Cloud computing

This new trend in information technology is swiftly becoming one of the most used trends in
computing.

Cloud computing is an internet based computing which provides various applications and services
like storage, servers, infrastructure, networking with low cost, on-demand self-service, pay as you go
model, location independent resource pooling, reasonable price , rapid elasticity etc. Cloud
computing is one way to increase the capacity add capabilities without investing in new
infrastructures like computer hardware involves storage memory, licensing for new software,
training for a person and in a dynamic way.

Cloud computing is innovative which uses well advanced computational power resource and gigantic
improvement in storage capabilities, at its basic level is the replacement of all personal computers
with terminals that have no software or complex operating systems on them. Instead, these
terminals connect to a World Wide Web in which applications reside alongside our data . Of course,
with any new technology, there are advantages and disadvantages to their use. An attempt will be
made to identify those advantages and disadvantages while showing the future of cloud computing.

Cloud Computing introduces key cloud computing concepts such as service oriented
architectures, thin clients, virtualization, and discusses the leading delivery models and deployment
strategies being pursued by cloud computing providers. The article also analyses the economics of
cloud computing in terms of reducing costs, transforming capital expenditures into operating
expenditures, aggregating demand, increasing liability, and reducing latency. The architectural
implications of cloud computing are discussed for access networking and data center
interconnectivity which focuses on bandwidth, reliability, quality of service, security and privacy,
control over routing policies, standardization, metering and payment, and ubiquity . Computers
today run applications through software and accesses data that is stored locally on the hard drive. In
cloud computing, the application is stored in the data center rather than stored on the computer’s
hard drive.

II HISTORY

The Cloud is a metaphor for the Internet, derived from its common depiction in network diagrams
(or more generally components which are managed by others) as a cloud outline and the term The
Cloud was already in commercial use around the turn of the 21st century. Cloud computing solutions
had started to appear on the market, though most of the focus at this time was on Software as a
service. 2007 saw increased activity, including Goggle, IBM and a number of universities embarking
on a large scale cloud computing research project, around the time the term started gaining
popularity in the mainstream press. It was a hot topic by mid-2008 and numerous cloud computing
events had been scheduled.

III HOW IT'S WORK?

Let's say one is an executive at a large corporation. His particular responsibilities include making sure
that all of his employees have the right hardware and software they need to do their jobs. Buying
computers for everyone isn't enough – one also have to purchase software or software licenses to
give employees the tools they require. Whenever one has a new hire, you have to buy more
software or make sure your current software license allows another user. It's becomes stressful that
we find it difficult to go to sleep on company’s huge pile of money every night.

Soon, there may be an alternative for executives . Instead of installing a suite of software for each
computer, we have only have to load one application. That application would allow workers to log
into a Web-based service which hosts all the programs the user would need for his or her job.
Remote machines owned by another company would run everything from e-mail to word processing
to complex data analysis programs. It's called cloud computing, and it could change the entire
computer industry.

IV CHARACTERISTICS

 Agility improves with users' ability to re-provision technological infrastructure resources.

 Virtualization technology allows servers and storage devices to be shared and utilization be
increased. Applications can be easily migrated from one physical server to another.

 Reliability is improved if multiple redundant sites are used, which makes well-designed cloud
computing suitable for business continuity and disaster recovery.
 Performance is monitored, and consistent and loosely coupled architectures are constructed
using web services as the system interface.

 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.