a beautiful sunrise, chilling sunset,unique purple shrubs, and exciting round green roads at Chail(Himachal)

CLOUD    COMPUTING

Are you tired of downloading applications from internet and then installing them on your computer and then using

it… what if you can directly run that application on internet?? Apart from saving time you can also use the

application sitting anywhere in the world, resuming your work on it..!! Well that sounds great isn’t it!! Want to know

more about cloud, read this 10 minute article to quickly switch to cloud.

Cloud computing is a subscription based service where you can use network storage space and resources. A daily life example is our email services i.e. You don’t have to download the contents of email to read it, you can read it there itself and even compose new emails; but the most imp. part of the equation is you must have internet access while using it.

As per the NIST, USA the cloud computing model have 5 essential characteristics, 3 service models and 4 deployment models. Lets have a quick look at each of these.

Essential Characteristics:

1.   On-Demand Self Service – A consumer can unilaterally provision computing capabilities such server time and network storage, as needed automatically without requiring human interaction with each service provider. It means to say that you don’t have to call the service provider and ask him 5GBs of data, you just have to just specify your requirements online, and its done. Some applications are free of cost but some are paid(adobe ,converting pdf to word and vice versa).

2.   Broad Network Access - which states you can operate the cloud services on any thin or thick client

platforms which include your desktop, laptop, mobile phones, tablets etc.

3.   Resource Pooling - The service provider’s computing resources are pooled to serve multiple consumers

using a multitenant 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 over or have knowledge about the exact location of the provided resources. Eg. of resources include memory, processing and network bandwidth.

4.   Rapid Elasticity – capabilities can be elastically provisioned and released.

5.   Measured Services – Cloud services automatically controlled and measured ie how much the resources you had subscribed for have been used  and how much is left for further use.

Service Models: Though there are more than 15 service models these days like daas, dbaas, etc but I am    discussing only the main 3 models which have given birth to the others.

1.  SAAS – Software as a service

Eg. google docs, acrobat.com,salesforce.com etc

Here the consumer is to use the provider’s applications on the cloud and he can’t manipulate the underlying cloud

infrastructure including network, servers, operating systems,etc.

2. PAAS – Platform as a service

Eg. Azure Platform( Microsoft’s cloud based operating system), Google app engine, Force.com, etc.

Here the consumer can deploy his own applications on cloud using the programming languages, libraries, services and tools provided by the service provider. He has control over only the application he has built on the cloud but like in SAAS he can’t manipulate the underlying cloud infrastructure including network, servers, operating systems, etc.

3. IAAS – Infrastructure as a service

Eg. Amazon web services, GoGrid, etc.

Here the consumer can run arbitrary software even operating systems and other applications. He can’t manipulate the underlying cloud infrastructure but he can definitely control over operating systems, storage and deployed applications.

Coming to the last part of the article, there are 4 deployment models namely the Private, public, community and hybrid cloud.

Private cloud – means exclusively for an organization comprising multiple users. It may be owned, managed and operated by the organization or third party or combination of them. It may exist on or off premises(since its on cloud).

Community Cloud – When 2 or more organizations having similar cloud requirements share the cloud services.As in private cloud, here too the cloud service can exist on or off premises.

Public Cloud – For public use  and it exists on the premises of the cloud provider.

Hybrid Cloud- Composition of 2 or more cloud infrastructures.

Its time to check out the applications of cloud computing, try azure platform to njoy the exclusive cloud services from Microsoft. Many of us already use acrobat.com  in offices and home to convert documents to pdf  and vice versa(especially when uploading id card, transcripts, resumes, CVs on various company’s site applying for jobs). Amazon web services are generally for business applications for high data(petabytes or so) and processing, as their clouds services are quite costly out of reach of an individual.