Cloud computing refers to applications and services that run on a distributed network using virtualized resources and

accessed by common Internet protocols and networking standards. It is distinguished by the notion that resources are
virtual and limitless and that details of the physical systems on which software runs are abstracted from the user.

two different classes of clouds: those based on the deployment model and those based on the service model. The
deployment model tells you where the cloud is located and for what purpose. Public, private, community, and hybrid
clouds are deployment models.

Service models describe the type of service that the service provider is offering. The best-known service models are
Software as a Service, Platform as a Service, and Infrastructure as a Service

Cloud computing makes the long-held dream of utility computing possible with a pay-as-you-go, infinitely scalable,
universally available system.
With cloud computing, you can start very small and become big very fast. That's why cloud computing is revolutionary,
even if the technology it is built on is evolutionary

Not all applications benefit from deployment in the cloud. Issues with latency, transaction control, and in particular
security and regulatory compliance are of particular concern
the use of the word “cloud” makes reference to the two essential concepts:

• Abstraction: Cloud computing abstracts the details of system implementation from users and developers.
Applications run on physical systems that aren't specified, data is stored in locations that are unknown, administration
of systems is outsourced to others, and access by users is ubiquitous.

• Virtualization: Cloud computing virtualizes systems by pooling and sharing resources. Systems and storage can be
provisioned as needed from a centralized infrastructure, costs are assessed on a metered basis, multi-tenancy is
enabled, and resources are scalable with agility.
To help clarify how cloud computing has changed the nature of commercial system deployment, consider these three
examples:

• Google: In the last decade, Google has built a worldwide network of datacenters to service its search engine. In
doing so Google has captured a substantial portion of the world's advertising revenue. That revenue has enabled
Google to offer free software to users based on that infrastructure and has changed the market for user-facing
software.
• Azure Platform: By contrast, Microsoft is creating the Azure Platform. It enables .NET Framework applications to run
over the Internet as an alternate platform for Microsoft developer software running on desktops
• Amazon Web Services: One of the most successful cloud-based businesses is Amazon Web Services, which is an
Infrastructure as a Service offering that lets you rent virtual computers on Amazon's own infrastructure.
U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has a set of working definitions
that separate cloud computing into service models and deployment models.
The Cloud Cube Model - whose main focus is how to • Physical location of the data:
protect cloud networks. Internal (I) / External (E) determines
The four dimensions of the Cloud Cube Model are shown in Figure your organization's boundaries.
• Ownership: Proprietary (P) / Open
(O) is a measure of not only the
technology ownership, but of
interoperability, ease of data transfer,
and
degree of vendor application lock-in.
• Security boundary: Perimeterised
(Per) / De-perimiterised (D-p) is a
measure of whether the operation is
inside or outside the security
boundary or network firewall.
• Sourcing: Insourced or Outsourced
means whether the service is provided
by the customer or the service
provider.
Deployment models

• Public cloud: The public cloud infrastructure is available for public use alternatively for a large industry group
and is owned by an
organization selling cloud services.
• Private cloud: The private cloud infrastructure is operated for the exclusive use of an organization. The cloud
may be managed by that
organization or a third party. Private clouds may be either on- or off-premises.
• Hybrid cloud: A hybrid cloud combines multiple clouds (private, community of public) where those clouds retain
their unique identities,
but are bound together as a unit. A hybrid cloud may offer standardized or proprietary access to data and
applications, as well as application
portability.
• Community cloud: A community cloud is one where the cloud has been organized to serve a common function
or purpose.
Deployment locations for different cloud types
Service models
In the deployment model, different cloud types are an expression of the manner in which infrastructure is
deployed. You can think of the cloud as the boundary between where a client's network, management,
and responsibilities ends and the cloud service provider's begins. As cloud computing has developed,
different vendors offer clouds that have different services associated with them. The portfolio of services
offered adds another set of definitions called the service model.

There are many different service models described in the literature, all of which take the following
form:
XaaS, or “<Something> as a Service”
Three service types have been universally accepted:
• Infrastructure as a Service: IaaS provides virtual machines, virtual storage, virtual
infrastructure, and other hardware assets as resources
that clients can provision.
The IaaS service provider manages all the infrastructure, while the client is responsible for all
other aspects of the deployment. This can
include the operating system, applications, and user interactions with the system.
• Platform as a Service: PaaS provides virtual machines, operating systems, applications,
services, development frameworks, transactions,
and control structures.
The client can deploy its applications on the cloud infrastructure or use applications that were
programmed using languages and tools that are
supported by the PaaS service provider. The service provider manages the cloud infrastructure,
the operating systems, and the enabling software.
The client is responsible for installing and managing the application that it is deploying.
• Software as a Service: SaaS is a complete operating environment with applications,
management, and the user interface.
In the SaaS model, the application is provided to the client through a thin client interface (a
browser, usually), and the customer's
responsibility begins and ends with entering and managing its data and user interaction.
Everything from the application down to the infrastructure
is the vendor's responsibility.
When a cloud computing vendor offers software running in the cloud with use of the application on a pay-as-
you-go model, it is referred to as SaaS. With SaaS, the customer uses the application as needed and is not
responsible for the installation of the application, its maintenance, or its upkeep. A good example of an SaaS
offering is an online accounting package, with the online versions of Quicken and Quickbooks a prime
example.

A client using an SaaS service might—as is the case for Quickbooks online—log into the service from his
browser, create an account, and enter
data into the system. Intuit.com has a service agreement that not only covers the performance of the
hardware and software, but extends to
protecting the data that they store for clients, and other fundamental characteristics.

SalesForce.com started out as a Customer Relationship

As another example, take the PaaS offering that is the Windows Azure Platform. Windows Azure Platform
allows .NET developers to stage their
applications on top of Microsoft's infrastructure so that any application built with the .NET Framework can live
locally, in Microsoft's cloud
network, or some combination thereof.
When you choose a cloud service provider, you are renting or leasing part of an enormous infrastructure of
datacenters, computers, storage, and
networking capacity. Many of these datacenters are multi-million-dollar investments by the companies that run
them. To give you some sense of
scale, it has been estimated that a state-of-the-art microchip fabrication facility can cost anywhere from $2 to $5
billion. By comparison, a state of
the art cloud computing datacenter can run in the range of $100 million. Most of the large cloud computing service
providers have multiple
datacenters located all over the world.
20 datacenters in Amazon
Web Service's cloud are detailed. Google's cloud includes perhaps some 35 datacenters worldwide.

Amazon.com's infrastructure was built to support elastic demand so the system could accommodate
peak traffic on a busy shopping day such as
“Black Monday.” Because much of the capacity was idle, Amazon.com first opened its network to
partners and then as Amazon Web Services to
customers.
Google's business has also grown exponentially and required the building of datacenters worldwide.
One of its datacenters in Dalles, Oregon, built
in 2006 on the banks of the Columbia River. It is the size of an American football field.
As these various datacenters grew in size, businesses have developed their datacenters as
“greenfield” projects. Datacenters have been sited to do
the following:
• Have access to low cost power
• Leverage renewable power source
• Be near abundant water
• Be sited where high-speed network backbone connections can be made
• Keep land costs modest and occupation unobtrusive
• Obtain tax breaks
• Optimize the overall system latency

These characteristics make cloud computing networks highly efficient and capture enough margin
to make utility computing profitable.

It has been estimated that the Internet consumes roughly 10 percent of the world's total power, so
these companies are very big energy consumers.
the following areas were the top five cloud applications in use in 2010:
• Collaboration applications
• Web applications/Web serving
• Cloud backup
• Business applications
• Personal productivity applications
Benefits of cloud computing

• On-demand self-service: A client can provision computer resources without the need for
interaction with cloud service provider personnel.
• Broad network access: Access to resources in the cloud is available over the network using
standard methods in a manner that provides
platform-independent access to clients of all types.
This includes a mixture of heterogeneous operating systems, and thick and thin platforms such
as laptops, mobile phones, and PDA.
• Resource pooling: A cloud service provider creates resources that are pooled together in a
system that supports multi-tenant usage.
Physical and virtual systems are dynamically allocated or reallocated as needed. Intrinsic in this
concept of pooling is the idea of abstraction
that hides the location of resources such as virtual machines, processing, memory, storage, and
network bandwidth and connectivity.
• Rapid elasticity: Resources can be rapidly and elastically provisioned.

The system can add resources by either scaling up systems (more powerful computers) or scaling
out systems (more computers of the same
kind), and scaling may be automatic or manual. From the standpoint of the client, cloud
computing resources should look limitless and can be
purchased at any time and in any quantity.
• Measured service: The use of cloud system resources is measured, audited, and reported to the
customer based on a metered system.
A client can be charged based on a known metric such as amount of storage used, number of
transactions, network I/O (Input/Output) or bandwidth, amount of processing power used, and so forth.
A client is charged based on the level of services provided.
While these five core features of cloud computing are on almost anybody's list, you also should consider
these additional advantages:
• Lower costs: Because cloud networks operate at higher efficiencies and with greater utilization,
significant cost reductions are often encountered.
• Ease of utilization: Depending upon the type of service being offered, you may find that you do not
require hardware or software licenses to implement your service.
• Quality of Service: The Quality of Service (QoS) is something that you can obtain under contract from
your vendor.
• Reliability: The scale of cloud computing networks and their ability to provide load balancing and
failover makes them highly reliable, often much more reliable than what you can achieve in a single
organization.
• Outsourced IT management: A cloud computing deployment lets someone else manage your
computing infrastructure while you manage your business. In most instances, you achieve considerable
reductions in IT staffing costs.
• Simplified maintenance and upgrade: Because the system is centralized, you can easily apply patches
and upgrades. This means your users always have access to the latest software versions.
• Low Barrier to Entry: In particular, upfront capital expenditures are dramatically reduced. In cloud
computing, anyone can be a giant at any time.
Disadvantages of cloud computing

When you use an application or service in the cloud, you are using something that isn't necessarily as customizable as you
might want.
Additionally, although many cloud computing applications are very capable, applications deployed on-premises still have
many more features than
their cloud counterparts.

All cloud computing applications suffer from the inherent latency that is intrinsic in their WAN connectivity. While cloud
computing applications
excel at large-scale processing tasks, if your application needs large amounts of data transfer, cloud computing may not be
the best model for you.

If you had to pick a single area of concern in cloud computing, that area would undoubtedly be privacy and security. When
your data travels over and rests on systems that are no longer under your control, you have increased risk due to the
interception and malfeasance of others. You can't count on a cloud provider maintaining your privacy in the face of
government actions.
In the United States, an example is the National Security Agency's program that ran millions of phone calls from AT&T and
Verizon through a data analyzer to extract the phone calls that matched its security criteria. VoIP is one of the services that
is heavily deployed on cloud computing systems. Another example is the case of Google's service in China, which had been
subject to a filter that removed content to which the Chinese government objected. After five years of operation, and after
Google detected that Chinese hackers were accessing Gmail accounts of Chinese
citizens, Google moved their servers for Google.ch to Hong Kong.
These days most organizations are faced with regulatory compliance issues of various kinds. In the United
States, companies must comply with
the accounting requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act; health care providers comply with the data
privacy rules of HIPAA, and so on. In Europe,
the European Common Market has a raft of its own legislation for companies to deal with. Rules apply to
data at rest, and different rules may
apply to data in transit. If you stage your cloud computing deployment across states and countries, the
bad news is that you may end up having to
comply with multiple jurisdictions. Don't expect much support from the cloud system provider or from
the governments involved.