Cloud Computing Unit 1

Unit 1 Introduction to Cloud Computing

Structure:
1.1 Introduction
Objectives
1.2 From Collaborative to Cloud – A Short History
1.3 Functioning of Cloud Computing
1.4 Cloud Architecture
1.5 Cloud Storage and Cloud Services
1.6 Industrial Applications
1.7 Summary
1.8 Terminal Questions
1.9 Answers

1.1 Introduction
The Cloud in terms of computer networks and its associated technology
supports delivering resources such as computing and storage to customers
on demand. Rather than being a new technology in itself, the cloud is a new
business model wrapped around new technologies such as server
virtualization that take advantage of economies of scale and multi-tenancy
to reduce the cost of using information technology resources.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an agency of
the US Department of Commerce is America’s first federal physical science
research laboratory, responsible for defining standards in science and
technology. NIST defines cloud computing as, “ ……. 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.” This NIST
definition lists five fundamental and important characteristics of cloud
computing, such as:
• On-demand self-service
• Broad network access
• Resource pooling
• Rapid elasticity or expansion
• Measured service

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Objectives:
After studying this unit, you should be able to:
• discuss the history about the collaborative to cloud
• explain the functions of cloud computing
• understand the design cloud architecture
• discuss the cloud storage and cloud services
• list and explain the industrial application

1.2 From Collaborative to Cloud – A Short History

Cloud computing has the background with the combination of both
client/server computing and peer-to-peer distributed computing. Here the
concept lies on how multiple computers and collaboration of centralized
storage work hand in hand to escalate the computing power. Cloud
computing is a natural evolution of the extensive adoption of virtualization,
service-oriented architecture, autonomic and utility computing. The various
phases of computing evolution process are illustrated in Figure 1.1. Each
phase had a specific functional advantage and was passed to the later
phase.

Figure 1.1: Evolution of cloud computing

Client/Server Computing: Centralized Applications and Storage

During the period of 1980, technologies were used for computation based
on client/server model. Software applications with its control and the data
resided in the mainframe computers called server. In this scenario when the
user wanted to access or run any program first, he need to get the access
permission from mainframe server to access his data or any other
application. The system through which the user connected to the server to
access the data is called as computer terminal or workstation. These
terminals are sometimes called as dump terminal since it does not have

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memory, storage space or processing power. It was merely a device that
helps the user to connect and enable him to use the mainframe computer.
Users can access the server only after getting permission from the
information technology staff, since they are considered as the guardians of
the process power. Comparatively there was a less power, so getting
permission to access the server is not so easy as well, and moreover no two
users can access the data at the same time.
Apart from all these, customization of a report was a challenging job,
because you will be restricted to use the power given by the IT staff and you
cannot either filter your data or copy some other data to generate a report
what you really require. The reason behind this is even though the
mainframe is huge in size and more powerful, the users those who want to
get service are in large number and they have to wait in a queue to get their
turn. There isn’t always immediate access in a client/server environment,
and occasionally there may be an immediate fulfillment. While providing
centralized storage client/server model it is differ from cloud computing and
does not have a user-centric focus. In client/server computing all the control
rests with the mainframe and with the guardians of that single computer. So
it cannot be considered as user-enabling environment.
Peer-to-Peer Computing: Sharing Resources
We can say now, as per the discussion above that it is a time consuming
process to access a client/server system. Even the server side faces the
problem to serve for the cumbersome queue. The reason is, in spite of
efficiency of the server all the communication should cross through the
server. This obvious need forced the system to create the connectivity
between the computers without hitting the server first for the development
of P2P (peer-to-peer) computing. In P2P architecture, all the computers
those are connected have the equal resources and capabilities. Where as in
case of client/server architecture all the computers connected is dedicated
to the server. This scenario sometimes can be referred as master slave
architecture where server is the master and the other dedicated systems are
called as slaves. In P2P every computer has the role of client and server
and there is no role for master and slave. All the computers in the P2P will
be recognized as peers and have direct access with the services and
resources. Since every computer is having the capability to interact with
each other there is no role for server thus the process becomes easy. P2P
can be considered as decentralized since contents, functions and controls
are spread across the peer computers in the network.
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No centralized server is assigned to host the available resources and
services. The most notable implementation of P2P computing is the Internet.
The early internet based on P2P was the best representative for the use of
the Usenet net-work. The network of computers which was accessed via
internet created back in the year 1979, hosted the entire content of the
network. User who is connected to any single Usenet server can view all the
messages posted to each individual user. Although the users’ connection to
the Usenet server was of the traditional client/server nature, the relationship
between the Usenet servers was definitely P2P and presaged the cloud
computing of today.
That said, not every part of the Internet is P2P in nature. With the
development of the World Wide Web came a shift away from P2P back to
the client/server model. On the web, each website is served up by a group
of computers, and sites’ visitors use client software (web browsers) to
access it. Almost all content is centralized, all control is centralized, and the
clients have no autonomy or control in the process.
Distributed Computing: Providing more computing power
One of the most important subsets of the P2P model is that of distributed
computing, where idle PCs across a network or across the Internet are
tapped to provide computing power for large, processor-intensive projects.
It’s a simple concept, all about cycle sharing between multiple computers.
A personal computer, running full-out 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, is
capable of tremendous computing power. Most of us will not use the
computer for a complete day; in such cases the concept of distributed
computing try to utilize the idle computer thus avoiding wastage of
resources.
When a computer is enlisted for a distributed computing project, software is
installed on the machine to run various processing activities during those
periods when the PC is typically unused. The results of that spare-time
processing are periodically uploaded to the distributed computing network,
and combined with similar results from other PCs in the project. The result,
if enough computers are involved, simulates the processing power of much
larger main-frames and supercomputers – which is necessary for some very
large and complex computing projects.
For example, genetic research requires enormous amounts of computing
power. If you take a traditional means, it might take years to solve essential
mathematical problems. By connecting together thousands (or millions) of
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individual PCs, more power is applied to the problem, and the results are
obtained much sooner. Distributed computing dates back to 1973, when
multiple computers were networked together at the Xerox PARC labs and
worm software was developed to cruise through the network looking for idle
resources. A more practical application of distributed computing appeared in
1988, when researchers at the DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation)
System Research Center developed software that distributed the work to
factor large numbers among workstations within their laboratory. By 1990, a
group of about 100 users, utilizing this software, had factored a 100-digit
number. By 1995, this same effort had been expanded to the web to factor a
130-digit number.
The first major Internet based distributed computing project was
distributed.net, launched in1997, which employed thousands of personal
computers to crack encryption codes. Even bigger was SETI@home,
launched in May 1999, which linked together millions of individual
computers to search for intelligent life in outer space. Many distributed
computing projects are conducted within large enterprises, using traditional
network connections to form the distributed computing network. Other,
larger projects utilize the computers of everyday Internet users, with the
computing typically taking place offline, and then uploaded once a day via
traditional consumer Internet connections.

Collaborative Computing: Working as a group

From the early days of client/server computing through the evolution of P2P,
there has been a desire for multiple users to work simultaneously on the
same computer based project. This type of collaborative computing is the
driving force behind cloud computing, but has been around for more than a
decade. Early group collaboration was enabled by the combination of
several different P2P technologies. The goal was to enable multiple users
to collaboration group projects online, in real time. To collaborate on any
project, users must first be able to communicate one another. In today’s
environment, this means instant messaging for text-based communication,
with optional audio/telephony and video capabilities for voice and picture
communication. Most collaboration systems offer the complete range of
audio/video options, for full-featured multiple-user video conferencing. In
addition, users must be able to share files and have multiple users work on
the same document simultaneously. Real-time white boarding is also
common, especially in corporate and education environments.

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Early group collaboration systems ranged from the relatively simple (Lotus
Notes and Microsoft NetMeeting) to the extremely complex (the building-
block architecture of the Groove Networks system). Most were targeted at
large corporations, and limited to operation over the companies’ private
networks.

Cloud Computing: The next step in collaboration

With the growth of the Internet, there was no need to limit group
collaboration to a single enterprise’s network environment. Users from
multiple locations within a corporation, and from multiple organizations,
desired to collaborate on projects that crossed company and geographic
boundaries. To do this, projects had to be housed in the “cloud” of the
Internet, and accessed from any Internet-enabled location. The concept of
cloud-based documents and services took wing with the development of
large server farms, such as those run by Google and other search
companies. Google already had a collection of servers that it used to power
its massive search engine; why not use that same computing power to drive
a collection of web-based applications and, in the process, provide a new
level of Internet-based group collaboration? That’s exactly what happened,
although Google wasn’t the only company offering cloud computing
solutions. On the infrastructure side, IBM, Sun Systems, and other big
hardware providers are offering the hardware necessary to build cloud
networks. On the software side, dozens of companies are developing cloud-
based applications and storage services. Today, people are using cloud
services and storage to create, share, find, and organize information of all
different types. Tomorrow, this functionality will be available not only to
computer users, but to users of any device that connects to the Internet —
mobile phones, portable music players, even automobiles and home
television sets One of the most important subsets of the P2P model is that
of distributed computing, where idle PCs across a network or across the
Internet are tapped to provide computing power for large, processor-
intensive projects. It’s a simple concept, all about cycle sharing between
multiple computers.
Self Assessment Questions
1. Software applications with its control and the data resided in the
mainframe computers called ____________________.
2. In P2P architecture all the computers those are connected have the
equal resources and capabilities [True/False]

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3. The first major Internet based distributed computing project
was___________________ , launched in1997.
4. Name the computing which was considered as driving force behind
cloud computing.
a. Peer to peer
b. Collaborative
c. Distributed
d. Client/server

1.3 Functioning of Cloud Computing

Before even getting deep into the cloud computing technology, it is
important to understand the key element “cloud” which represents
computers which are organized in the form of a network which fulfill the
purpose of service oriented architecture to give out information and software.
Basically the cloud computing technology is set apart from the traditional
method because the resources from computers are arranged in such a
manner that the applications can function irrespective of the server
configuration which uses them.
This methodology makes less use of the resources degrading the necessity
of using hardware for working of the applications. Cloud in cloud computing
technology takes up the idea of using internet to run software on any
individual’s computer. These days internet seems to be a hub of everything
therefore everyone prefers to use software which is entirely based on the
web and can also work on this software using a simple web browser.
To understand the cloud computing technology, think of cloud so that it will
have layers inside divided into two parts: back end and front end. Front end
layer consists of everything visible to a normal human who is using the
technology and also gets an opportunity to interact with it. Back end
consists of both hardware and software required to make the front end
interface functioning properly.
The set of computers in the cloud computing technology are put together so
that any applications can take any resource it wishes to take and also use
up the complete power as it usually does if it functions on one single
machine. Cloud computing also provides scope for flexibility that is the
number of resources being consumed can vary depending on the task at
hand, which means that the resources can either decrease or increase
according to the job.

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Trends have been changing rapidly, the number of people using this cloud
computing methods have only seen to be increasing without any questions
of halting. Though it is a good thing to know, however it has its own set of
risks of which the most primary one is that if for any reason the internet is
down, access to data over other system will be tampered therefore stopping
the work at least for some time. It might even disappear for longer durations
if the internet bill is not paid at specified time.

1.4 Cloud Architecture

The key to cloud computing is the “cloud” a massive network of servers or
even individual PCs interconnected in a grid. These computers run in
parallel, combining the resources of each to generate supercomputing like
power. What, exactly, is the “cloud”? Put simply, the cloud is a collection of
computers and servers that are publicly accessible via the Internet. This
hardware is typically owned and operated by a third party on a consolidated
basis in one or more data center locations. The machines can run any
combination of operating systems; it’s the processing power of the
machines that matter, not what their desktops look like. As shown in Figure
1.2, individual users connect to the cloud from their own personal computers
or portable devices, over the Internet. To these individual users, the cloud is
seen as a single application, device, or document. The hard-ware in the
cloud (and the operating system that manages the hardware connections) is
invisible.

Figure: 1.2: cloud architecture

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This cloud architecture is deceptively simple, although it does require some
intelligent management to connect all those computers together and assign
task processing to multitudes of users. As you can see in Figure 1.3, it all
starts with the front-end interface seen by individual users. This is how
users select a task or service (either starting an application or opening a
document). The user’s request then gets passed to the system
management, which finds the correct resources and then calls the system’s
appropriate provisioning services. These services carve out the necessary
resources in the cloud, launch the appropriate web application and either
creates or opens the requested document. After the web application is
launched, the system’s monitoring and metering functions track the usage of
the cloud so that resources are apportioned and attributed to the proper
user(s).

Figure: 1.3: Process in cloud management

As you can see, key to the notion of cloud computing is the automation of
many management tasks. The system isn’t a cloud if it requires human
management to allocate processes to resources. What you have in this
instance is merely a twenty-first-century version of old-fashioned data
center–based client/server computing. For the system to attain cloud status,
manual management must be replaced by automated processes.

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Self Assessment Questions
5. ______________ in cloud computing technology takes up the idea of
using internet to run software on any individual’s computer.
6. Key to cloud computing is a massive network of servers or even
individual PCs interconnected in a grid [True/False]
7. Name the component through which the cloud user interacts.

1.5 Cloud Storage and cloud services

Cloud storage is a model of networked online storage where data is stored
in virtualized pools of storage which are generally hosted by third parties
Any web-based application or service offered via cloud computing is called
cloud service.
Cloud storage
Cloud storage is a system of networked machine aggregation hardware
where information is stored on multiple virtual servers, rather than being
hosted on a single hard server. Hosting companies operate huge server
hubs with backup and data protection systems; and people who use the
service.
One of the primary uses of cloud computing is for data storage. With cloud
storage, data is stored on multiple third-party servers, rather than on the
dedicated servers used in traditional networked data storage. When storing
data, the user sees a virtual server, that is, it appears as if the data is stored
in a particular place with a specific name. But that place doesn’t exist in
reality. It’s just an assumed name used to reference virtual space carved out
of the cloud. In reality, the user’s data could be stored on any one or more
of the computers used to create the cloud. The actual storage location may
even differ from day to day or even minute to minute, as the cloud
dynamically manages available storage space. But even though the location
is virtual, the user sees a “static” location for his data and can actually
manage his storage space as if it were connected to his own PC. Cloud
storage has both financial and security-associated advantages. Financially,
virtual resources in the cloud are typically cheaper than dedicated physical
resources connected to a personal computer or network. As for security,
data stored in the cloud is secure from accidental erasure or hardware
crashes, because it is duplicated across multiple physical machines; since
multiple copies of the data are kept continually, the cloud continues to
function as normal even if one or more machines go offline. If one machine
crashes, the data is duplicated on other machines in the cloud.
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Cloud service
Cloud computing is a general term for anything that involves delivering
hosted services over the Internet. These services are broadly divided into
three categories:
• Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
• Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)
• Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).
The name cloud computing was inspired by the cloud symbol that's often
used to represent the Internet in flowcharts and diagrams.
A cloud service has three distinct characteristics that differentiate it from
traditional hosting. It is sold on demand, “typically by the minute or the hour;
it is elastic – a user can have as much or as little of a service as they want
at any given time;” and the service is fully managed by the provider (the
consumer needs nothing but a personal computer and an Internet access).
Significant innovations in virtualization and distributed computing, as well as
improved access to high-speed Internet and a weak economy, have
accelerated interest in cloud computing.
A cloud can be private or public. A public cloud sells services to anyone on
the Internet. (Currently, Amazon Web Services is the largest public cloud
provider.) A private cloud is a proprietary network or a data center that
supplies hosted services to a limited number of people. When a service
provider uses public cloud resources to create their private cloud, the result
is called a virtual private cloud. Private or public, the goal of cloud
computing is to provide easy, scalable access to computing resources and
IT services.
Infrastructure-as-a-Service like Amazon Web Services provides virtual
server instance API (Application programming interface) to start, stop,
access and configure their virtual servers and storage. In the enterprise,
cloud computing allows a company to pay for only as much capacity as is
needed, and bring more online as soon as required. Because this pay-for-
what-you-use model resembles the way electricity, fuel and water are
consumed, it's sometimes referred to as utility computing.
Platform-as-a-service in the cloud computing is defined as a set of
software and product development tools hosted on the provider's
infrastructure. Developers create applications on the provider's platform
over the Internet. PaaS providers may use APIs, website portals or gateway

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software installed on the customer's computer. Force.com, (an outgrowth of
Salesforce.com) and GoogleApps are examples of PaaS. Developers need
to know that currently there are not standards for interoperability or data
portability in the cloud. Some providers will not allow software created by
their customers to be moved off the provider's platform.
In software-as-a-service cloud model, the vendor supplies the hardware
infrastructure, the software product and interacts with the user through a
front-end portal. SaaS is a very broad market. Services can be anything
from Web-based email to inventory control and database processing.
Because the service provider hosts both the application and the data, the
end user is free to use the service from anywhere.

1.6 Industrial Applications

The cloud computing industry has seen a rapid rise in the number of
vendors, with each vendor trying to get the first mover advantage. In Figure
1.4, some example of vendors and users are provided for various cloud
services, i.e, IaaS, PaaS and SaaS.

Figure 1.4: Responsibilities of vendor and user for different types of services

salesforce: One of the most popular cloud computing SaaS application is

salesforce CRM. This was one of the first software with multitenant platform
that charged based on usage instead of buying the software, deploying and
maintaining the same. You access the software over the Internet.

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Google Apps: Google Apps is a suite of cloud computing SaaS
applications that includes e-mail (Gmail), Organizer (Google Calendar),
Word Processing documents (Google Docs) and others. Figure 1.5
illustrates the various components of Google Apps. It has a free edition with
few applications and other editions with lot more functionality. Google’s
Web-based messaging and collaboration apps require no server side
hardware or software and need minimal administration, creating tremendous
time and cost savings for businesses.

Figure 1.5: Components of Google Apps

Office 365: Office 365 is the familiar Microsoft Office now available on cloud
as SaaS. It is now available as a per-user per-month subscription. You do
not need to install the software on your PC. You just need a web browser to
access the service. Figure 1.6 illustrates the various components of Office
365.

Figure 1.6: Components of Office 365

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Zoho: One of the leading companies which was started in India that has
cloud based SaaS is Zoho. It has applications similar to the ones offered by
salesforce, Office 365 and Google Apps. Figure 1.7 illustrates the various
components which the Zoho supports.

Figure 1.7: Components of Zoho

Force.com: Force.com is PaaS offering from salesforce.com. It is a

platform for creating and deploying applications for the social enterprises.
Because there are no servers or software to buy or manage, you can focus
solely on building applications that include built-in social and mobile
functionality, business processes, reporting and search. Your applications
run on a secure, proven service of salesforce.com that scales, tunes and
backs up data automatically.
Windows Azure iPlatform: Windows Azure iPlatform is a cloud platform
(PaaS) that enables you to quickly build, deploy and manage Windows
applications across a global network of Microsoft managed datacenters.
Google App Engine: Google App Engine is a PaaS cloud computing
platform used for developing and hosting web applications in Google
managed datacenters.
Dropbox: Dropbox is an IaaS that provides Web-based file hosting service.
It uses cloud storage to enable users to store and share files and folders
with others across the Internet using file synchronization.
sify mystorage: sify mystorage is a IaaS and provides a cloud-based
online storage and backup solution.
Amazon Web Services: Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a collection of
remote computing services (also called web services) that together make up
a cloud computing IaaS platform, offered over the Internet by Amazon.com.
The most central and well-known of these services are Amazon EC2 for
resizable compute capacity and Amazon S3 Cloud Storage.
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Netmagic SimpliCloud: Netmagic SimpliCloud is an IaaS Cloud
Computing Platform that features instant online provisioning of virtual
machines and virtual appliances. It also features ‘Elastic’ plans where
customers can pay for their cloud infrastructure by the hour, thereby availing
of true ‘Pay-As-You-Use’ and ‘On-Demand’ infrastructure.
Traditional companies like Oracle and SAP sold software as licenses with
Annual Maintenance Contract. The cloud companies on the other hand
have a subscription model where customers pay based on usage. This
allows companies to try new applications at a very low cost and when they
are comfortable, move all users to use the service. Cloud computing
technology implies the fundamental challenges of how IT operations are
managed and therefore, business as a whole. The traditional companies
such as SAP, Oracle, Microsoft and Google are now trying to get big piece
of data in the cloud.
Self Assessment Questions
8. In cloud storage, data is stored on multiple ____________________.
9. Name the three broad categories of cloud services.
10. Name the first software with multitenant platform that charged based
on usage instead of buying the software.
11. _______________ is the familiar Microsoft Office now available on
cloud as SaaS
12. AWS stands for ________________________ .

1.7 Summary
• Cloud computing has its two precursors as client-server computing and
peer-to-peer distributed computing.
• The technology defines how centralized storage facilitates collaboration
and how multiple computers work jointly to enhance the computing power.
• The term ‘cloud’ is used as a metaphor for the Internet, based on the
cloud drawing used in the past to represent the telephone network and
later to depict the Internet in computer network diagrams as an
abstraction of the underlying infrastructure it represents. I
• In this unit we discussed the history and its evolution which consists of
different computing process like client server, peer to peer, distributed,
and collaborative and cloud computing. In this unit we also discussed the
functioning of cloud computing includes the architecture, storage,
services and cloud industrial applications.
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1.8 Terminal Questions
1. Discuss the history of progression from collaborative to cloud.
2. Describe the functioning of cloud computing.
3. Explain cloud architecture.
4. What are cloud services?
5. Explain the role of cloud computing in industrial application.

1.9 Answers
Self Assessment Questions
1. Server
2. True
3. distributed.net
4. b) collaborative
5. Cloud
6. True
7. User interface
8. third-party servers
9. SaaS, PaaS, IaaS
10. Salesforce
11. Office 365
12. Amazon Web Services.
Terminal Questions
1. We can say collaborative computing is the driving force to reach cloud
computing technology. (For more details refer section 1.2)
2. Fundamentally, the cloud computing technology is different as
compared to the traditional method because cloud computing is the
delivery of computing as a service rather than a product. (For more
details refer section 1.3)
3. The key to cloud computing is the “cloud” a massive network of
servers or even individual PCs interconnected in a grid. (For more
details refer section 1.4)
4. Different categories of cloud services are software as a Service (SaaS),
Platform as a Service (PaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). (For
more details refer section 1.5)
5. The cloud computing industry has seen a rapid rise in the number of
vendors, with each vendor trying to get the first mover advantage. (For
more details refer section 1.6)

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E-References:
• http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-145/SP800-145.pdf
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki
• http://www.wikinvest.com/concept/Cloud_Computing
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volunteer_computing
• http://www.discovercloud.karrox.com/2010/09/history-of-cloud-
computing/
• http://cloudcomputing.sys-con.com/node/1744132

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