Cloud Computing Architecture

Cloud computing architecture is a combination of service-oriented architecture and event-driven

architecture. Cloud computing architecture is divided into the following two parts
• Front End
• Back End
The below diagram shows the architecture of cloud computing - 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 browsers (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 mechanism, virtual machines,
deploying models, servers, traffic control mechanisms, etc.

Components of Cloud Computing Architecture

These are the following 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 that which type of service you access according to the
client’s requirement. Cloud computing offers the following three type of services:
i. Software as a Service (SaaS) – It is also known as cloud application services. Mostly, SaaS
applications run directly through the web browser means we do not require to download and install
these applications. Example: Google Apps, Salesforce Dropbox, Slack, Hubspot, Cisco WebEx.
ii. Platform as a Service (PaaS) – It is also known as cloud platform services. It is quite similar to
SaaS, but the difference is that PaaS provides a platform for software creation, but using SaaS, we
can access software over the internet without the need of any platform. Example: Windows Azure,
Force.com, Magento Commerce Cloud, OpenShift.
iii. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) – It is also known as cloud infrastructure services. It is
responsible for managing applications data, middleware, and runtime environments. Example:
Amazon Web Services (AWS) EC2, Google Compute Engine (GCE), Cisco Metapod.
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 medium through which front end and back end can interact and
communicate with each other.
Benefits of cloud architecture
There are many benefits of cloud architecture for organizations, including:

Faster time to market Scalability

Cost-effective
You no longer need to Cloud architectures
Instead of investing upfront
wait to procure, set up, give you more
costs for servers, you can opt
and configure flexibility to scale
to use the infrastructure of a
computing computing resources
cloud service provider.
infrastructure. Cloud up (or down) based on
Dynamic provisioning
architectures enable your infrastructure
allows you to further
you to get up and requirements. You can
optimize spending by paying
running fast, so you easily scale to meet
only for the computing
spend more time higher demand,
resources you use.
focusing on developing whether from growth
 and delivering new or seasonal spikes in
products. traffic.

High availability
Accelerated
More innovation Applications run and
transformation
Cloud architectures managed on cloud
Cloud-native architectures
allow you to leverage architectures benefit
like Kubernetes let you
the latest technologies from high-
make the most of cloud
for storage, security, performance
services and automated
analytics, and AI computing resources
environments to speed up
like machine that ensure continuous
modernization and drive
learning. availability, regardless
digital transformation.
of fluctuating loads.

Cloud service providers

consistently upgrade and
improve their security
Strong security mechanisms with expert
professionals and the latest
technologies to help secure
your data, systems, and
workloads.

Architectural Design Challenges

Challenge 1 : Service Availability and Data Lock-in Problem
Service Availability
 Service Availability in Cloud might be affected because of Single Point Failure
 Distributed Denial of Service
 Single Point Failure
o Depending on single service provider might result in failure.
o In case of single service providers, even if company has multiple data centres located in
different geographic regions, it may have common software infrastructure and accounting
systems.
Data Lock-in
  It is a situation in which a customer using service of a provider cannot be moved to another
service provider because technologies used by a provider will be incompatible with other
providers?
 This makes a customer dependent on a vendor for services and makes customer unable to
use service of another vendor.
Challenge 2: Data Privacy and Security Concerns
Cloud services are prone to attacks because they are accessed through internet. Security is
given by o Storing the encrypted data in to cloud.
o Firewalls, filters.
Cloud environment attacks include
o Guest hopping
o Hijacking
o VM rootkits.
 Guest Hopping: Virtual machine hyper jumping (VM jumping) is an attack method that
exploits (make use of) hypervisor’s weakness that allows a virtual machine (VM) to be
accessed from another.
 Hijacking: Hijacking is a type of network security attack in which the attacker takes
control of a communication VM Rootkit: is a collection of malicious (harmful)
computer software, designed to enableaccess to a computer that is not otherwise
allowed.
 A man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack is a form of eavesdroppping(Spy) where
communication between two users is monitored and modified by an unauthorized party.
 Man-in-the-middle attack may take place during VM migrations [virtual machine
(VM) migration - VM is moved from one physical host to another host].
 Passive attacks steal sensitive data or passwords.
 Active attacks may manipulate (control) kernel data structures which will cause major
damage to cloud servers.
Challenge 3: Unpredictable Performance and Bottlenecks
 Multiple VMs can share CPUs and main memory in cloud computing, but I/O sharing is
problematic.
 Internet applications continue to become more data-intensive (handles huge amount of
data).
 Handling huge amount of data (data intensive) is a bottleneck in cloud environment.
  Weak Servers that does not provide data transfers properly must be removed from cloud
environment.
Challenge 4: Distributed Storage and Widespread Software Bugs
 The database is always growing in cloud applications.
 There is a need to create a storage system that meets this growth.
 This demands the design of efficient distributed SANs (Storage Area Network of Storage
devices).
 Data centres must meet
o Scalability
o Data durability
o HA(High Availability)
o Data consistence - Bug refers to errors in software. Debugging must be done in data
centres.
Challenge 6: Software Licensing and Reputation Sharing
 Cloud providers can use both pay-for-use and bulk-use licensing schemes to widen the
business coverage.
 Cloud providers must create reputation-guarding services similar to the “trusted e-mail”
services
 Cloud providers want legal liability to remain with the customer, and vice versa.