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Unit 4 Cloud Computing

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What is “Cloud”?

“The cloud” refers to servers that are accessed over the Internet, and the software and databases that run on those servers. Cloud servers are located in data centers all over the world. 

Cloud Computing Definition:

Cloud computing is a means of providing computing services (including databases, servers, software, and networking) via the internet, allowing the user to bypass direct management of those systems. Cloud computing is a way to remotely store and access data and programs that utilize the internet rather than hosting information on your computer’s hard drive.

Features of Cloud Computing:

1. Resources Pooling

Resource pooling is one of the essential features of cloud computing. Resource pooling means that a cloud service provider can share resources among multiple clients, each providing a different set of services according to their needs. It is a multi-client strategy that can be applied to data storage, processing and bandwidth-delivered services. The administration process of allocating resources in real-time does not conflict with the client’s experience.

2. On-Demand Self-Service

It is one of the important and essential features of cloud computing. This enables the client to continuously monitor server uptime, capabilities and allocated network storage. This is a fundamental feature of cloud computing, and a customer can also control the computing capabilities according to their needs.

3. Easy Maintenance

This is one of the best cloud features. Servers are easily maintained, and downtime is minimal or sometimes zero. Cloud computing powered resources often undergo several updates to optimize their capabilities and potential. Updates are more viable with devices and perform faster than previous versions.

4. Scalability And Rapid Elasticity

A key feature and advantage of cloud computing is its rapid scalability. This cloud feature enables cost-effective handling of workloads that require a large number of servers but only for a short period. Many customers have workloads that can be run very cost-effectively due to the rapid scalability of cloud computing.

5. Economical

This cloud feature helps in reducing the IT expenditure of the organizations. In cloud computing, clients need to pay the administration for the space used by them. There is no cover-up or additional charges that need to be paid. Administration is economical, and more often than not, some space is allocated for free.

6. Measured And Reporting Service

Reporting Services is one of the many cloud features that make it the best choice for organisations. The measurement and reporting service is helpful for both cloud providers and their customers. This enables both the provider and the customer to monitor and report which services have been used and for what purposes. It helps in monitoring billing and ensuring optimum utilization of resources.

7. Security

Data security is one of the best features of cloud computing. Cloud services make a copy of the stored data to prevent any kind of data loss. If one server loses data by any chance, the copied version is restored from the other server. This feature comes in handy when multiple users are working on a particular file in real-time, and one file suddenly gets corrupted.

8. Automation

Automation is an essential feature of cloud computing. The ability of cloud computing to automatically install, configure and maintain a cloud service is known as automation in cloud computing. In simple words, it is the process of making the most of the technology and minimizing the manual effort. However, achieving automation in a cloud ecosystem is not that easy. This requires the installation and deployment of virtual machines, servers, and large storage. On successful deployment, these resources also require constant maintenance.

9. Resilience

Resilience in cloud computing means the ability of a service to quickly recover from any disruption. The resilience of a cloud is measured by how fast its servers, databases and network systems restart and recover from any loss or damage. Availability is another key feature of cloud computing. Since cloud services can be accessed remotely, there are no geographic restrictions or limits on the use of cloud resources.

10. Large Network Access

A big part of the cloud’s characteristics is its ubiquity. The client can access cloud data or transfer data to the cloud from any location with a device and internet connection. These capabilities are available everywhere in the organization and are achieved with the help of the internet. Cloud providers deliver that large network access by monitoring and guaranteeing measurements that reflect how clients access cloud resources and data: latency, access times, data throughput, and more.

Cloud Computing Architecture:

Front End

The front end is used by the client. It contains client-side interfaces and applications that are required to access the cloud computing platforms. The front end includes web servers (including Chrome, Firefox, internet explorer, etc.), thin & fat clients, tablets, and mobile devices.

Back End

The back end is used by the service provider. It manages all the resources that are required to provide cloud computing services. It includes a huge amount of data storage, security mechanisms, virtual machines, deploying models, servers, traffic control mechanisms, etc.

Components of Cloud Computing Architecture

1. Client Infrastructure

Client Infrastructure is a Front end component. It provides GUI (Graphical User Interface)  to interact with the cloud.

2. Application

The application may be any software or platform that a client wants to access.

3. Service

A Cloud Services manages which type of service you access according to the client’s requirement.

Cloud computing offers the following three type of services: 

  • Software as a Service(SaaS)
  • Platform as a Service(PaaS)
  • Infrastructure as a Service(IaaS)

4. Runtime Cloud

Runtime Cloud provides the execution and runtime environment to the virtual machines.

5. Storage

Storage is one of the most important components of cloud computing. It provides a huge amount of storage capacity in the cloud to store and manage data.

6. Infrastructure

It provides services on the host level, application level, and network level. Cloud infrastructure includes hardware and software components such as servers, storage, network devices, virtualization software, and other storage resources that are needed to support the cloud computing model.

7. Management

Management is used to manage components such as application, service, runtime cloud, storage, infrastructure, and other security issues in the backend and establish coordination between them.

8. Security

Security is an in-built back end component of cloud computing. It implements a security mechanism in the back end.

9. Internet

The Internet is a medium through which front end and back end can interact and communicate with each other.

Types of Cloud

There are 4 types of Cloud :

  1. Public Cloud

Public cloud is open to all to store and access information via the Internet using the pay-per-usage method. In the public cloud, computing resources are managed and operated by the Cloud Service Provider (CSP).

  1. Private Cloud

A private cloud is also known as an internal cloud or corporate cloud. It is used by organizations to build and manage their own data centers internally or by the third party

  1. Hybrid Cloud

Hybrid Cloud is a combination of the public cloud and the private cloud. we can say:

Hybrid Cloud = Public Cloud + Private Cloud

Hybrid cloud is partially secure because the services which are running on the public cloud can be accessed by anyone, while the services which are running on a private cloud can be accessed only by the organization’s users.

  1. Community Cloud

Community cloud allows systems and services to be accessible by a group of several organizations to share the information between the organization and a specific community. It is owned, managed, and operated by one or more organizations in the community, a third party, or a combination of them.

Cloud Service Models:

There are the following three types of cloud service models –

  1. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

IaaS is also known as Hardware as a Service (HaaS). It is a computing infrastructure managed over the internet. The main advantage of using IaaS is that it helps users to avoid the cost and complexity of purchasing and managing the physical servers.

Characteristics of IaaS:

  • Resources are available as a service
  • Services are highly scalable
  • Dynamic and flexible
  • GUI and API-based access
  • Automated administrative tasks

Example: DigitalOcean, Linode, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Compute Engine (GCE), Rackspace, and Cisco Metacloud.

  1. Platform as a Service (PaaS)

PaaS cloud computing platform is created for the programmer to develop, test, run, and manage the applications.

Characteristics of PaaS:

  • Accessible to various users via the same development application.
  • Integrates with web services and databases.
  • Builds on virtualization technology, so resources can easily be scaled up or down as per the organization’s need.
  • Support multiple languages and frameworks.
  • Provides an ability to “Auto-scale”.

Example: AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Windows Azure, Heroku, Force.com, Google App Engine, Apache Stratos, Magento Commerce Cloud, and OpenShift.

  1. Software as a Service(SaaS)

SaaS is also known as “on-demand software”. It is a software in which the applications are hosted by a cloud service provider. Users can access these applications with the help of internet connection and web browser.

Characteristics of SaaS:

  • Managed from a central location
  • Hosted on a remote server
  • Accessible over the internet
  • Users are not responsible for hardware and software updates. Updates are applied automatically.
  • The services are purchased on the pay-as-per-use basis

Example: BigCommerce, Google Apps, Salesforce, Dropbox, ZenDesk, Cisco WebEx, ZenDesk, Slack, and GoToMeeting.

Differences between IaaS, PaaS and SaaS:

Internet of Things( IoT)

IoT stands for Internet of Things, which means accessing and controlling daily usable equipment and devices using the Internet. Internet of Things (IoT) is an ecosystem of connected physical objects that are accessible through the Internet (formal definition). So, in simple terms IOT means anything that can be connected to the internet and can be controlled / monitored using the Internet from our smart devices or PCs. Connecting everyday things embedded with electronics, software, and sensors to the internet enables us to collect and exchange data without human interaction called the Internet of Things (IoT).

The term “Things” in the Internet of Things refers to anything and everything in day to day life which is accessed or connected through the internet.

Features of IOT:

  1. Connectivity: Connectivity refers to establishing a proper connection between all the things of IoT to IoT platform it may be server or cloud. After connecting the IoT devices, it needs a high speed messaging between the devices and cloud to enable reliable, secure and bi-directional communication.
  2. Analysing: After connecting all the relevant things, it comes to real-time analysing the data collected and using them to build effective business intelligence. If we have a good insight into data gathered from all these things, then we call our system a smart system.
  3. Integrating: IoT integrating the various models to improve the user experience as well.
  4. Artificial Intelligence: IoT makes things smart and enhances life through the use of data. For example, Tesla’s self-driving cars are the best example of IoT and AI working together. With the power of AI, self-driving cars predict the behaviour of pedestrians and cars in various circumstances. For example, they can determine road conditions, optimal speed, weather and get smarter with each trip.
  5. Sensing: The sensor devices used in IoT technologies detect and measure any change in the environment and report on their status. IoT technology brings passive networks to active networks. Without sensors, there could not hold an effective or true IoT environment.
  6. Active Engagement: IoT makes the connected technology, product, or services to actively engage between each other.
  7. Endpoint Management: Endpoint management is the practice of authenticating and supervising the access rights of endpoint devices to a network and applying security policies that prevent any external or internal threats posed by that access.  It is important to be the endpoint management of all the IoT systems otherwise, it causes the complete failure of the system. 

Components of IOT:

  1. Things or Device
    These are fitted with sensors and actuators. Sensors collect data from the environment and give it to the gateway where actuators perform the action (as directed after processing of data).
     
  2. Gateway
    The sensors give data to Gateway and here some kind of pre-processing of data is even done. It also acts as a level of security for the network and for the transmitted data.
     
  3. Cloud
    The data after being collected is uploaded to the cloud. Cloud in simple terms is basically a set of servers connected to internet 24*7.
     
  4. Analytics
    The data after being received in the cloud processing is done . Various algorithms are applied here for proper analysis of data (techniques like Machine Learning etc are even applied).
     
  5. User Interface
    User end application where user can monitor or control the data. 

IOT wireless network:

The success or failure of Internet of Things (IoT) projects is dependent on many things, but without a reliable connection between devices, sensors and your IoT platform, your project won’t even get off the ground. However, connectivity is not a matter of simply choosing a preferred wireless technology. It’s equally important to understand the requirements of your application and then choose the network technology that’s the best fit.

  1. Cellular:

Cellular networks use the same mobile networks as smartphones to allow IoT devices to communicate. Because these networks were originally designed for power-hungry devices like smartphones, they weren’t always considered the best fit for IoT devices. Eventually, the cellular industry developed new technologies that were more appropriate for IoT use cases. Today, this type of wireless network is very popular, and is considered a reliable and secure method of IoT connectivity. Even though cellular connectivity is now less expensive and more power efficient than traditional telecom standards, cellular-connected IoT devices still require a great deal more power and energy than some other types of wireless networks.

  1. Local and Personal Area Networks (LAN/PAN)

Networks that cover fairly short distances are called personal area networks (PAN) and local area networks (LAN). PAN and LAN networks are considered to be fairly cost-effective, but the transfer of data can sometimes be unreliable.

Wireless personal and local area network technologies that are commonly incorporated into IoT connectivity solutions are WiFi and Bluetooth. WiFi can be used for applications that run in a local environment, or in a distributed setting if there are multiple access points integrated into a larger network. One downside to WiFi is that it works only if the signal is strong and you’re close to the access point. Also, WiFi is generally more power-hungry than people think, but it is possible to operate it in a way that’s a little more power-efficient (for example, your device only connects periodically to send data, then goes back to sleep).

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is a more energy-efficient wireless network protocol if you’re not receiving data constantly, a single battery running BLE could last up to five years. However, compared to WiFi it is slower to transmit and is more limited in the amount of data it is capable of sending. Both WiFi and Bluetooth are easy to connect in most cases, although WiFi does have some security challenges that may be difficult to overcome.

  1. Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN)

IoT devices that run on LPWANs send small packets of information infrequently and over long distances. This type of wireless network was developed in response to the early challenges of cellular connectivity. Proponents of LPWAN position it as longer-range than WiFi and Bluetooth, but using less power than cellular. 

A well-known and commonly used IoT network protocol in this category is LoRaWAN (long range wireless area network), which runs on the LoRa (long range) communication network. Advantages of LoRaWAN for IoT devices are its low power requirement (for long battery life) and relatively low-cost chipsets. Plus, under the right conditions, a single base station or gateway running on a long-range network is capable of providing service to a very large area—a few kilometres in dense urban areas and up to 15–30 kilometres in rural areas.

  1. Mesh Networks

Mesh networks are best described by their connectivity configuration—how the components communicate with each other. In mesh networks, all the sensor nodes cooperate to distribute data amongst each other to reach the gateway.Mesh networks are very short range and may require extra sensors throughout a building or the use of repeaters to get the coverage your application needs. Also, the nature of the way these networks communicate can result in high power consumption, especially if you need instant messaging, such as for a smart lighting application. However, mesh networks are also fairly robust, able to find the fastest and most reliable paths to send data, and easy to install, making them a popular choice for in-building use.

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