9. Cloud Characteristics: NIST List

According to NIST ( National Institute of Science and Technology), cloud computing model has the following inherent characteristics 

• on-demand self-service
• Broad network access
• Resource pooling
• Rapid Elasticity
• Measured service 

Figure 9. Cloud characteristics: NIST List 

8.7. Cloud Characteristics: SUSTAINABILITY

Meaning:

Sustainability allows users to assess and restructure IT environments, manage core IT assets and improve business processes using Cloud’s shared resources to deliver operational efficiencies. Cloud solutions reduce carbon footprints and lower e-waste from IT operations. Sustainability minimizes damage to the environment by recycling commodity components through continually evolving architectures. source

SUSTAINABILITY

8.6 Cloud Characteristics: HOLISTIC SECURITY & MANAGEMENT

Meaning

The holistic approach to security and management reduces complexity and risk for data and applications in the Cloud. Standard security policies and best practices do ensure information is protected according to service level agreements and industry regulations, but the holistic view emphasizes a whole-system approach rather than prioritizing analysis of any individual subcomponent or system. Source

HOLISTIC SECURITY & MANAGEMENT

8.5 Cloud Characteristics: FINANCIAL EFFICIENCY

Meaning

Services are tracked with usage metrics to enable multiple payment models and support different pricing plans and models. Payment is based on usage and type of service (e.g., applications, processing, bandwidth, active user accounts and storage), not on the cost of the underlying hardware. Cloud systems automatically monitor, control and optimize resource use, providing transparency for both the provider and consumer of the service.

FINANCIAL EFFICIENCY

Business Value

Financial Efficiency empowers the consumer to realize capital or operational expenditures in a variable cost format instead of as a sunk cost. Utilization of resources improves, and costs rise and fall proportionate to use.  Consumers purchase only what they consume. source

8.4: Cloud Characteristics: DYNAMIC SCALABILITY

Meaning

The service can scale capacity up or down rapidly as the consumer demands at the speed of full automation, taking advantage of the elasticity of shared pools of resources. To the consumer, services appear to be unlimited in scale and can be purchased and provisioned as needed.

Dynamic scalability 

Business Value

Dynamic Scalability ensures elasticity, adding or removing resources as needed, thus enabling a variable cost model and the delivery of financial efficiency.  This offers dynamic provisioning of resources in real-time adjusting for peak loads placed on applications, computing power, bandwidth and storage resources. source

8.3: Cloud Characteristics: MULTI-TENANCY

Meaning

Services share a pool of resources to build economies of scale and maximum efficiency. Shared resources serve multiple consumers using a multi-tenant model, with different physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according to consumer demand. Examples of resources include applications (hosted in the Cloud and delivered via SaaS), processing, memory, network bandwidth, virtual machines and storage.

Principle of Multi-tenancy 

Business Value

Multi-tenancy optimizes the utilization rate of hardware and avoids over-allocation when sharing computing resources. Financial efficiencies are achieved through better use of the appropriate resources. Multi-tenancy provides economies of scale, lowering barriers to entry.  Source

8.2 Cloud Characteristics: ACCESSIBILITY

Meaning

Services are delivered using Internet identifiers, formats and protocols. Capabilities are available over the network and accessed through standard mechanisms that promote use by heterogeneous platforms (e.g., mobile phones, laptops, and PDAs).

Business Value

Accessibility ensures consumers securely operate their core business regardless of how, or if, they are connected to the Internet (or which device they are using to connect to the Internet.)  If Internet connection is lost core services continue to operate and peripheral services restart automatically, ensuring support for Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery initiatives. Information and Image source

8.1 Cloud Characteristics: SERVICE ADAPTABILITY

Meaning 

Service interfaces are well defined, enabling a consumer to unilaterally provision computing capabilities automatically. Services are described and presented to consumers based on service levels and IT outcomes (availability, response time, performance, and clear and predefined operational processes), rather than underlying technology capabilities.

Business Value

Services must be adaptable across vendor implementations and offerings, ensuring interoperability between Cloud solutions whether a user is blending multi-vendor solutions or interchanging one solution for another. Service Adaptability allows consumers to rapidly and automatically fulfill business needs without concern for underlying infrastructures or technologies.  Information and Images Source

7. Cloud Computing- Advantages

Cloud computing model offers a lot of advantages for users especially business users. The Software as a Service (SaaS) model a allows a business the potential to reduce IT spend by outsourcing hardware and software maintenance and support to the cloud provider. This will enable a business to reallocate IT budget and staff to focus other IT goals. Since applications provided by cloud provider are hosted centrally, all updates can be released without asking user to buy or (re)install new software or updates. 

Figure 7: Advantages of Cloud Computing  

Picture source

End users can access cloud-based applications through a web browser or light-weight desktop application or mobile apps. The business software and user's data are stored on servers at a remote location. From business perspective- cloud computing enables enterprise to get applications up and running faster, simplifies management, results in less maintenance and enables IT dept to more rapidly adjust resources to meet fluctuating and unpredictable business demands.

  

6. Cloud Computing: How did we arrive at it?

Cloud Computing represents the latest model in the long history of providing computing to different audiences  Computers (computing) enabled military during second world war and entered business world with the advent of mainframe computers in 1960's.  Here is small recap of major models that existed and served computing community before we arrived at cloud computing.

Figure 6.1. Mainframe computers 

Figure 6.2: Personal Computing 

Figure 6.3. Network computing 

Figure 6.4 Internet Computing 

Figure 6.5. Grid Computing 

Figure 6.6. Cloud Computing 

5. Cloud Computing: Why is it called so?

It is interesting to know why is it called cloud computing. The origin of the term cloud computing is obscure, but it appears to derive from the practice of using drawings of stylized clouds to denote networks in diagrams of computing and communications systems. 

The name cloud computing was inspired by the cloud symbol that’s often used to represent the Internet in flow charts and diagrams. Cloud computing is a general term for anything that involves delivering hosted service over the Internet.

                                          Figure 5: Cloud Computing. Why is it called cloud?  Picture source

The word cloud is used as a metaphor for the Internet, based on the standardized use of a cloud-like shape to denote a network on telephony schematics and later to depict the Internet in computer network diagrams as an abstraction of the underlying infrastructure it represents. The cloud symbol was used to represent the Internet as early as 1994. 

One relevant quote " Cloud comes from the early days of Internet where we drew the network as a cloud... we didn't care where the message went- the cloud hid it from us " , Kevin Marks, Google 

4. Cloud Computing: Business Model

Cloud computing represents one of the many approaches to distributed computing. The sudden success and wide adoption of cloud computing is mainly due to the fact that unlike other distributed computing models, cloud computing comes with a business model.

In cloud computing business model everything is offered as a service.  In the business model using software as a service (SaaS), end users are provided access to application software and databases. The cloud service provider manage the infrastructure and platforms needed for the running of the applications or services.  Since the user can access application as and when it is needed, this model SaaS is also called as "On-demand Software". The revenue model consists of pricing end user on pay-per use basis or based on subscription fee model.

Figure 4: Cloud Business Model   Picture source

3. Cloud Computing- A Range of Services

As indicated in 2. Cloud Computing - Everything is a service - service is the main attraction and mode of using computing resources. In the beginning, the cloud computing services mainly consisted of the following.

1.  Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)
2. Platform as a service (PaaS)
3. Software as a Service (SaaS)

Figure 3: Cloud Computing: Range of services 

Since then cloud computing services have been growing in number and nature and here are some of the recent additions.

1. Storage as a Service (STaaS)
2. Security as a Service (SECaaS)
3. Data as a Service ( DaaS)
4. Database as a Service (DBaaS)
5. Test Environment as a Service (TEaaS)
6. Desktop Virtualization
7. API as a service ( APIaaS)
8. Backend as a service ( BaaS)  

2. Cloud Computing: Everything is a Service

In cloud computing every computing resources is provided as a service. In practical terms a service enables a user to access a resource or facility. A service may be very general such as railway time table inquiry  or it may more specific such as PNR status checking  

In technical sense, a service enables a user to access a resources - information as in case of railways or money in case of ATM and so on. 

Cloud computing extends the idea of service to all computing resources and provides the user access to them via Internet. 

Figure 2: Cloud Computing: Everything is a service 

Cloud service examples include emails, online docs and others. 

1. Cloud Computing: A Facility for all

Cloud computing is a facility to use computing resources directly from the Internet. A computing resource may be a software or hardware or a combination of both. Computing resources are delivered over the Internet in the form of services. A service enables a user to access a computing resource. Services are hosted on remote servers and users access   them in a given interface such as browser. In cloud computing a user has to store her data with remote server- cloud storage. Here is an example where a set of users are accessing different services via cloud computing.

Figure 1: Users accessing Cloud computing services