Today, Cloud computing is not a new word, but still its considered to be one of the services that will be opted by every company directly or indirectly in near future. So we can say that future of Information Technology will be in 'Cloud'. I tried to put few things related to Cloud computing in this article and also tries to include basic information about Windows Azure platform (windows cloud platform).
What is Cloud computing?
Cloud computing is Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices on demand, like the electricity grid.
In general, cloud computing customers do not own the physical infrastructure, instead avoiding capital expenditure by renting usage from a third-party provider. They consume resources as a service and pay only for resources that they use. Many cloud-computing offerings employ the utility computing model, which is analogous to how traditional utility services (such as electricity) are consumed, whereas others bill on a subscription basis.
Some of the companies which provide cloud computing services are Amazon, Google, Salesforce, IBM etc.
Key Advantages:
1. Agility improves with user's ability to rapidly and inexpensively re-provision technological infrastructure resources.
2. Cost is claimed to be greatly reduced and capital expenditure is converted to operational expenditure.
3. Device and location independence: enable users to access systems using a web browser regardless of their location or what device they are using (e.g., PC, mobile).
4. Multi-tenancy enables sharing of resources and costs across a large pool of users thus allowing for:
- Centralization of infrastructure in locations with lower costs (such as real estate, electricity, etc.)
- Peak-load capacity increases (users need not engineer for highest possible load-levels)
- Utilization and efficiency improvements for systems that are often only 10–20% utilized.
5. Scalability via dynamic ("on-demand") provisioning of resources on a fine-grained, self-service basis near real-time, without users having to engineer for peak loads.
6. Security could improve due to centralization of data, increased security-focused resources, etc., but concerns can persist about loss of control over certain sensitive data, and the lack of security for stored kernels.
7. Maintenance is nil for consumers as they didn't need to worry about that.
8. Metering means that cloud computing resources usage should be measurable and should be metered per client and application on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis.
Layers of Cloud Computing:
Client: A cloud client consists of computer hardware and/or computer software that relies on cloud computing for application delivery. Examples include some computers, phones and other devices, operating systems and browsers.
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.
Platform: Cloud platform services deliver a computing platform and/or solution stack as a service, often consuming cloud infrastructure and sustaining cloud applications. It facilitates deployment of applications without the cost and complexity of buying and managing the underlying hardware and software layers
Infrastructure: 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.
Windows Azure Platform
The Windows Azure Platform is an Internet-scale cloud computing and services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers. The Windows Azure Platform includes the foundation layer of Windows Azure as well as a set of developer services which can be used individually or together. The Windows Azure platform provides the tools and documentation necessary to develop hosted services that run on Windows Azure.
The Windows Azure platform consists of a hosted infrastructure of hardware, software, network, and storage resources each providing a specific set of services to application developers. These services include:
1. Windows Azure
In its simplest form, Windows Azure is a cloud services operating system that serves as the foundation for running Windows applications and storing data in a scalable Internet-accessible virtual environment.
Windows Azure is part of the Windows Azure platform which consists of a hosted infrastructure of hardware, software, network, and storage resources.
Windows Azure handles load balancing and resource management and automatically manages the life cycle of a service based on requirements that the owner of the service established.
2. Windows Azure Storage services
The Windows Azure Storage services are comprised of:
- Blobs: Used to store unstructured binary and text data
- Queues: Used for storing messages that may be accessed by a client and providing reliable messaging between role instances
- Tables: Used to store non-relational structured data
- Windows Azure drives: Used to mount an NTFS volume accessible to code running in your Windows Azure service
3. Microsoft SQL Azure
Microsoft SQL Azure Database is a cloud-based relational database service built on SQL Server technologies. It provides a highly available, scalable, multi-tenant database service hosted by Microsoft in the cloud. SQL Azure Database helps to ease provisioning and deployment of multiple databases. Developers do not have to install, setup, patch, or manage any software.
4. Windows Azure AppFabric
The Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus and Windows Azure AppFabric Access Control together make hybrid, connected applications. Applications that communicate from behind firewalls, across the Internet, from hosted cloud servers, between rich desktops and smart devices—easier to build, secure, and manage.
Although you can build hybrid, connected applications today, doing this often means you have to build important infrastructure components before you can build the applications themselves.
AppFabric Service Bus and AppFabric Access Control provide several important infrastructure elements so that you can more easily begin making your connected applications work now.
- The AppFabric Service Bus securely relays messages to and from any Web service regardless of the device or computer on which they are hosted, or whether that device is behind a firewall or NAT router.
- The AppFabric Access Control is an interoperable, claims-based service that provides federated authentication and authorization solutions for any resource, whether in the cloud, behind a firewall, or on a smart device.
5. Microsoft Codename "Dallas"
Microsoft Codename “Dallas” is a service allowing developers and information workers to easily discover, purchase, and manage premium data subscriptions. “Dallas” is an information marketplace for ISVs and IWs that provides both trusted public domain and premium commercial data via integrated consumption experiences and easy data discovery, exploration, and purchasing on any platform.
Additionally, Dallas APIs allow developers and information workers to consume this premium content with virtually any platform, application or business workflow.
Hope you get enough information to move into cloud. Enjoy the ride !!!
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. Even if you follow some of them, you will definitely find positive improvements in your current life style.