Cloud computing is an emerging computing technology that uses the Internet and central remote servers to maintain data and applications. It refers to the use of computing resources that reside on a remote machine and are delivered to the end user as a service over a network. e-mail service is an example of cloud computing. Our web-based e-mail service providers like Yahoo!, Gmail, Outlook, etc. take care of storing all the hardware and software necessary to support our access our e-mail we open our web browser, go to the e-mail client, and log in. The most important part of this process is having Internet access. Our e-mail messages and the software that manages e-mail is not stored on our computer. The e-mail service providers Internet connection anywhere, anytime. personal e-mail account. When we need to store them in the cloud. We access it from the cloud through an internet connection anywhere, anytime.
Similar to email service, office software ( word processors, spreadsheets, etc .), graphics software, etc . are now available overcloud. People can use this software for their benefit and can even store the files (documents, spreadsheets, images, etc . ) created in their private storage space in the cloud. Cloud computing is a computing model , where resources such as computing power, storage, network, and software are combined and provided as services on the Internet in a remotely accessible fashion .
Cloud computing is so named because the information being accessed is found in the ' clouds ' or a remote place just like clouds in the sky. To use the cloud computing environment, Internet access and an account with a cloud service provider are required. Cloud computing is a subscription-based service where we can obtain networked storage space and computer resources
Cloud service models Cloud providers offer services that can be grouped into three major services. They are Software as a Service ( SaaS), Platform as a Service ( PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service ( IaaS ) .
Software as a Service A SaaS provider gives subscribers access to both resources and applications. Here a complete application is offered to the customer , as a service on demand. Consumers purchase the ability to access and use an application or service that is hosted in the cloud. Suppose we are using Google Docs which is available for free, for all Gmail account holders. Here a single instance of the service runs on the cloud and multiple end-users are serviced. SaaS makes it unnecessary for us to have a copy of the software to be installed on our devices like desktop, laptop, mobile, etc. In the case of Google Docs, only one copy of the word processor runs on the cloud. Users can access this copy and need not have the software installed on their computers. SaaS also makes it easier to have the same version of software on all of your devices at once by accessing it on the cloud. In the case of paid services, customers can access the Services after paying the fees. - In a SaaS agreement, customers have the least control over the cloud. On the customer ' s side, there is no need for high investment in servers or software licenses while for the provider, the costs are lowered, since only a single application needs to be hosted and maintained. Today SaaS is offered by companies such as Adobe for its image processing software Creative Cloud, Microsoft for its office software Office 365, facebook. com, etc
Platform as a Service A PaaS system goes a level above the Software as a Service setup. A PaaS provider gives subscribers access to the components that they require to develop and operate applications over the Internet. In other words, the platforms used to design, develop, | build and test applications are provided by the cloud infrastructure. The customer has the freedom to build his own applications, which run on the provider ' s infrastructure. To meet the manageability and scalability requirements of the applications, PaaS providers offer a predefined combination of OS and application servers, such as the LAMP platform (Linux, Apache, MySql, and PHP), ASP. NET, PHP, Python, etc. Google ' s App Engine, Microsoft Azure, Force. com , etc . are some of the popular PaaS examples .
Infrastructure as a Service An IaaS agreement , as the name states , deals primarily with computational infrastructure . IaaS provides basic storage and computing capabilities as standardised services over the network . Servers , storage systems , networking equipment , data centre space , etc . are pooled and made available to handle workloads . The customer would typically set up his own software on the infrastructure . Some common examples are Amazon Web Services, Joyent, AT & T, GoGrid, etc .
The following are some benefits in the use of cloud computing :
- Cost-savings: Companies can reduce their capital expenditures and use operational expenditures for increasing their computing capabilities
- Scalability /Flexibility: Companies can start with a small deployment and grow to a large deployment fairly rapidly, and then scale back if necessary. Also, the flexibility of cloud computing allows companies to use extra resources at peak times, enabling , them to satisfy consumer demands .
- Reliability : Services using multiple redundant sites help in disaster recovery .
- Maintenance: Cloud service providers do system maintenance, thus reducing maintenance requirements.
- Mobile accessible: Employees who travel as part of their job are also able to give better productivity since the systems they use are accessible from anywhere .
Disadvantages of cloud computing Some of the challenges faced by those who use cloud computing are :
- Security and privacy: Whenever data or a program is sent on a publicly accessible communication system and data is stored in a shared disk system, there is a danger of stealing or corrupting the data in the disk storage.
- lack of standards: Clouds have no standards and thus it is unlikely that most clouds are interoperable .
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