Dera Ghazi Khan (Campus)

Name: Haroon Khalid

Program: BS(IT).
Roll No: 08
Subject: Cloud Computing
Submitted To: Sir Umair Hayyat.

Introduction
Cloud computing is an emerging technology and has many challenges in various aspects of
information handling.

Challenges in Cloud Computing

Following diagram shows the major challenges in cloud computing.

Security and Privacy

 Security and privacy are the main challenge in cloud computing.
 These challenges can reduced by using security applications, encrypted file systems, data
loss software.
Interoperability
 The application on one platform should be able to incorporate services from the other
platform. This is known as Interoperability.
 It is becoming possible through web services, but to develop such web services is
complex.
Portability
 The applications running on one cloud platform can be moved to new cloud platform
and it should operate correctly without making any changes in design, coding.
 The portability is not possible, because each of the cloud providers uses different
standard languages for their platform.
Service Quality
  The Service-Level Agreements (SLAs) of the providers are not enough to guarantee the
availability and scalability. The businesses disinclined to switch to cloud without a strong
service

Computing Performance
 High network bandwidth is needed for data intensive applications on cloud, this results in
high cost.
 In cloud computing, low bandwidth does not meet the desired computing performance.
Reliability and Availability
 Most of  the businesses are dependent on services provided by third-party, hence it is
mandatory for the cloud systems to be reliable and robust.

The evolution of cloud computing

These days, cloud computing has become ubiquitous, with many businesses using some form
of cloud computing technology to run day-to-day operations. Computing started with the idea
of one person operating one machine and only evolved into the concept of multiple users and
virtualisation when data scientists needed to find a way for more than one person to use the
same computer at the same time. 

Virtualisation became commercialised when businesses discovered how cost effective and
scalable it was to use virtual servers for their data, rather than have to invest in physical data
houses and server stacks on their own premises. Now it’s become the norm for businesses to
opt for cloud solutions, rather than manage their own servers. 

Virtualisation

In 1963 the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), gave $2 million in
funding to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Project MAC. Part of the
research required MIT to use computer technology that could be accessed by, and used by,
more than one person at a time. 

IBM didn’t think there would be a demand for such a system, but soon found itself designing
mainframes that supported virtualisation for use in lab settings. IBM not only had to create
systems that could be used my multiple people simultaneously, but it also needed to allow
users to interact with the computer as it worked through problems. 
“The VM operating system took the 1950s’ shared access mainframe to the next level,
permitting multiple distinct computing environments to reside on one physical environment.
Virtualization came to drive the technology, and was an important catalyst in the
communication and information evolution.” 

Between the 1970’s and the 1990’s, virtualisation evolved alongside the development of the
internet and telecom companies eventually started offering businesses their own virtual
private networks. These allowed computers to transfer data to a select group of computers.
This was the beginning of cloud as we know it.
Cloud computing today

The term “cloud computing” wasn’t coined until 1996, but in the past 20 years cloud
computing has developed into an industry offering a variety of services. Some companies,
like Amazon, specialise in Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). As the name suggests, they
provide the essential infrastructure supporting cloud computing, such as servers and storage
(they own the servers on which their client’s data is stored). 

Other providers, such as Google, focus on Platform as a Service (PaaS), which allows
developers to use their systems and tools to develop cloud apps for businesses and consumers
to use. 

Then there are Software as a Service (SaaS) providers, like Salesforce.com, which use cloud
technology to host their software online allowing businesses to access data wherever they are,
whenever they need to access it. 

Today, businesses can use private cloud systems, developed for their specific needs, to store
and share sensitive data, they can use public cloud systems, or a mixture of the two (hybrid
cloud). Cloud computing has permeated the consumer market now, we use cloud computing
when we use web mail or log-in to online gaming platforms, we’re even using it when we use
Facebook apps. 

In the past 20 years, cloud computing has become an essential part of everyday life. It will be
interesting to see where the next 20 years will lead.

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Software as a service (SaaS) is a software distribution model in which a third-party provider
hosts applications and makes them available to customers over the Internet. SaaS is one of three
main categories of cloud computing, alongside infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as
a service (PaaS).

SaaS is closely related to the application service provider (ASP) and on demand
computing software delivery models. The hosted application management model of SaaS is
similar to ASP, where the provider hosts the customer’s software and delivers it to approved end
users over the internet.  In the software on demand SaaS model, the provider gives customers
network-based access to a single copy of an application that the provider created specifically for
SaaS distribution. The application’s source code is the same for all customers and when new
features or functionalities are rolled out, they are rolled out to all customers. Depending upon the
service level agreement (SLA), the customer’s data for each model may be stored locally, in the
cloud or both locally and in the cloud.Organizations can integrate SaaS applications with other
software using application programming interfaces (APIs). For example, a business can write its
own software tools and use the SaaS provider's APIs to integrate those tools with the SaaS
offering.

There are SaaS applications for fundamental business technologies, such as email, sales
management, customer relationship management (CRM), financial management, human
resource management (HRM), billing and collaboration. Leading SaaS providers
include Salesforce, Oracle, SAP, Intuit and Microsoft.

SaaS applications are used by a range of IT professionals and business users, as well as C-level
executives.