A STUDY ON CLOUD COMPUTING

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ABSTRACT
Cloud computing means that instead of all the computer hardware and software you're using
sitting on your desktop, or somewhere inside your company's network, it's provided for you as a
service by another company and accessed over the Internet, usually in a completely seamless
way. Exactly where the hardware and software is located and how it all works doesn't matter to
you, the userit's just somewhere up in the nebulous "cloud" that the Internet represents.
Cloud computing was coined for what happens when services and applications are propelled
into the internet cloud. Cloud computing refers to the many different types of services and
applications being delivered in the internet cloud, and the devices used to access these services
and applications do not require any special applications.
Cloud computing is a highly scalable and cost-effective infrastructure for running HPC,
enterprise and Web applications. However, the growing demand of Cloud infrastructure has
drastically increased the energy consumption of data centers, which has become a critical issue.
High energy consumption not only translates to high operational cost, which reduces the profit
margin of Cloud providers, but also leads to high carbon emissions which is not environmentally
friendly. Hence, energy-efficient solutions are required to minimize the impact of Cloud
computing on the environment. In order to design such solutions, deep analysis of Cloud is
required with respect to their power efficiency.
There is a lot of benefit for the business looking for the service from the cloud service
provider. Apart from the bundle of suits they have to offer, it focus all an escape from huge
investment into IT infrastructure and operating cost.

KEY WORDS
SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, Private, Public, Hybrid, Community.

INTRODUCTION
The emergence of cloud computing promises to increase the speed with which
applications are deployed, innovates and lower costs, particularly in the business world.
Productivity levels of businesses of all sizes have ultimately increased since the cloud computing
solutions have relieved them with many information technology problems such as issues related
with on premise software, increased efficiency, streamlined operations, and improved sales and
marketing strategies. Cloud computing solutions only requires access to the Internet and a Web
browser, and the heavy lifting of the software and hardware of the individual computer work
station is removed. The cloud is then responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the
software provided, thereby removing time-consuming and costly IT responsibilities from the
business enterprises
Cloud Computing is defined as an Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources,
software, and information are provided to computers and other devices on demand. It is already a
permanent fixture of consumer oriented services such as email, storage and social media. The
opportunities provided by cloud computing becomes available to enterprises of all sizes that
enables them to deliver more scalable and resilient services to employees, partners and customers
at lower cost and with higher business agility

Advantages of cloud computing

1. Reduce Runtime and Response time
For applications that use the cloud essentially for running batch jobs, cloud computing makes it
straightforward to use 1000 servers to accomplish a task in 1/1000 the time that a single server
would require. The New York Times example cited previously is the perfect example of what is
essentially a batch job whose run time was shortened considerably using the cloud. For
applications that need to offer good response time to their customers, refactoring applications so
that any CPU- intensive tasks are farmed out to worker virtual machines can help to optimize
response time while scaling on demand to meet customer demands. The Animoto application
cited previously is a good example of how the cloud can be used to scale applications and
maintain quality of service levels.
2. Minimise Infrastructure Risk
IT organizations can use the cloud to reduce the risk inherent in purchasing physical servers. Will
a new application be successful? If so, how many servers are needed and can they be deployed as
quickly as the workload increases? If not, will a large investment in servers go to waste? If the
applications success is short-lived, will the IT organization invest in a large amount of
infrastructure that is idle most of the time? When pushing an application out to the cloud,
scalability and the risk of purchasing too much or too little infrastructure becomes the cloud
providers issue. In a growing number of cases, the cloud provider has such a massive amount of
infrastructure that it can absorb the growth and workload spikes of individual customers,
reducing the financial risk they face. Another way in which cloud computing minimizes
infrastructure risk is by enabling surge computing, where an enterprise data center (perhaps one
that implements a private cloud) augments its ability to handle workload spikes by a design
that allows it to send overflow work to a public cloud. Application lifecycle management can be
handled better in an environment where resources are no longer scarce, and where resources can
be better matched to immediate needs, and at lower cost.

3. Lower cost of entry

Since the infrastructure is rented, not purchased, the cost is controlled, and the capital investment
can be zero. In addition to the lower costs of purchasing compute cycles and storage by the
sip, the massive scale of cloud providers helps to minimize cost, helping to further reduce the
cost of entry. Applications are developed more by assembly than programming. This rapid
application development is the norm, helping to reduce the time to market, potentially giving
organizations deploying applications in a cloud environment a head start against the competition.
4. Cloud being environmentally sustainable
The cloud saves energy and provides more efficient supplier management. Another of the clouds
green attributes take the form of dematerializing the economy which involves reducing the
number of physical materials.
The clouds efficiency and scalability help reduce energy usage and trash. By reducing the need
for hardware, companies can reduce costs and eliminate the need for maintenance and upgrades.
Carbon reduction:
The cloud reduces carbon emissions through minimized energy requirements. According to the
CDP report, offsite servers have the potential to prevent 85.7 million metric tons of annual
carbon emissions by 2020.
Research carried out by Google suggested that businesses could save around 60-85 percent on
their energy costs simply by switching to a cloud facility. The environmental impact of these
substantial reductions in energy are significant.
One study surveying the clients of Salesforce, a fast-growing cloud computing giant, suggested
carbon reductions of 95 percent compared to companies with servers on their premises.

Types of cloud computing

IT people talk about three different kinds of cloud computing, where different services are being
provided for you. Note that there's a certain amount of vagueness about how these things are
defined and some overlap between them.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) means you're buying access to raw computing

hardware over the Net, such as servers or storage. Since you buy what you need and payas-you-go, this is often referred to as utility computing. Ordinary web hosting is a simple
example of IaaS: you pay a monthly subscription or a per-megabyte/gigabyte fee to have
a hosting company serve up files for your website from their servers.

Software as a Service (SaaS) means you use a complete application running on someone
else's system. Web-based email and Google Documents are perhaps the best-known
examples. Zoho is another well-known SaaS provider offering a variety of office
applications online.

Platform as a Service (PaaS) means you develop applications using Web-based tools so
they run on systems software and hardware provided by another company. So, for
example, you might develop your own ecommerce website but have the whole thing,
including the shopping cart, checkout, and payment mechanism running on a merchant's
server. Force.com (from salesforce.com) and the Google App Engine are examples of
PaaS.

Figure 1. Cloud Computing Service Offerings

Figure 2. Cloud Computing Services Provisioning

Cloud Application Deployment Models

Public Cloud:
Is the Cloud in which services are available to the general public or a large group of
companies resources are shared. It is owned by a third-party selling Cloud services. An example
would be the Amazon EC2 Cloud wherein the service provider, in this case Amazon, rents out
storage space to Businesses, governments, and individuals alike.
Private Cloud:
Is the Cloud which operates dedicatedly for a single organization Private cloud
infrastructure may be set-up On-Premise or off-premise and may be managed either internally or
by third-party service providers, Private clouds offer highest level of security and control but are
expensive. An example would be the NASAs Nebula Private Cloud which is an infrastructureas-a-service implementation for scientific data and Web-based applications
Hybrid Cloud:
Is the Cloud which uses a combination of two or more clouds (public, private or community).
The Clouds could be individually managed by multiple Cloud service providers but are bound
together by Proprietary technology to enable data and application portability. E.g. a company
may use a public cloud for storing archived data but may use a private cloud for storing critical
information like customer details and information.

Community Cloud:
Is the Cloud whose infrastructure is shared by several organizations and supports a
specific community that has shared concerns, The community Cloud may be deployed OnPremise or Off-Premise and may be managed by organizations collectively or by a third-party
Cloud services provider. An example would be the Community Cloud being built by the Mount
Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Canada that will give 14 area hospitals shared access to a fetal
ultrasound application and data storage for patient information.

Developmental opportunities presented by the Cloud

Education Industry
The Educational sector is one of the cornerstones of socio-economic development. It is
widely accepted that education contributes to poverty reduction and increased economic growth,
which in turn leads to an improved standard of living. It also enables the individual to participate
in wealth generating activities, leads to the creation of employment, and the overall development
of society.
Advantages of Cloud adoption to the Education Sector
The Cloud can transform the Educational sector by providing tools such as Learning
Management Systems, Online portals, Virtual remote classrooms and Computer based tests as
shown in the illustration below. Notably, adoption of these tools could be done at reasonable
costs using the Cloud.
Healthcare
Seventy percent of the Indian population lives in rural India and most of them lack access
to hospitals, physicians, trained medical personnels, critical medicine supply and medical
equipments. India has only an elementary network of public hospitals and clinics (around
25,000 primary health centers). Public hospitals are also scarce outside large cities, and their
service standard varies and lack even basic healthcare records management systems.

Advantages of Cloud Adoption to the Healthcare Sector

The Cloud can help overcome most of the challenges faced by the healthcare industry;
following are specific advantages to each segment of the industry which will drive the adoption
of the Cloud in this industry.
Hospitals: Using third party SaaS applications housed in the Cloud, patients can be
provided access to their health history and information so that hospitals can streamline the
admissions, care and discharge processes. Hospitals can connect to their own web portals and
access patient data stored in the Cloud. Standard based services can also be used to build value
added web-applications for patients so that their healthcare can extend beyond the boundaries of
the hospital covering their entire lifecycle.
Physicians: With the Cloud, people can provide their health history and information to
their physicians anywhere, anytime, including data uploaded from health and fitness devices, to
help physicians make more informed decisions.
Pharmacies: People can administer or manage their prescriptions and associated
information such as dosage, amount and frequency, and provide this information to their
healthcare provider.
Laboratories and imaging centers: Patients diagnostic results can be transferred via
suitable Apps onto Cloud based platforms, e.g. Google Health or Microsoft Healthvault. This
eliminates the need for in-house storage and helps retain historic information in a systematic
manner. Healthcare providers can access these results with the patients permission, to help them
make more informed health decisions.
Pharmaceuticals/Drug manufacturers: The IaaS model could provide a drug manufacturer
with On-Demand computing resources to perform drug research analysis, eliminating the need to
retain high power computing capabilities and related IT expertise in-house.
Application Providers: Health and wellness companies can design and deliver health and
wellness solutions compatible with Cloud platforms to offer a rich user experience and ease of
managing the users sensitive personal health information.

Device manufacturers: Health and fitness devices can be designed to work with Cloud
platforms and Apps, so users can upload device data and share it with their doctors and families.
Insurance Companies: Insurance providers through transparent access to medical records can
provide better services to their customers. They can also offer customers with innovative tools
which giving members access to richer wellness information thereby increasing effectiveness of
care management programs which can help reduce claims costs. Insurance companies can also
incentivize customers to keep their health records updated.
Small Business Cloud Computing
For a small and medium size business (SMB), the benefits of cloud computing is currently
driving adoption. In the SMB sector there is often a lack of time and financial resources to
purchase, deploy and maintain an infrastructure (e.g. the software, server and storage). In cloud
computing, small businesses can access these resources using an Internet connection and Web
browser. You can expand (or shrink) services as your business needs change. The common payas-you-go subscription model is designed to let SMBs easily add or remove services and you
typically will only pay for what you do use.

Government:
Governments can leverage the Cloud to bridge the communication divide, especially with those
citizens that reside in remote parts of the country. The Cloud could also be used to increase
interoperability between various government agencies, reduce redundancy, track / monitor the
effectiveness of government schemes. Computing resources shared between Central and State
governments would result in reducing costs by leveraging existing infrastructure. Transparency
in Government can be achieved at a faster pace through the adoption of Cloud. The Cloud has
the potential of transforming this sector, to benefit not only the Government itself, but also
millions of people.

CONCLUSION
The keys to a sustainable cloud are sourcing renewable energy and improving energy efficiency.
If the cloud is located in areas that source renewable power, cloud computing can not only save
billions of dollars in energy costs it can also reduce carbon emissions by millions of metric tons.
Cloud computing offers on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable
computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be
rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider
interaction. It holds a considerable promise as a transformative technology that can change the
very nature of computing, specifically to business enterprises. Assessment of cloud computing
relative merits requires a clear understanding of its key concepts and its underlying economics. A
three-step is outlined as basis for the paradigm shift from conventional computing to leveraging
the features and capabilities of cloud computing. This includes the way on how to redesign, build
and deliver applications as well as the architectural challenges that must be taken for
consideration when adopting and migrating into cloud computing.

REFERENCES
1. Google
2. https://wiki.cloudsecurityalliance.org/guidance/index.php/Cloud_Computing_Architectur
al_Framework.
3. http://broadcast.rackspace.com/hosting_knowledge/whitepapers/CloudonomicsThe_Economics_of_Cloud_Computing.pdf