Name :- Subhash Ramaswamy

Roll No. 10
(New Sies)
Topic :- Cloud Computing & Web
Services

Case study:- Cloud Computing & Web

Services
What is Cloud Computing?
Cloud Computing is a general term used to describe a new class
of network based computing that takes place over the Internet,
basically a step on from Utility Computing
a collection/group of integrated and networked hardware,
software and Internet infrastructure (called a platform).
Using the Internet for communication and transport provides
hardware, software and networking services to clients
These platforms hide the complexity and details of the underlying
infrastructure from users and applications by providing very
simple graphical interface or API (Applications Programming
Interface).
Cloud Summary
Cloud computing is an umbrella term used to refer to Internet
based development and services
A number of characteristics define cloud data, applications
services and infrastructure:
Remotely hosted: Services or data are hosted on remote
infrastructure.
Ubiquitous: Services or data are available from anywhere.

Abstract
Cloud computing technology has been a new buzzword in the IT
industry and expecting a new horizon for coming world. It is a style of
computing which is having dynamically scalable virtualized resources
provided as a service over the Internet. It reduces the time required to
procure heavy resources and boot new server instances in
minutes, allowing one to quickly scale capacity, both up and down, as
ones requirement changes. Nevertheless the technology is hot in the
market and is ready to cater to the small and medium business
segment. As per one of the estimates from Gartner, by year 2012, 20%
of enterprise market e-mail seats will be delivered via Cloud. As per
another estimate from Gartner, Software as a Service is forecast to
have a compound annual growth rate of 17% through 2011 for CRM,
ERP and SCM markets in SMB segment. While the enterprises are
exploring the possibilities of adopting this technology, it is imperative
for these enterprises to critically evaluate the feasibility of this
technology for their specific businesses.
The typical characteristic of this technology:
Cloud computing customers do not generally own the physical
infrastructure serving as host to the software platform in question.
Instead, they avoid capital expenditure by renting usage from a thirdparty provider. The entire onus lies on the service provider who owns
the huge scalable and variable host of infrastructure, software and
bundle of other services. Cloud computing consumers consume
resources as a service and pay only for resources that they use. Many
cloud-computing offerings employ the utility computing model, which
is analogous to how traditional utility services (such as electricity) are
consumed, while others bill on a subscription basis. Sharing
"perishable and intangible" computing power among multiple tenants
can improve utilization rates, as servers are not unnecessarily left idle
(which can reduce costs significantly while increasing the speed of

application development).
This article provides brief details about the cloud computing with an
overview of key features to give a glimpse about the new focused
technology.
Look up on few facts:
Cloud computing is emerging at the convergence of three major
trends service orientation, virtualization and standardization of
computing through the Internet. Cloud computing enables users and
developers to utilize services without knowledge of, expertise with, nor
control over the technology infrastructure that supports them. The
concept generally incorporates combinations of the following:
Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) Platform as a service (PaaS)
Software as a service (SaaS)
Users avoid capital expenditure (CapEx) on hardware, software, and
services when they pay a provider only for what they use.
Consumption is billed on a utility (e.g. resources consumed, like
electricity) or subscription (e.g. time based, like a newspaper) basis
with little or no upfront cost.
Cloud Vendors
There are many companies who are into the market offering various
ranges of services on Cloud Computing. The major players are
Vmware, Sun Microsystems, Rackspace US, IBM, Amazon, Google,
Microsoft, and Yahoo. Cloud services are also being adopted by
individual users through large enterprises including Vmware, General
Electric, and Procter & Gamble. The vendor hosts and manages the
infrastructure required with the respective technology.
Cloud as a Service to Customer

The cloud computing that are evolving as a service in the cloud are
being provided by big enterprises with a heavy investment with
resource and technology which are accessed by others via the internet.
The resources are accessed in this manner as a service often on a
subscription basis. The users of the services being offered often have
very little knowledge of the technology being used. The users also
have no control over the infrastructure that supports the technology
they are using.
There are six different forms that have been consolidated so far to
understand how the services are being provided to the customers:
1. SaaS
This types of cloud computing delivers a single application through the
browser to thousands of customers using a multitenant architecture. On
the customer side, it means no upfront investment in servers or
software licensing; on the provider side, with just one app to maintain,
costs are low compared to conventional hosting. SaaS is also common
for HR apps and has even worked its way up the food chain to ERP,
with players such as Workday. And some who could have predicted the
sudden rise of SaaS desktop applications, such as Google Apps and
Zoho Office
2. Utility computing
The idea is not new, but this form of cloud computing is getting
new life from Amazon.com, Sun, IBM, and others who now offer
storage and virtual servers that IT can access on demand. Early
enterprise adopters mainly use utility computing for supplemental,
non-mission-critical needs, but one day, they may replace parts of the
datacenter. Other providers offer solutions that help IT create
virtual datacenters from
commodity
servers,
such
as
3Tera's AppLogic
and
Cohesive
Flexible Technologies Elastic Server on Demand. Liquid

Computing's LiquidQ offers similar capabilities, enabling IT to stitch

together memory, I/O, storage, and computational capacity as a
virtualized resource pool available over the network.
3. Web services in the cloud closely related to SaaS
Web service providers offer APIs that enable developers to exploit
functionality over the Internet, rather than delivering full-blown
applications. They range from providers offering discrete business
services -- such as Strike Iron and Xignite -- to the full range of APIs
offered by Google Maps, ADP payroll processing, the U.S. Postal
Service, Bloomberg, and even conventional credit card processing
services.
4. Platform as a service Another SaaS variation
This type of cloud computing deliver development environments as a
service. You build your own applications that run on the
provider's infrastructure and are delivered to your users via the
Internet from the provider's servers. Like Legos, these services are
constrained by the vendor's design and capabilities, so you don't get
complete freedom, but you do get predictability and pre-integration.
Prime examples include Coghead and the new Google App Engine.
For extremely lightweight development, cloud-based abound, such as
Yahoo Pipes or Dapper.net.
5. MSP (managed service providers)
One of the oldest forms of cloud computing, a managed service is
basically an application exposed to IT rather than to end-users, such
as a virus scanning service for e-mail or an application monitoring
service (which Mercury, among others, provides). Managed security
services delivered by Secure Works, IBM, and Verizon fall into this
category, as do such cloud-based anti-spam services as Postini,
recently acquired by Google. Other offerings include desktop
management services, such as those offered by Center Beam or Ever

dream.
6. Service commerce platforms
A hybrid of SaaS and MSP, this cloud computing service offers a
service hub that users interact with. They're most common in trading
environments, such as expense management systems that allow users
to order travel or secretarial services from a common platform that
then coordinates the service delivery and pricing within the
specifications set by the user. Think of it as an automated service
bureau. Well- known examples include Rearden Commerce and Ariba.
Benefit of Cloud Computing
There is a lot of benefit for the business looking for the service from
the cloud service provider. Apart from the bundle of suits they have
to offer, it focus all an escape from huge investment into IT
infrastructure and operating cost.
Reduce Runtime and Response time
For applications that use the cloud essentially for running batch jobs,
cloud computing makes it straightforward to use 1000 servers to
accomplish a task in
1/1000 the time that a single server would require. The New York
Times example cited previously is the perfect example of what is
essentially a batch job whose run time was shortened considerably
using the cloud. For applications that need to offer good response
time to their customers, refactoring applications so that any CPUintensive tasks are farmed out to worker virtual machines can help to
optimize response time while scaling on demand to meet customer
demands. The Animoto application cited previously is a good example
of how the cloud can be used to scale applications and maintain quality
of service levels.

Minimize Infrastructure Risk

IT organizations can use the cloud to reduce the risk inherent in
purchasing physical servers. Will a new application be successful? If
so, how many servers are needed and can they be deployed as
quickly as the workload increases? If not, will a large investment in
servers go to waste? If the applications success is short-lived, will the
IT organization invest in a large amount of infrastructure that is idle
most of the time? When pushing an application out to the cloud,
scalability and the risk of purchasing too much or too little
infrastructure becomes the cloud providers issue. In a growing
number of cases, the cloud provider has such a massive amount of
infrastructure that it can absorb the growth and workload spikes of
individual customers, reducing the financial risk they face. Another
way in which cloud computing minimizes infrastructure risk is by
enabling surge computing, where an enterprise data center (perhaps
one that implements a private cloud) augments its ability to
handle workload spikes by a design that allows it to send overflow
work to a public cloud. Application lifecycle management can be
handled better in an environment where resources are no longer
scarce, and where resources can be better matched to immediate
needs, and at lower cost.
Lower cost of entry
Since the infrastructure is rented, not purchased, the cost is controlled,
and the capital investment can be zero. In addition to the lower costs
of purchasing compute cycles and storage by the sip, the massive
scale of cloud providers helps to minimize cost, helping to further
reduce the cost of entry.
Applications are developed more by assembly than programming. This
rapid application development is the norm, helping to reduce the time
to market, potentially giving organizations deploying applications in a
cloud environment a head start against the competition.

Increased pace of innovation

Cloud computing can help to increase the pace of innovation. The low
cost of entry to new markets helps to level the playing field,
allowing start-up companies to deploy new products quickly and at
low cost. This allows small companies to compete more effectively
with traditional organizations whose deployment process in enterprise
data centers can be significantly longer. Increased competition helps to
increase the pace of innovation and with many innovations
being realized through the use of open source software, the entire
industry serves to benefit from the increased pace of innovation that
cloud computing promotes.
Free from software licensing/up gradation/maintenance
Cloud computing frees up user from any further licensing of the
software or from up gradation and maintenance. All the services are
provided by the service providers. No longer having to worry about
constant server updates and other computing issues, government
organizations will be free to concentrate on innovation.
A mobile profile
Since all is accessible through internet, it will be accessible globally. It
will be too much beneficial for a small and medium sized enterprise
that is not willing to invest a lot in network setup and wish to free from
maintenance.
An interim evaluation for the Business
In cloud computing models, customers do not own the infrastructure
they are using; they basically rent it, or pay as they use it. The loss of
control is seen as a negative, but it is generally out-weighed by several
positives. One of the major selling points of cloud computing is lower
costs.
Companies will have lower technology-based capital
expenditures, which should enable companies to focus their money on

delivering the goods and services that they specialize in. Still there
are key features for consideration before one talk for the need of the
business. Since entire gamut of services is available in the market one
has to be very choosey and do lots of self evaluation before drawing a
final plan for the business.
1. In which stage of your business life cycle you are planning to
scale for the service of cloud computing?
2. What business line you need to support and how much is the
requirement os for your business.
3. How much cost effective it can be when you rent the services?
4. Which type of service is going to be beneficial for you?
5. What is the organization preferred technology, development
platform and business that require for this type of service?
6. Is your organization having the capabilities to handle these
services, as these services needs lot of competency to handle it
as there are lots of mechanism with different layers of service
present in them.
7. How much risk is associated with the data dependency when
it is a kept in others infrastructure?
8. How much performance and bandwidth is required to use this
type of service
with comparison to the current business needs? Is the company
able to cope it up with the existing bandwidth to its business
needs?
There is no limit for the evaluation, and consideration should be made
with respect to the current business in one is, with respect to the
multiple factors with responsiveness towards stake holders and business
needs, financial goals, investment capabilities, profitability, future
planning, industrial growth, service providers offerings etc. One can
only earn the advantage through the new technology only if they are
able to do a correct feasibility study to mitigate the business need.
Disadvantage
As any technology is a boon for an evaluation as the history is
evidence, there are disadvantages too which cannot be ignored.

Despite a fact cloud computing has so many features which can be

awaiting a new horizon there are also key factors which cannot be
ignored. Few have been summed up below:
Lack of connectivity causes 100% downtime, whereas with
traditional applications, lack of connectivity allows for some
local function to continue until connectivity is restored.
The lack of industry-wide standards means that a usage surge can
easily overwhelm capacity without the ability to push that
usage to another provider.
Companies providing computing services will over-sell these
services similar to how bandwidth is over-sold based on average
or "peak" usage, instead of "maximum" usage. ISP's typically
operate at multiples of 5 to 1, where they sell
5 times more than they have in capacity, assuming users will
not use more than 20% of their allotted resources. This works,
until there is a popular YouTube video that everyone wants to see
at the same time.... resulting in outages. Cloud computing is even
more vulnerable to the peak-usage problem than internet
bandwidth.
"Denial of service" attacks, currently common, become easier.
What's more they become harder to trace, as compromised
"cloud resources" can be leveraged to launch the attacks, rather
than compromised "individual pc's". Cloud computing is
vulnerable to massive security exploits. Currently, when a
system is broken into, only the resources of that system are
compromised. With cloud computing, the damages caused by a
security breach are multiplied exponentially.
By "centralising" services, cloud computing increases the
likelihood that a systems failure becomes "catastrophic", rather
than "isolated".
No political approach has been made till date to control the
uncontrolled factors to bring the service under the boundary
lines of trust and owner ship, as these services are beyond
country lines.

Conclusion
The key motive to publish this paper is to give a glimpse of
understanding on cloud computing as a technology for a new era. Its
potential is considered so vast that it is surely going to give up a new
dimension for the generation to come. So, in the long run, most of the
companies (large, mid size or small) do not want to have the
overhead cost associated with running a large IT department that is
solely involved in sustaining existing enterprise application. Large
companies do not have the risk tolerance to start using cloud
computing immediately. Most CEOs and top IT Executives in large
organizations will wait for the technology to mature before
putting even the most non-essential applications on someone elses
servers. It gives a new aspect to do a business without owing so
much. The concept is so new that work is still going on to cater the
world with the best way for the companies having a technology
appetite. There is a big push for cloud computing services by several
big companies. Amazon.com has been at the forefront of the cloud
computing movement. Google and Microsoft have also been very
publicly working on cloud computing offerings. Some of the other
companies to watch for in this field are Yahoo!, IBM, Intel, HP and
SAP. Several large universities have also been busy with large scale
cloud computing research projects. There is no end to the evolution
until one stops thinking. In the future, more cloud adoption is certain,
this year alone the move to the cloud by many business has been
phenomenal, so much so that some cloud business have grown by over
200%. Large vendors see this as the growing model for software and
services in the future so more focus by the vendors is afforded. Do not
be surprised if the cloud bursts with offerings over the next 24 months.