterprise when the cloud
computing SLAs terminates.
e) Lock-in with CSPs proprietary application programming interfaces (APIs) -
currently many CSPs implement their application by adopting the proprietary APIs.
As a result, cloud services transition from one CSP to another CSP, has become
extremely complicated, time-consuming and labour-intensive.
f) Compliance requirements - todays cloud computing services, can challenge
various compliance audit requirements currently in place. Data location; cloud
computing security policy transparency; and IAM, are all challenging issues in
compliance auditing efforts. Examples of the compliance requirement including
privacy and PII laws; Payment Card Industry (PCI) requirements; and financial
reporting laws.
g) Disaster recovery - it is a concern of enterprises about the resiliency of cloud
computing, since data may be commingled and scattered around multiple servers
and geographical areas. It may be possible that the data for a specific point of time
cannot be identified. Unlike traditional hosting, the enterprise knows exactly where
the location is of their data, to be rapidly retrieved in the event of disaster
 Er. Rohit Handa
Lecturer, CSE-IT Department 10
IBM-ICE Program, BUEST Baddi
recovery. In the cloud computing model, the primary CSP may outsource
capabilities to third parties, who may also outsource the recovery process. This will
become more complex when the primary CSP does not ultimately hold the data.

Use of cloud computing means dependence on others and that could possibly limit
flexibility and innovation. The others are likely become the bigger Internet
companies like Google and IBM, who may monopolise the market.
Security could prove to be a big issue: It is still unclear how safe out-sourced data is
and when using these services ownership of data is not always clear.
There are also issues relating to policy and access: If your data is stored abroad
whose FOI policy do you adhere to? What happens if the remote server goes down?
How will you then access files? There have been cases of users being locked out of
accounts and losing access to data.

Topic-6: Applications
Collaboration applications
Web applications/Web serving
Cloud backup
Business applications
Personal productivity applications
Email
Storage You can lease storage space from a vendor, you are not responsible to buy
equipment, pay to run it, and pay to cool it. Thats all on the vendor.
Compute Cloud
Web applications
Online Collaboration tools

Topic-7: Internet V/s Cloud

1. The Internet is not managed. The Internet is a giant network of networks; it is the
basis for online communication. The cloud is a managed resource that lets you implement
applications and other tools over the Internet. Most cloud vendors offer 24/7 support for
their cloud services from experts who understands the technology. The Internet is simply a
tool, not a service.
2. The Internet does not provide services other than connectivity. The Internet
connects you to the web and allows TCP/IP protocol to transfer you between servers
online, but it does not provide cloud services, such as virtual servers. Most cloud services
are based on IaaS or infrastructure as a service which means the entire infrastructure of
your online needs like data storage, power, cooling, and scalability is left up to your cloud
vendor, leaving you free to focus on other business initiatives.
3. The cloud provides server resources instantaneously. When you work with a cloud
provider you can run all of your application and computing needs on their managed
systems. If you just work with an Internet provider youll have to buy servers, or hire
another company to rent servers from. When a cloud vendors managed systems are
purchased you can use virtual processors to help you when you need additional resources
fitting your computing power needs all in one monthly fee.
4. The cloud gives you the flexibility to change your resources quickly. The cloud can
help you overcome periods of peak usage and can help you remotely support applications
that need more resources than what you have available. The Internet can only keep you
 Er. Rohit Handa
Lecturer, CSE-IT Department 11
IBM-ICE Program, BUEST Baddi
online and does not provide any flexibility for supplying virtual resources. Cloud services
are a modern evolution of Internet services that allow you to overcome difficult computing
challenges.
5. The cloud gives you remote access to your programs and applications. The Internet
allows you to connect with a few resources, but wont let you run a developer platform
from just any web browser. If you need to use programs, or software, with strict processor,
ram and storage requirements remotely then the cloud can offer you the best solution.

Internet is a network of networks, which provides software/hardware infrastructure to

establish and maintain connectivity of the computers around the word, while Cloud
computing is a new technology that delivers many types of resources over the Internet.
Therefore Cloud computing could be identified as a technology that uses the Internet as
the communication medium to deliver its services.
Cloud services can be offered within enterprises through LANs but in reality, Cloud
computing cannot operate globally without the Internet.
The basic difference between the web and the cloud is the services they offer their
clients. While cloud offers a vast amount of storage, applications and hardware to be
manipulated and controlled by user at a low cost, the web only offers a certain amount
of space to store data that can only be recovered but not controlled or manipulated. In
addition, the web only lets the user to use a portion of the server, even though most of
its resources are idle consuming power and space, whereas cloud gives users access to
as much server resources as the user expects, allowing maximum consumption of
resources.