CLOUD

ARCHITECTURES
WHAT ARE CLOUD ARCHITECTURES?

• Cloud architecture is the way

technology components combine
to build a cloud, in which resources
are pooled through virtualization
technology and shared across a
network. With virtualization, each
piece of hardware that we would
formerly have thought as a server
runs multiple instances of an OS at
the same time, with each virtual OS
instance called a virtual machine or
VM.
 • Cloud providers give the services of
There are two kinds of people
involved to this system. One of them
is service provider and other one is
subscriber. Service providers are
actually company’s IT people or a
third party or a combination of
company and the third party. On the
other hand, subscriber may be
anyone who takes the services
from the service providers.
computing resources like databases,
computing power and storage to
the users, where users need not to
buy or become owner or maintain
the physical data servers and centers.
Users can access the data hosted on
cloud storage from any place in any
time. Having internet connection to
Laptop, Tablet, Desktop and Smart
Phone, they can manage or insert
the data very smoothly on time.
WHAT IS AN ADVANTAGE OF CLOUD COMPUTING ARCHITECTURE OVER TRADITIONAL IT ARCHITECTURE?
THE CLOUD OFFERS MUCH MORE SCALABILITY
THAN TRADITIONAL DATA CENTERS DO. ON THE
CLOUD, YOU HAVE ACCESS TO NEARLY UNLIMITED
STORAGE SPACE AND SERVER RESOURCES.
DEPENDING ON THE SIZE OF YOUR WORKLOAD,
YOU CAN SCALE YOUR CLOUD SERVERS UP OR
DOWN, WHICH CAN SAVE YOU MONEY ON IT
COSTS.
AN ADVANTAGE OF USING CLOUD ARCHITECTURE
OVER TRADITIONAL IT MODEL, SINGLE PHYSICAL
HOST (SERVER), IT IS THAT OFTEN A PHYSICAL
SERVERS HAVE MORE PROCESSING POWER THAT
YOU NEED FOR ONE OS, INSTEAD WITH CLOUD
ARCHITECTURE YOU CAN USE THE RESOURCES AS
NEEDED AND DECOUPLED THESE RESOURCES FOR
DIFFERENT OS.
A HYPERVISOR, ALSO KNOWN AS A VIRTUAL
MACHINE MONITOR OR VMM, IS SOFTWARE
THAT CREATES AND RUNS VIRTUAL
MACHINES (VMS). A HYPERVISOR ALLOWS
ONE HOST COMPUTER TO SUPPORT
MULTIPLE GUEST VMS BY VIRTUALLY
SHARING ITS RESOURCES, SUCH AS
MEMORY AND PROCESSING.
FOR BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF CLOUD COMPUTING
ARCHITECTURE, SOME SIGNIFICANT CHARACTERISTICS ARE
GIVEN BELOW:
1-On-demand self-service: users can get the services of cloud computing whenever they need, without any
direct interaction with the provider of the service.
2-Resource pooling: Several resources are pooled simultaneously and provided to the users dynamically.

3- Rapid elasticity: Scalable services are provided by rapid elasticity. If the users need extra space on the
cloud, they can take the permission by this, for the user the resource pool appears to be unlimited.

4- Broad network access: All the services those are available on the cloud can be accessed by the users in a
private cloud network (operated within a company's firewall) that are available for access from a wide range of
devices, such as tablets, PCs, Macs and smartphones.

5- Measured service: Resource utilization is definitely monitored and controlled. So transparent service is
provided to customer and provider
6- PAY AS YOU GO: USER NEEDS NOT TO PAY EXTRA CHARGE
FOR THE SERVICE THAT HE TAKEN FROM THE PROVIDER. HE
NEEDS TO PAY ONLY FOR THE SERVICE HE HAS TAKEN.
AS SHOWN ABOVE, THE CLOUD ARCHITECTURE OFFERS
SEVERAL BENEFITS WHICH MAKE CUSTOMERS PREFER THIS
MODEL, FOR EXAMPLE, LIKE SHOWN ON POINT 6, PAY AS
YOU GO PROVIDES A GREAT OPPORTUNITY FOR COMPANIES
WHILE THEY ARE PAYING JUST FOR THE SERVICE AND TIME
THEY ARE USING, THIS SAVES TIME AND MONEY FOR
COMPANIES USING CLOUD ARCHITECTURE.
MODELS OF CLOUD ARCHITECTURE
At this point we can see the three major models of cloud
architecture that are driving organizations to the cloud. Each of
these has its own benefits and key features. 
SOFTWARE AS A SERVICE (SAAS): Saas architecture providers deliver and maintain applications
and software to organizations over the internet, thereby eliminating the need for end users to deploy the
software locally. Saas applications are typically accessed via a web interface available from a broad variety
of devices and Oses.
Well-known saas examples include Dropbox, Google Workspace, and Salesforce.

Platform as a Service (PaaS): In this cloud model, the service provider offers a computing platform and solution
stack, often including middleware, as a service. Organizations can build upon that platform to create an
application or service. The cloud service provider delivers the networks, servers and storage required to host an
application while the end user oversees software deployment and configuration settings. 
Popular examples of paas include:
AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Windows Azure ,Heroku, Force.Com, Google App Engine
INFRASTRUCTURE AS A SERVICE
(IAAS): In this, cloud at its simplest
form, a third-party provider eliminates the
need for organizations to purchase
servers, networks or storage devices by
providing the necessary infrastructure. In
turn, organizations manage their software
and applications, and only pay for the
capacity they need at any given time. 
Examples of Iaas: Amazon Web Services
(AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud,
Digitalocean, and VMWare
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF CLOUD
COMPUTING?
Cloud computing offers companies convenient models to access infrastructure, platform, and software
offerings on a pay-as-you-go basis. With cloud computing, companies are freeing up capital, streamlining IT
maintenance, modernizing and scaling business approaches, building security and flexibility into services
and solutions, helping customers in new ways, and growing their business in ever-changing market
conditions.
As the amount of data being generated and shared continues to increase and consumers demand more
access to online services, it has become more difficult for companies to continue operating their
businesses on in-house computing servers.

Similar to the way you check your email inbox online through a web browser, cloud computing enables
companies to access and manage resources and applications anywhere there’s an internet connection. Cloud
services are also typically managed and maintained by a third-party service provider, allowing IT teams to
rapidly adjust compute and storage without having to pay upfront infrastructure costs or set up and manage yet
more systems and applications.
 FASTER TIME TO MARKET
You can spin up new instances or retire them in seconds, allowing developers to accelerate development
with quick deployments. Cloud computing supports new innovations by making it easy to test new ideas
and design new applications without hardware limitations or slow procurement processes.

Scalability and flexibility

Cloud computing gives your business more flexibility.
You can quickly scale resources and storage up to
meet business demands without having to invest in
physical infrastructure.
Companies don’t need to pay for or build the
infrastructure needed to support their highest load
levels. Likewise, they can quickly scale down if
resources aren’t being used.
CLOUD COMPUTING DEPLOYMENT
MODELS
A cloud deployment model defines the cloud services you are consuming and the responsibility model for who
manages them. It defines your cloud architecture, scalability of your computing resources, what you can change, the
services provided to you, and how much of the build you own.
Cloud Computing Deployment Model is classified into four ways: 1) Public Cloud, 2) Private Cloud, 3) Hybrid Cloud
and 4) Community Cloud. A brief discussion on all cloud deployment model is given below.
Private cloud
The Private Cloud model is run within a specific organization. Since only the authorized users can access to the system
of the organization, this cloud model offers more security than other cloud model. This model is appropriate for the
organizations where security is treated as main headache. Third party or the organization itself may be responsible to
manage it.

Public cloud
It makes the way easier so that general public gets the access
to the systems and the services easily. Third party as the cloud
service provider is considered the owner and responsible of all
the physical resources. It has many benefits like flexibility, high
scalability, and independence of location and so on. This is not
best for larger sized business. Rather these clouds are
appropriate for medium as well as small sized business. As all
the users have access to the all resources as public, it offers less
security comparing to the other cloud models.
Hybrid cloud
A hybrid cloud computing model combines public and private clouds to share data and applications.
Hybrid clouds connect infrastructure and applications between cloud-based resources with existing
resources not located in the cloud. This approach gives your business greater flexibility and deployment
options.
Community Cloud
Community cloud model is shared by few organizations and
supports a particular community that has shared their
concerns. It is possible to manage the system internally by
organizations or by the third-party. It is more secured than the
public cloud and less secured compared to the private cloud.

As an example, it is common to come across ‘cloud for

government’ or ‘government cloud’ among the offerings of
most cloud vendors. These are community clouds that are
specifically meant for government bodies. Government
processes and services require constant communication and
data transactions between multiple departments.
Cloud Architecture:
To store the data on cloud all kinds of organizations are using cloud computing system so that they can access to
their system whenever they want. Basically, cloud computing architecture is classified into two ways. One is Front
End and other is Back End. Both of the ends are connected via internet. To provide the security of the information
for cloud users, back end is responsible. The service providers use the back end. All the resources which are
needed to give services are managed by it. It comprises a security mechanism, large volume of data storage
servers, virtual machines, traffic control mechanisms, deploying models and so on and from cloud computing
architecture, the front end is also known as the client.
Some elements of cloud computing architecture are mentioned below:
 Client Infrastructure: It is considered front end element. To interact with the cloud, Graphical User Interface is
provided by client infrastructure.

 Internet: It is a medium by which both ends can communicate with each other.

 Application: It may be any software or platform that user wants to get access.

 Service: It provides three kinds of services like SaaS, PaaS and IaaS.

 Runtime Cloud: Execution and runtime environment are offered by runtime cloud to the virtual machines.

 Storage: One of the most important elements of cloud computing architecture. To store and manage data, a large
amount of storage capacity in the cloud is offered by it.

 Infrastructure: It offers services on the application level, host level and network level. It comprises hardware
as well as software elements.

 Management: It is used to manage all the elements of back end like application, service, runtime cloud, storage,
infrastructure and security issues. It also forms coordination among them.

 Security: It performs a security system in the back end.

Now let’s review one popular Cloud Architecture; AWS (Amazon Web Services)
What is AWS?

AWS Meaning: The Amazon Web Services

(AWS) platform provides more than 200 fully
featured services from data centers located all
over the world, and is the world's most
comprehensive cloud platform.
Amazon web service is an online platform that
provides scalable and cost-effective cloud
computing solutions.
AWS is a broadly adopted cloud platform that
offers several on-demand operations like
compute power, database storage, content
delivery, etc., to help corporates scale and
grow.
Services provided by AWS
What is Amazon EC2?
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2)
provides scalable computing capacity in the
Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud. Using
Amazon EC2 eliminates your need to invest in
hardware up front, so you can develop and
deploy applications faster. You can use
Amazon EC2 to launch as many or as few
virtual servers as you need, configure security
and networking, and manage storage. Amazon
EC2 enables you to scale up or down to handle
changes in requirements or spikes in
popularity, reducing your need to forecast
traffic.
What is Amazon S3?
Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) is an object storage service that offers industry-
leading scalability, data availability, security, and performance. Customers of all sizes and
industries can use Amazon S3 to store and protect any amount of data for a range of use
cases, such as data lakes, websites, mobile applications, backup and restore, archive,
enterprise applications, IoT devices, and big data analytics. Amazon S3 provides management
features so that you can optimize, organize, and configure access to your data to meet your
specific business, organizational, and compliance requirements.
What is AWS Lambda?
AWS Lambda is a serverless compute service that runs your code in
response to events and automatically manages the underlying
compute resources for you. These events may include changes in
state or an update, such as a user placing an item in a shopping cart
on an ecommerce website.
By introducing AWS we can see how and what a Cloud Architecture
can offer for customers and their needs, every Cloud Architecture
might offer different solutions and services to fulfill the market needs.
In general, we can see how important Cloud Services are nowadays in IT world, especially when it comes to a
reliability, security and more efficient consumption of time and money by using and managing characteristics of
cloud computing like Rapid elasticity, pay as you go, Broad network access, etc.

Another important point to remark is the different Models used by Cloud Computing, as shown previously IaaS,
SaaS and PaaS, the importance on handling these Models relies on knowing which Model will be the best for the
customers and what they require for their company, on this way we can differentiate customer needs and provide
the best and most optimal option.

A last point to remark, it is knowing the Cloud Architecture deployments and how they work and how they can be
applied for several uses, we should know, as previously seen that Private Cloud, Public Cloud, Hybrid Cloud and
Community Cloud operate differently and offer diverse solutions for different clients, with this we can see that
Cloud Architecture can be applied on many companies which have several needs.
Questions?