Cloud Computing Possibilities

Cloud computing is the process of accessing and using a computing application via a Web browser. While the hosting company takes care of the hardware, software and support services of the entire application or platform, the user simply pays the 'rent' for using it over a period of time. Users need not have the knowledge or expertise of the technology they are using, but they can customize them according to their needs. Cloud services are also called on-demand services because they offer the flexibility to use as and when needed. More importantly, most of the services offered via the cloud are highly scalable, meaning a company need not invest in a complete software application or a platform in the initial stages. As the business grows, the company can scale the application and pay for it.

What is 'Cloud' all about?

Imagine that you are starting a business. Since all businesses today demand an online presence, the first and foremost requirement for starting a business is a robust IT infrastructure. This holds true even in the case of a small gift store that sells their goods online. They too need a full-fledged IT infrastructure - a datacenter with up-to-date hardware and software, cooling systems, power backups, networking equipment, server and data backup facilities. Plus, they require a team of hardware and software engineers to monitor the system 24/7 to protect it from hackers and other external threats such as network outage, hardware failure and the like. Next is the huge investment in software applications like e-commerce applications, database management software and anti-virus/ anti-spyware software. It would take at least six months for a company to put all these things together. By the time things are set and the business starts running, it'll be time to upgrade the network or update the software.

Suppose all of these headaches evaporate to the cloud and you are given a 'free' datacenter with better hardware and backup facilities, along with all software support as you desire. Yes, such an option has become a reality. Many companies are offering virtual hardware and software through the Internet so that customers across the world can 'draw' them from the cloud as and when needed. This is the concept behind cloud computing. Prominent cloud computing providers include Microsoft, Amazon, Salesforce.com, IBM, Soho, Rackspace, Sun Microsystems, Google, Yahoo, and many more. They have their own facilities to store, manage and service their resources; their employees manage the software and hardware so as to make them available 24/7 to the customers. The robust datacenter offers the storage space for user data and makes them available for use later. Thus, the user does not need the storage space or other infrastructure support needed to save and run the software. In short, the provider hosts the software/hardware along with all its components while the user only uses a virtual image of the application that is stored in their computer. This facility saves significant storage space and other related expenses. Of course, there is an expense - the rent for using the application. That's the one and only cost, and it's very reasonable. Compare this cost with the savings on space, hardware, software, human power and hundreds of such recurring costs you will incur if you are running the application directly from your business premises.

Different Types of Cloud Services

Currently, cloud services include three important services: Infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS).

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS):

Infrastructure as a service refers to delivering the service of a computer infrastructure via Web browser. IaaS provides customers with a virtual infrastructure that includes servers, software, data center space, and network equipment as a service. Customers pay according to the utility and amount of resources consumed. Web hosting services and virtual private server hosting services can be considered as a form of IaaS. IaaS has several benefits. The virtualized environment saves the hardware expenses as well as other resources including power, coolants, human resources, and software. IaaS offers greater scalability. Customers can scale the resources as their demands grow. They can opt for higher bandwidth or greater storage space as needed. By outsourcing IaaS, customers can also get the benefits of the enterprise-grade servers and advanced hardware and networking resources offered by the providers.   This results in greater economies of scale because a service provider can offer better, cheaper and more reliable applications than that offered by the companies themselves.

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Under this service, a computing platform and solution stack are offered as a service. Such platforms available through the cloud are also known as cloudware. Typical PaaS offerings include workflow facilities for design, development, deployment and testing of various applications such as collaboration, database integration, storage and more. These services are provisioned as integrated services through the cloud. Different PaaS offerings include different types of services to support the application development cycle. A typical PaaS offering provides all service options in an integrated development environment. Users have the freedom for source code control, version control, dynamic multiple user testing, roll out and roll back with the ability to audit and track the changes. PaaS offerings typically provide support to create user interfaces based on HTML, JavaScript or other Rich Internet Applications such as Flash and Adobe Flex. The service supports multiple users through a multi-tenant architecture that provides concurrency management, scalability, failover and security.

PaaS enables the deployment of applications without getting into the cost and complexity of buying and managing the underlying hardware and software.   The built-in platform provides high levels of security, scalability and failover, so users are free from the task of testing and integrating these applications separately. Moreover, they also get the benefits of the ad hoc features developed by the development teams of such platforms. Some of the popular PaaS offerings include AppJet, Force.com, Google App Engine, Windows Azure platform, QuickBase, WaveMaker, and WorkXpress. Experts say PaaS will see immediate growth with Google offering support to more scripting languages. Also, there will be a strong push for the .NET platform on the clouds by Microsoft.

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) is the most common cloud computing service. SaaS is a model of software deployment in which a software provider licenses an application to customers as a service on demand. Customers can either download these applications or host them on their web servers. The service is made available as long as the contract is valid. Like other cloud computing models, SaaS also features the multi-tenant architecture. The centralized services such as updates, security, and maintenance obviate the need for end users to download patches and upgrades. The service is usually charged on a per-user basis, with additional fees charged for extra bandwidth or storage. The SaaS model is more cost efficient than the traditional software license model. They also save on software upgrade charges and maintenance fees. Further, the software applications offered via the SaaS model are feature-rich as there is ongoing demand from the user community for rich and advanced features. These features are available to all end-uses without extra cost.

SaaS may also use virtualization, allowing organizations to develop a multi-tenant application without additional programming. Popular virtualization techniques applied to SaaS include operating system virtualization, application virtualization and virtualization appliance (a virtual machine image designed to run on a virtualization platform). SaaS can also utilize the service-oriented architecture (SOA), allowing software applications to communicate with each other. A particular SaaS can expose its functionality to other applications via a public platform, and can also incorporate functionality from other services. A typical example of such SOA is SAP Business ByDesign, an enterprise resource planning (ERP) software from SAP AG.

Impact of the Cloud on Next-Gen Computing

Call the 'Ghost' at your Desktop (Box Item)

The desktop cloud is a relatively new development in the cloud space. G.ho.st is an innovative cloud computing offering poised in this direction. Founded in 2006, G.ho.st aims to deliver a free virtual computer to every user. To realize this goal, G.ho.st has developed its own Web operating system, the global hosted operating system that works openly and seamlessly with leading third-party Web applications. The G.ho.st Virtual Computer service includes a personal desktop, files and applications, available from any browser or mobile phone. Soon you will be in a position to boot your system from the Cloud.

As the popularity of computers and the Internet grows, the concept of computing as a commodity finds more relevance. In such a scenario, high-end computing applications are viewed as more important because they control the business processes and the data itself. SaaS and other cloud offerings ease the process of application licensing by means of outsourcing and cost reduction. According to Peter Coffee, director of Platform Research at Salesforce.com, "Lower costs of market entry and application deployment, faster payback on development costs, and superior return on investment will make cloud-based platforms the target of choice for both entrepreneurial and enterprise developers."¹

Coffee predicts that the developers outside the United States and Europe, especially those in countries like India, China and Brazil, will find their most rapidly growing opportunities in their own home markets, and will shift their focus toward building high-value applications for compatriot companies rather than providing low-cost labor to mature markets overseas.

According to Markus Klems¹, Research Assistant at the FZI Research Center for Information Technology, more and more desktop applications are turning into SaaS or at least hybrid online/offline apps that live in the cloud. The scalable, on-demand middleware, Klems says, is an appealing vision for large enterprises because it avoids bottlenecks by outsourcing parts of the middleware infrastructure into a SOA-Cloud.

Revolutionary Cloud Platforms

Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure is an application platform in the cloud that provides a cloud operating system called Windows Azure that serves as a runtime for the applications and provides a set of services that allows development, management and hosting of managed applications off-premises. The platform includes five services - Live Services, SQL Services (Azure Data Services), .NET Services, SharePoint Services and Dynamics CRM Services - which the developers can use to build the applications that will run in the cloud².

Amazon's Cloud Services

Amazon CloudFront is a content delivery service that integrates with other Amazon Web Services to give developers and businesses an easy way to distribute content to end users with low latency, high data transfer speeds and no commitments. Experts view CloudFront as the promising future for do-it-yourself content distribution and media hosting. Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) is another Web service that provides resizable computing capacity in the cloud by providing developers with the tools to build failure-resilient applications and isolate themselves from common failure scenarios.

Force.com

Force.com, a cloud platform from Salesforce.com, enables users to build multi-tenant applications for database, security, workflow, user interface and other tools that take them through the process of building powerful business applications, websites, and mobile application. Salesforce.com markets this as 'development as a service' offering.

Made for Recession

The proverb "Necessity is the mother of invention" holds very true in the case of cloud computing. This service model evolved rapidly during the recession and yielded amazing results to companies suffering from shrunk budgets. There is no doubt that cloud services will flourish in the future. However, experts feel that the main driver of cloud computing services will be the user experience, especially the quality in scaling and managing the infrastructure. Unless the providers live up to the expectations of end users and treat them well beyond the terms of the contract, the scenario will not look prospective. Efficiency of the service is another key component that decides 'who will survive the cloud computing market.' To ensure quality, service providers must be able to offer automated services, and customers should be able to draw the service without human intervention. In short, any cloud service provider that seeks a bright future should be ready to offer a user-centric performance management system rather than the data-centric performance management system.

There will be a significant rise in the opportunities available to cloud service providers. Cloud computing will hit the traditional hosting market hard, experts feel. The tough competition prevailing in the cloud computing market indicates a further fall in prices as an approach to remain competitive in the market. This scenario will affect all types of service providers including Web hosting companies, managed hosting providers, independent software vendors offering their software-as-a-service (SaaS), traditional system integrators, online service companies and value added resellers.

1. Geelan, Jeremy. "The Future of Cloud Computing." http://cloudcomputing.sys-con.com/node/771947#. Cloud Computing Journal. Accessed on 3^rd October 2009.

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