Cloud Computing Technology
Cloud Computing Technology
In computing, the term cloud computing is defined as a set of technologies that allow the use of hardware resources (storage, CPU) or software distributed in remote.
Although the term is rather vague and seems to be used in different contexts with different meanings to each other, we can distinguish three basic types of Cloud Computing:
- SaaS (Software as a Service) - is the use of programs in remote, often through a web server. This acronym agrees in part philosophy of a period now in disuse, ASP (Application Service Provider).
- PaaS (Platform as a Service) – This is similar to SaaS, but is not used in a single program the remote, but a software platform that can be provided by various services, programs, libraries, etc..
- IAAS (Infrastructure as a Service) – Use of hardware resources remotely. This kind of Cloud is almost a synonym for Grid Computing, but with an essential feature: the resources are used on demand when a client needs it, not allocated regardless of their actual use.
A characteristic of cloud computing is to make these resources available to the user as if they were implemented by systems (servers or personal devices) “standard”. Effective implementation of resources is not defined in detail, rather the idea is just that the implementation is a heterogeneous and distributed – the cloud, cloud into English – resources whose characteristics are unknown to the user.
The term cloud computing is different from that grid computing is a paradigm-oriented distributed computing, and in general, requires that applications are designed specifically.
The paradigm of cloud hosting/computing has three distinct actors:
- Service Provider – Provides services (virtual servers, storage, complete applications) generally according to the “pay-per-use”
- Client Administrator – to select and configure the services offered by the supplier, usually offering a value-added software applications such as
- End customer – Use properly configured by the customer service administrator
In some use cases the client administrator and the end customer may coincide. For example, a customer can use a storage service to back up their data, in this case the client will automatically configure and use the service.
Cloud Computing Architecture
The architecture of cloud computing provides one or more real servers, usually in architecture for high reliability and physically located at the data center service provider.
The service provider exposes interfaces to list and manage their services. The customer administrator uses these interfaces to select the required service (such as a complete virtual server or just storage) and to administer (configuration, activation, and deactivation). The end customer uses the service configured by the customer administrator, the physical characteristics of the implementation (server real location of the data center) are irrelevant.
Cloud Computing Architecture: Critiques
The cloud computer systems are criticized primarily for aspects related to security and continuity of service. Use a cloud computing service to store personal information may subject you to potential invasion of privacy. The data are available to the company so if that conduct was malicious user could access the data in order to carry out market surveys or profiles.
These problems can be partially circumvented by encrypting data on the server in order to prevent society from access to the data but this solution still does not solve the problem entirely because the service’s cloud computing could monitor the activities of users to make their profiles purposes.
The second problem is related to continuity of service by delegating to an external service management data and their processing by the user is greatly restricted if these services are not operational. A malfunction also affects a large number of people at once since they are shared services.
Services cloud computing architectures using redundant and qualified personnel in order to prevent malfunction of the system, this reduces the probability of failures seen by the end user but do not eliminate the problem.
Study: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text is available under the Creative Commons.
