White Paper on Cloud Computing

WHITE PAPER
ON CLOUD
COMPUTING
CLOUD COMPUTING
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.

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Redefining the IT Business

Debashish Das

White Paper on Cloud Computing

TABLE OF CONTENT
What is Cloud Computing?................................................................................ 4
Cloud as a Service to Customer.......................................................................4
1. SaaS................................................................................................................. 4
2. Utility computing........................................................................................... 5
3. Web services in the cloud closely related to SaaS...................................5
4. Platform as a service Another SaaS variation........................................5
5. MSP (managed service providers)..............................................................5
6. Service commerce platforms........................................................................6
Benefit of Cloud Computing............................................................................. 6
Reduce Runtime and Response time...............................................................7
Minimise Infrastructure Risk............................................................................ 7
Lower cost of entry............................................................................................ 7
Increased pace of innovation...........................................................................8
A mobile profile................................................................................................... 8
An interim evaluation for the Business..........................................................8
Disadvantage.................................................................................................... 10
Conclusion............................................................................................................. 11
Acknowledgement............................................................................................... 12

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White Paper on Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing
New Cutting Edge to Business
The typical characteristic of this technology:

loud 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 third-party 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).
Proponents claim that cloud computing allows companies to avoid upfront infrastructure
costs, and focus on projects that differentiate their businesses instead of on infrastructure.
Proponents also claim that cloud computing allows enterprises to get their applications up
and running faster, with improved manageability and less maintenance, and enables IT to
more rapidly adjust resources to meet fluctuating and unpredictable business demand. Cloud
providers typically use a "pay as you go" model. This can lead to unexpectedly high charges if
administrators do not adapt to the cloud pricing model.
This article provides brief details about the cloud computing with an overview of
key features to give a glimpse about the new focused technology.

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White Paper on Cloud Computing

What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is emerging at the convergence of
three major trends service orientation, virtualization
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:

and

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
Vmware1, 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:

is a U.S. software company that provides cloud and virtualization software and services

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White Paper on Cloud Computing

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 Office2.

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 Xignite3 -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 preintegration. Prime examples include Coghead and the new Google App Engine.
2

web-based online office suite containing word processing

provides market data cloud solutions

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White Paper on Cloud Computing

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,

uch as a virus scanning service for e-mail or an application monitoring service

(which Mercury, among others, provides). Managed security services delivered
by SecureWorks, IBM, and Verizon fall into this category, as do such cloud-based
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White Paper on Cloud Computing

anti-spam services as Postini, recently acquired by Google. Other offerings
include desktop management services, such as those offered by CenterBeam or
Everdream.

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 CPU- intensive 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.

MINIMISE 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 fi nancial risk
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White Paper on Cloud Computing

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
gradation/maintenance

licensing/up

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.

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.

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White Paper on Cloud Computing

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 gamut4 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?
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?

2.

the complete range or scope of something

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White Paper on Cloud Computing

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.
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White Paper on Cloud Computing

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
appetite5. 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.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
My special thanks to Nitin Joshi for initiating me to come up with this document
and my dearest friend Sudipa Sarkar Astt. Mgr Technical writing for her review
comments.

Key Reference
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/
http://www.gartner.com/
http://www.google.com/support/forum/
http://web2.sys-con.com/
http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/
http://www.sun.com/cloud/
http://microsoft.com/
http://www.wikipedia.org/

the desire to eat food

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