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Chapter I

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Cloud computing is Internet-based ("cloud") development and use of computer technology ("computing"). The cloud is a metaphor for the Internet (based on how it is depicted in computer network diagrams) and is an abstraction for the complex infrastructure it conceals. It is a style of computing in which IT-related capabilities are provided as a service, allowing users to access technology-enabled services from the Internet ("in the cloud") without knowledge of, expertise with, or control over the technology infrastructure that supports them. According to the IEEE Computer Society, "It is a paradigm in which information is permanently stored in servers on the Internet and cached temporarily on clients that include desktops, entertainment centers, table computers, notebooks, wall computers, handhelds, etc." Cloud computing is a general concept that incorporates software as a service (SaaS), Web 2.0 and other recent, well-known technology trends, in which the common theme is reliance on the Internet for satisfying the computing needs of the users. For example, Google Apps provides common business applications online that are accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on the servers.

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Chapter II

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What is a cloud?
Cloud computing is a term used to describe both a platform and type of application. A cloud computing platform dynamically provisions, configures, reconfigures, and deprovisions servers as needed. Servers in the cloud can be physical machines or virtual machines. Advanced clouds typically include other computing resources such as storage area networks (SANs), network equipment, firewall and other security devices.Cloud computing also describes applications that are extended to be accessible through the Internet. These cloud applications use large data centers and powerful servers that host Web applications and Web services. Anyone with a suitable Internet connection and a standard browser can access a cloud application.

Definition
A cloud is a pool of virtualized computer resources. A cloud can: Host a variety of different workloads, including batch-style back-end jobs and interactive, user-facing applications Allow workloads to be deployed and scaled-out quickly through the rapid provisioning of virtual machines or physical machines Support redundant, self-recovering, highly scalable programming models that allow workloads to recover from many unavoidable hardware/software failures Monitor resource use in real time to enable rebalancing of allocations when needed Cloud computing environments support grid computing by quickly providing physical and virtual servers on which the grid applications can run. Cloud computing should not be confused with grid computing. Grid computing involves dividing a large task into many Prepared by Sumesh C M

smaller tasks that run in parallel on separate servers. Grids require many computers, typically in the thousands, and commonly use servers, desktops, and laptops. Clouds also support nongrid environments, such as a three-tier Web architecture running standard or Web 2.0 applications. A cloud is more than a collection of computer resources because a cloud provides a mechanism to manage those resources. Management includes provisioning, change requests, reimaging, workload rebalancing, deprovisioning, and monitoring.

Chapter III

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Benefits
Cloud computing infrastructures can allow enterprises to achieve more efficient use of their IT hardware and software investments. They do this by breaking down the physical barriers inherent in isolated systems, and automating the management of the group of systems as a single entity. Cloud computing is an example of an ultimately virtualized system, and a natural evolution for data centers that employ automated systems management, workload balancing, and virtualization technologies. A cloud infrastructure can be a cost efficient model for delivering information services, reducing IT management complexity, promoting innovation, and increasing responsiveness through real time workload balancing.The Cloud makes it possible to launch Web 2.0 applications quickly and to scale up applications as much as needed when needed. The platform supports traditional Java and Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP (LAMP) stack-based applications as well as new architectures such as MapReduce and the Google File System, which provide a means to scale pplications across thousands of servers instantly.Large amounts of computer resource, in the form of Xen virtual machines, can be provisioned and made available for new applications within minutes instead of days or weeks. Developers can gain access to these resources through a portal and put them to use immediately. Several products are available that provide virtual machine capabilities, including proprietary ones such as VMware, and open source alternatives, such as XEN. This paper describes the use of XEN virtualization. Many customers are interested in cloud infrastructures to serve as platforms for innovation, particularly in countries that want to foster the development of a highly skilled, high-tech work force. They want to provide startups and research organizations with an environment for idea exchange, and the ability to rapidly develop and deploy new product prototypes. In Prepared by Sumesh C M

fact, HiPODS has been hosting IBMs innovation portal on a virtualized cloud infrastructure in our Silicon Valley Lab for nearly two years. We have over seventy active innovations at a time, with each innovation lasting on average six months. 50% of those innovations are Web 2.0 projects (search, collaboration, and social networking) and 27% turn into products or solutions. Our success with the innovation portal is documented in the August 20 Business Week cover story on global collaboration.

Chapter IV

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Comparisons
Cloud computing is often confused with grid computing (a form of distributed computing whereby a "super and virtual computer" is composed of a cluster of networked, looselycoupled computers, acting in concert to perform very large tasks), utility computing (the packaging of computing resources, such as computation and storage, as a metered service similar to a traditional public utility such as electricity) and autonomic computing (computer systems capable of self-management). Indeed many cloud computing deployments are today powered by grids, have autonomic characteristics and are billed like utilities, but cloud computing can be seen as a natural next step from the grid-utility model. Some successful cloud architectures have little or no centralized infrastructure or billing systems whatsoever including peer to peer networks like BitTorrent and Skype and volunteer computing like SETI@home.

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Chapter V

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Architecture
The architecture behind cloud computing is a massive network of "cloud servers" interconnected as if in a grid running in parallel, sometimes using the technique of virtualization to maximize computing power per server.

Diagram of cloud computing architecture. A front-end interface allows a user to select a service from a catalog. This request gets passed to the system management which finds the correct resources, and then calls the Prepared by Sumesh C M

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provisioning services which carves out resources in the cloud. The provisioning service may deploy the requested stack or web application as well.

User interaction interface: This is how users of the cloud interface with the cloud to request services. Services catalog: This is the list of services that a user can request. System management: This is the piece which manages the computer resources available. Provisioning tool: This tool carves out the systems from the cloud to deliver on the requested service. It may also deploy the required images. Monitoring and metering: This optional piece tracks the usage of the cloud so the resources used can be attributed to a certain user. Servers: The servers are managed by the system management tool. They can be either virtual or real.

Chapter VI

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How Cloud Computing Works

Let's say you're an executive at a large corporation. Your particular responsibilities include making sure that all of your employees have the right hardware and software they need to do their jobs. Buying computers for everyone isn't enough -- you also have to purchase software or software licenses to give employees the tools they require. Whenever you have a new hire, you have to buy more software or make sure your current software license allows another user. It's so stressful that you find it difficult to go to sleep on your huge pile of money every night.

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A typical cloud computing system Soon, there may be an alternative for executives like you. Instead of installing a suite of software for each computer, you'd only have to load one application. That application would allow workers to log into a Web-based service which hosts all the programs the user would need for his or her job. Remote machines owned by another company would run everything from e-mail to word processing to complex data analysis programs. It's called cloud computing, and it could change the entire computer industry. In a cloud computing system, there's a significant workload shift. Local computers no longer have to do all the heavy lifting when it comes to running applications. The network of computers that make up the cloud handles them instead. Hardware and software demands on the user's side decrease. The only thing the user's computer needs to be able to run is the cloud computing system's interface software, which can be as simple as a Web browser, and the cloud's network takes care of the rest. There's a good chance you've already used some form of cloud computing. If you have an email account with a Web-based e-mail service like Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail or Gmail, then you've had some experience with cloud computing. Instead of running an e-mail program on your computer, you log in to a Web e-mail account remotely. The software and storage for your account doesn't exist on your computer -- it's on the service's computer cloud.

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Chapter VII

PROPERTIES OF CLOUD COMPUTING

Six properties of cloud computing from Google's perspective:

1. User centric. "If data is all stored in the Cloud - images, messages, whatever - once you're connected to the Cloud, any new PC or mobile device that can access your data becomes yours. Not only is the data yours, but you can share it with others." Prepared by Sumesh C M

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2. Task centric. "The applications of the past - spreadsheets, e-mail, calendar - are becoming modules, and can be composed and laid out in a task-specific manner. (...) Google considers communication to be a task" and that's the reason why Gmail integrates a chat feature for instant Communication.

3. Powerful. "Having lots of computers in the Cloud means that it can do things that your PC cannot do. For example, Google Search is faster than searching in Windows or Outlook or Word" because a Google query hits at least 1000 machines.

4. Accessible. Having your data in the cloud means you can instantly get more information from different repositories - Google's universal search is one example of simultaneous search. "Traditional web page search does IR / TF-IDF / page rank stuff pretty well on the Web at large, but if you want to do a specific type of search, for restaurants, images, etc., web search isn't necessarily the best option. It's difficult for most people to get to the right vertical search page in the first place, since they usually can't remember where to go. Universal search is basically a single search that will access all of these vertical searches."

5. Intelligent. "Data mining and massive data analysis are required to give some intelligence to the masses of data available (massive data storage + massive data analysis = Google Intelligence)."

6. Programmable. "For fault tolerance, Google uses GFS or distributed disk storage. Every piece of data is replicated three times. If one machine dies, a master redistributes the data to a new server. There are around 200 clusters (some with over 5 PB of disk space on 500 machines). The Big Table is used for distributed memory. The largest cells in the Big Table are 700 TB, spread over 2000 machines. MapReduce is the solution for new programming paradigms. It cuts a trillion records into a thousand parts on a thousand machines. Each machine will then load a billion records and will run the same program over these records, Prepared by Sumesh C M

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and then the results are recombined. While in 2005, there were some 72,000 jobs being run on MapReduce, in 2007, there were two million jobs (use seems to be increasing exponentially)." This recent video has more information about Google's infrastructure.

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Chapter VIII

Cloud Computing Concerns

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Perhaps the biggest concerns about cloud computing are security and privacy. The idea of handing over important data to another company worries some people. Corporate executives might hesitate to take advantage of a cloud computing system because they can't keep their company's information under lock and key. The counterargument to this position is that the companies offering cloud computing services live and die by their reputations. It benefits these companies to have reliable security measures in place. Otherwise, the service would lose all its clients. It's in their interest to employ the most advanced techniques to protect their clients' data. Privacy is another matter. If a client can log in from any location to access data and applications, it's possible the client's privacy could be compromised. Cloud computing companies will need to find ways to protect client privacy. One way is to use authentication techniques such as user names and passwords. Another is to employ an authorization format -- each user can access only the data and applications relevant to his or her job. Some questions regarding cloud computing are more philosophical. Does the user or company subscribing to the cloud computing service own the data? Does the cloud computing system, which provides the actual storage space, own it? Is it possible for a cloud computing company to deny a client access to that client's data? Several companies, law firms and universities are debating these and other questions about the nature of cloud computing. How will cloud computing affect other industries? There's a growing concern in the IT industry about how cloud computing could impact the business of computer maintenance and repair. If companies switch to using streamlined computer systems, they'll have fewer IT needs. Some industry experts believe that the need for IT jobs will migrate to the back end of the cloud computing system.

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Chapter IX

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History
The Cloud is a metaphor for the Internet, derived from its common depiction in network diagrams (or more generally components which are managed by others) as a cloud outline. The underlying concept dates back to 1960 when John McCarthy opined that "computation may someday be organized as a public utility" (indeed it shares characteristics with service bureaus which date back to the 1960s) and the term cloud was already in commercial use in the early 1990s to refer to large ATM networks. By the turn of the 21st century, cloud computing solutions had started to appear on the market, though most of the focus at this time was on Software as a service. Amazon.com played a key role in the development of cloud computing by modernizing their data centers after the dot-com bubble and (having found the new cloud architecture resulted in significant internal efficiency improvements) providing access to their systems by way of Amazon Web Services in 2002 on a utility computing basis. 2007 saw increased activity, including Google, IBM and a number of universities embarking on a large scale cloud computing research project, around the time the term started gaining popularity in the mainstream press. It was a hot topic by mid-2008 and numerous cloud computing events had been scheduled. In August 2008 Gartner observed that "organisations are switching from company-owned hardware and software assets to per-use service-based models" and that the "projected shift to cloud computing will result in dramatic growth in IT products in some areas and in significant reductions in other areas".

Companies
Cloud computing is being driven by providers including Amazon, Google, Salesforce and Yahoo! as well as traditional vendors including Hewlett Packard, IBM, Intel, Microsoft and SAP and adopted by users from individuals through large enterprises including General Electric, L'Oral, Procter & Gamble and Valeo.

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Chapter X

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Key characteristics

Capital expenditure minimized and thus low barrier to entry as infrastructure is owned by the provider and does not need to be purchased for one-time or infrequent intensive computing tasks. Services are typically being available to or specifically targeting retail consumers and small businesses.

Device and location independence which enables users to access systems regardless of location or what device they are using (eg PC, mobile). Multitenancy enabling sharing of resources (and costs) among a large pool of users, allowing for:
o

Centralization of infrastructure in areas with lower costs (eg real estate, electricity) Peak-load capacity increases (users need not engineer for highest possible load levels) Utilization and efficiency improvements for systems that are often only 1020% utilised.

Performance is monitored and consistent but can be affected by insufficient bandwidth or high network load. Reliability by way of multiple redundant sites, which makes it suitable for business continuity and disaster recovery, however IT and business managers are able to do little when an outage hits them. Historical data on cloud outages is tracked in the Cloud Computing Incidents Database.

Scalability which meets changing user demands quickly, without having to engineer for peak loads. Massive scalability and large user bases are common but not an absolute requirement.

Security which typically improves due to centralization of data, increased securityfocused resources, etc. but which raises concerns about loss of control over certain sensitive data. Accesses are typically logged but accessing the audit logs themselves can be difficult or impossible.

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Sustainability through improved resource utilisation, more efficient systems and carbon neutrality.[29]

Chapter XI

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Chapter XII

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Conclusion
In today's global competitive market, companies must innovate and get the most from its resources to succeed. This requires enabling its employees, business partners, and users with the platforms and collaboration tools that promote innovation. Cloud computing infrastructures are next generation platforms that can provide tremendous value to companies of any size. They can help companies achieve more efficient use of their IT hardware and software investments and provide a means to accelerate the adoption of innovations. Cloud computing increases Profitability by improving resource utilization. Costs are driven down by delivering appropriate Resources only for the time those resources are needed. Cloud computing has enabled teams and Organizations to streamline lengthy procurement processes.

Cloud computing enables innovation by alleviating the need of innovators to find resources to develop, test, and make their innovations available to the user community. Innovators are free to focus on the innovation rather than the logistics of finding and managing resources that enable the innovation. Combining cloud computing with IBM Innovation Factory provides an end-to-end collaboration environment that could transform organizations into innovation power houses. IBM is a leader in cloud computing and innovation technologies. IBM has been using these technologies internally to promote innovations through its own innovation portal, the Technology Adoption Program (TAP). Through the TAP program IBM employees have been able to quickly obtain computing resources. This has enable hundreds of innovation ideas to flourish within IBM. IBM can

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help its customers and partners do the same either as a hosted ecosystem and as a locally installed solution.

Chapter XIII

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References
Article From The HINDU news paper www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/zones/hipods/library.html www.infoworld.com/article/08/04/07/15FE-cloud-computing-reality_1.html www.expresscomputeronline.com www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2007/tc20071116_379585.html www.accenture.com

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