Introduction to Cloud Computing

References ae all mentioned in the last two slides

 Welcome!!
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Learning Outcomes
Understanding of:
 Cloud computing Concept
 Benefits of Cloud computing
 Characteristics of cloud defined by NIST
 Cloud Service Providers
 What is cloud computing

• Cloud computing is a hot buzzword recently

– More and more companies have claimed their products are clou
d computing based
• So, what is cloud computing
– A new name of an old technology created by marketing people?
– A new technology focusing on higher-speed computing?
– A new programming paradigm?
 What is cloud
• In cloud computing, the word cloud is used as a metaphor for
“Internet”. In other words we can say cloud is something which is
present at remote location

• Simply put cloud computing as a delivery of computing services –

servers, storage, network etc.
 Cloud computing motivations

• How to make it more economic when hosting computing systems

I wish this cloud can really host my system so that I can

provide a scalable, on-demand service

Server
Server

CSE co. ltd.

 What is cloud computing
• Let us see what cloud computing is by its economic drive
– See an example on hosting an Internet service
• e.g., a website

Server
Server

CSE co. ltd.

 Hosting computing systems

CSE co. ltd.

A single server is enough for

small business

A small amount of budget

 Hosting computing systems

CSE co. ltd.

More servers are needed if

you have more clients
Cost more manpower and money
to provide the service
 Hosting computing systems

A huge data center is

CSE co. ltd. needed if you have a huge
number of clients

Cost a huge amount of money to

provide the service
 Hosting computing systems
• The number of concurrent users is dynamic
– You need to prepare for the peak number
• Otherwise, bad user experience!
– So you have to pay for the servers no matter whether you are usin
g them or not
• The money you spend to buy the hardware
• The salary for the maintainers
• The electricity (including that for air conditioning)
• Other maintenance costs, e.g., repairing, upgrading, renting a
room for the servers
 Cloud computing introduction

• Hosting computing systems in a scalable, on-demand way

– To be economic!
• Cloud computing
– An emerging computing concept that approaches such a goal
– Based on a lot of distributed system techniques
• Service-oriented system architecture
• Virtualization technology
• Distributed computing paradigm
 Cloud Computing (and it’s Benefits)
• Cloud computing is a type of Internet-based computing that provides shared computer
processing resources and data to computers and other devices on demand.

• It is a model for enabling ubiquitous, on-demand access to a shared pool of configurable

computing resources (e.g., computer networks, servers, storage, applications and services), 
which can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort.

• Cloud computing and storage solutions provide users and enterprises with various
capabilities to store and process their data in third-party data centers that may be located
far from the user–ranging in distance from across a city to across the world.

• Cloud computing relies on sharing of resources to achieve coherence [(Inter)-connectivity] and 

economy of scale, similar to a utility (like the electricity grid) over an electricity network.
 Cloud Computing (and it’s Benefits)
• Advocates claim that cloud computing allows companies to avoid up-front infrastructure
costs (e.g., purchasing servers).

• As well, it enables organizations to focus on their core businesses instead of spending time and
money on computer infrastructure.  

• Proponents also claim that cloud computing allows enterprises to get their applications up
and running faster, with improved manageability and less maintenance, and enables 
Information technology (IT) teams to more rapidly adjust resources to meet fluctuating
and unpredictable business demand. 

• Cloud providers typically use a "pay as you go" model. This will lead to unexpectedly high
charges if administrators do not adapt to the cloud pricing model.
 Characteristics
• Cloud computing exhibits the following key characteristics:

• Agility for organizations may be improved, as cloud computing may increase users' flexibility with
re-provisioning, adding, or expanding technological infrastructure resources.

• Cost reductions are claimed by cloud providers. A public-cloud delivery model converts capital exp
enditures (e.g., buying servers) to operational expenditure. This purportedly lowers barriers to entry,
as infrastructure is typically provided by a third party and need not be purchased for one-time or in
frequent intensive computing tasks. Pricing on a utility computing basis is "fine-grained", wit
h usage-based billing options. As well, less in-house IT skills are required for implementation of proj
ects that use cloud computing. The e-FISCAL project's state-of-the-art repository contains severa
l articles looking into cost aspects in more detail, most of them concluding that costs savings d
epend on the type of activities supported and the type of infrastructure available in-house
 Characteristics
• Device and location independence enable users to access systems using a web browser regardle
ss of their location or what device they use (e.g., PC, mobile phone). As infrastructure is off-site (typica
lly provided by a third-party) and accessed via the Internet, users can connect to it from anywhere.

• Maintenance of cloud computing applications is easier, because they do not need to be installed
on each user's computer and can be accessed from different places (e.g., different work locations, whi
le travelling, etc.).

• Multitenancy enables sharing of resources and costs across a large pool of users thus allowing
for:
– centralization of infrastructure in locations with lower costs (such as real estate, electricity, etc.)
– peak-load capacity increases (users need not engineer and pay for the resources and equipment to meet their hig
hest possible load-levels)
– utilisation and efficiency improvements for systems that are often only 10–20% utilized.
 Characteristics

• Performance is monitored by IT experts from the service provider, and consistent and
loosely coupled architectures are constructed using web services as the system interface.

• Productivity may be increased when multiple users can work on the same data
simultaneously, rather than waiting for it to be saved and emailed. Time may be saved as
information does not need to be re-entered when fields are matched, nor do users need to
install application software upgrades to their computer.

• Scalability and elasticity via dynamic ("on-demand") provisioning of resources on a

fine-grained, self-service basis in near real-time (Note, the VM startup time varies by VM
type, location, OS and cloud providers), without users having to engineer for peak loads.
This gives the ability to scale up when the usage need increases or scale down if resources
are not being used.
 Characteristics – by NIST
• The National Institute of Standards and Technology's definition of cloud computing identifi
es "five essential characteristics":

• On-demand self-service. A consumer can unilaterally provision computing capabilities, such

as server time and network storage, as needed automatically without requiring human intera
ction with each service provider.

• Broad network access. Capabilities are available over the network and accessed throug
h standard mechanisms that promote use by heterogeneous thin or thick client platforms (e.
g., mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and workstations).

• Resource pooling. The provider's computing resources are pooled to serve multiple consu
mers using a multi-tenant model, with different physical and virtual resources dynamically
assigned and reassigned according to consumer demand. 
 Characteristics – by NIST (Cont…)

• Rapid elasticity. Capabilities can be elastically provisioned and released, in some cases automatica
lly, to scale rapidly outward and inward commensurate with demand. To the consumer, the capabi
lities available for provisioning often appear unlimited and can be appropriated in any quantity at a
ny time.

• Measured service. Cloud systems automatically control and optimize resource use by leveragin
g a metering capability at some level of abstraction appropriate to the type of service (e.g., storag
e, processing, bandwidth, and active user accounts). Resource usage can be monitored, controlled,
and reported, providing transparency for both the provider and consumer of the utilized service.

— National Institute of Standards and Technology

 Pay as you go
• The core of cloud computing is computing/ storage outsourcing
– To another company
– To a dedicating unit in the same organization

vs

Pay for exactly what you’ve used

Pay as you go!! Cost Down!!!
 Outsourcing
Electronics industry Cloud computing

Brand Service Services for

vendor vendor end users

Manufacturer Cloud computing provider

Manufacturing outsourcing Computing and storage outsourcing

Different manufacturing requirements in Different service requirements in
low season and high season different times
# of product lines # of hardware machines
# of workers # of maintainers
Cost down!!!
 Cloud computing industry
• Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
– Xen-based virtual computing environment
• A user can run Linux-based applications
– IaaS: A user can control nearly the entire software stack, from th
e kernel upwards.
– Provides low level of virtualization
• Raw CPU cycles, block-device storage, IP-level connectivity
• Microsoft's Windows Azure Platform
• Google App Engine
• Other small startups: Heroku & Engine Yard
• And more (and more)…
 Cloud computing industry

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

Microsoft's Windows Azure Platform
◦ PaaS: Use Windows Azure Hypervisor as the infrastructure, and use the .N
ET framework as the application container
◦ Support general-purpose computing
◦ Users can choose language, but cannot control the underlying operating
system or runtime
Google App Engine
Other small startups: Heroku & Engine Yard
And more (and more)…
 Cloud computing industry

• Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

• Microsoft's Windows Azure Platform
• Google App Engine
– Support APIs for the Google Datastore, Google Accounts, URL fetc
h, image manipulation, and email services, etc.
– SaaS: Application domain-specific platforms
• Not suitable for general-purpose computing
• Other small startups: Heroku & Engine Yard
• And more (and more)…
 Cloud computing industry

• Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

• Microsoft's Windows Azure Platform
• Google App Engine
• Other small startups: Heroku & Engine Yard
– Based on Ruby on Rails
– PaaS
• And more (and more)…
 References
[1] M. Armbrust et al, A view of cloud computing, Communications of the ACM, 53:4, p
p.50-58, 2010. http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2010/4/81493-a-view-of-cloud-com
puting/fulltext
[2] L. Vaquero, A break in the clouds: towards a cloud definition, ACM SIGCOMM Com
puter Communication Review , 39:1, 2009. http://ccr.sigcomm.org/drupal/files/p50-
v39n1l-vaqueroA.pdf
[3] J. Dean and S. Ghemawat, MapReduce: simplified data processing on large clust
ers, in Proc. of the 6th USENIX Symposium on Operating Systems Design & Imple
mentation, 2004. http://labs.google.com/papers/mapreduce-osdi04.pdf
[4] Paul Barham, Xen and the art of virtualization, in Proc. of the 19th ACM Symposiu
m on Operating Systems Principles, 2003. http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/srg/n
etos/papers/2003-xensosp.pdf 
 Links
[1] Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/
[2] Windows Azure,Microsoft’s Cloud Service Platform, http://www.microsoft.com/wind
owsazure/
[3] Google Apps. http://www.google.com/apps/
[4] Heroku, Ruby Cloud Platform as a Service. http://heroku.com/
[5] Engine Yard: The Ruby Cloud. http://www.engineyard.com/
[6] VMware Virtualization Software for Desktops, Servers & Virtual Machines for Publi
c and Private Cloud Solutions. http://www.vmware.com/
[7] Xen Projects. http://www.xen.org/
[8] Hadoop. http://hadoop.apache.org/
[9] Disco Project. http://discoproject.org/
[10] Skynet, A Ruby MapReduce Framework. http://skynet.rubyforge.org/
Review Questions
 What are the benefits of Cloud computing
 What are the characteristics of cloud computing described by NIST
 Thank you
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