Cloud Computing as a Short-term Course

Cloud computing is information technology (IT) offered as a service. It eliminates the need for organizations to build and maintain expensive data centers. It enables organizations to stand up new systems quickly and easily. It provides elastic resources that allow applications to scale as needed in response to market demands It increases business continuity by providing inexpensive disaster-recovery options. It reduces the need for organizations to maintain a large IT staff.

The term "cloud" is used as a metaphor for the Internet, based on the cloud drawing used in the past to represent the telephone network, and later to depict the Internet in computer network diagrams as an abstraction of the underlying infrastructure it represents.

Cloud computing is a natural evolution of the widespread adoption of virtualization, service-oriented architecture, autonomic, and utility computing. Details are abstracted from end-users, who no longer have need for expertise in, or control over, the technology infrastructure "in the cloud" that supports them.

Key Features:

1. Agility
2. Application Programming Interface
3. Cost
4. Device
5. Multi-Tenancy
6. Reliability
7. Scalability
8. Security
9. Maintenance
10. Metering
11. Electronic Recycling

Layers:
1.Client:
A cloud client consists of computer hardware and/or computer software that relies on cloud computing for application delivery, or that is specifically designed for delivery of cloud services and that, in either case, is essentially useless without it. Examples include some computers, phones and other devices, operating systems and browsers.

2. Application:
Cloud application services or "Software as a Service (SaaS)" deliver software as a service over the Internet, eliminating the need to install and run the application on the customer's own computers and simplifying maintenance and support.

3. Platform:
Cloud platform services or "Platform as a Service (PaaS)" deliver a computing platform and/or solution stack as a service, often consuming cloud infrastructure and sustaining cloud applications.

4. Infrastucure:
Cloud infrastructure services, also known as "Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)", delivers computer infrastructure - typically a platform virtualization environment - as a service. Rather than purchasing servers, software, data-center space or network equipment, clients instead buy those resources as a fully outsourced service

5. Server:
The servers layer consists of computer hardware and/or computer software products that are specifically designed for the delivery of cloud services, including multi-core processors, cloud-specific operating systems and combined offerings.

Deployment Models:
Public Cloud:
A public cloud is one based on the standard cloud computing model, in which a service provider makes resources, such as applications and storage, available to the general public over the Internet. Public cloud services may be free or offered on a pay-per-usage model.

Community cloud
Community cloud shares infrastructure between several organizations from a specific community with common concerns (security, compliance, jurisdiction, etc.), whether managed internally or by a third-party and hosted internally or externally. The costs are spread over fewer users than a public cloud (but more than a private cloud), so only some of the benefits of cloud computing are realized.

Hybrid cloud
Hybrid cloud is a composition of two or more clouds (private, community, or public) that remain unique entities but are bound together, offering the benefits of multiple deployment models. It can also be defined as multiple cloud systems that are connected in a way that allows programs and data to be moved easily from one deployment system to another.

Private cloud
Private cloud is infrastructure operated solely for a single organization, whether managed internally or by a third party and hosted internally or externally.
Architecture:
Cloud architecture, the systems architecture of the software systems involved in the delivery of cloud computing, typically involves multiple cloud components communicating with each other over application programming interfaces, usually web services and 3-tier architecture. The two most significant components of cloud computing architecture are known as the front end and the back end. The front end is the part seen by the client, i.e. the computer user. This includes the client’s network (or computer) and the applications used to access the cloud via a user interface such as a web browser. The back end of the cloud computing architecture is the ‘cloud’ itself, comprising various computers, servers and data storage devices.

Cloud engineering:
Cloud engineering is the application of engineering disciplines to cloud computing. It brings a systematic approach to the high level concerns of commercialization, standardization, and governance in conceiving, developing, operating and maintaining cloud computing systems. It is a multidisciplinary method encompassing contributions from diverse areas such as systems, software, web, performance, information, security, platform, risk, and quality engineering.

Ten predictions about how the cloud will evolve:

1. The cloud will be cheaper, more reliable, more secure, and easier to use.
2. The cloud will become a real engine of growth for early adopter companies.
3. Cloud providers’ costs will be less than 25% of what corporate data centers cost.
4. Cloud mega-data centers will contain 500,000 servers costing $1B by 2020.
5. The best cloud provider operator’s ratio of administrators to servers will go from 1:1,000 servers to 1:10,000 servers by 2020.
6. Open source will dominate the future of the cloud.
7. Pragmatic standards come from market leaders; Amazon’s API will lead the way.
8. An ultimate ISO cloud standard will emerge.
9. Government will lead enterprises in cloud adoption.
10. SaaS will grow and stay current by using the basic web standards that will themselves continue to advance.

Opportunities:
If you know cloud computing you can crack a job in any of the MNC’s like

1. IBM
2. Google
3. Virtusa
4. Infosys
5. Keane e.t.c.

Published date : 20 Jun 2015 06:24PM