COMP1750: Week 6 - The Cloud

Week 6: The Cloud

Introduction

  • The lecture is about cloud computing.

Cloud Computing Basics

  • Cost Savings Example: Moving to the cloud can significantly cut costs. An example is leasing storage at $10 per terabyte, which can reduce monthly storage costs by at least 50%, saving on power, backup time, and hardware configuration. There are one-time setup and development costs.

Study Questions

  • Why is the cloud the future for most organizations?
  • How do organizations use the cloud?
  • How can Falcon Security use the cloud?
  • How can organizations use cloud services securely?
  • What does the cloud mean for your future?
  • How does the knowledge in this chapter help you?

Why the Cloud is the Future

  • Definition: The cloud is the elastic leasing of pooled computer resources via the Internet.

Characteristics of the Cloud

  • Elasticity:
    • Automatically adjusts for unpredictable demand.
    • Limits financial risks.
  • Pooled Resources:
    • Same physical hardware shared via virtualization.
    • Economies of scale: Average cost decreases as the size of operation increases. Major cloud vendors operate enormous Web farms.
  • Over the Internet:
    • Access resources over the Internet.
    • No need to have servers on-premises.

Cloud vs. In-House Hosting

Cloud-Based Hosting

  • Positive:
    • Small capital requirements.
    • Speedy development.
    • Superior flexibility and adaptability to growing or fluctuating demand.
    • Known cost structure.
    • Possibly best-of-breed security/disaster preparedness.
    • No obsolescence.
    • Industry-wide economies of scale, hence cheaper.
  • Negative:
    • Dependency on vendor.
    • Loss of control over data location.
    • Little visibility into true security and disaster preparedness capabilities.

In-House Hosting

  • Positive:
    • Control of data location.
    • In-depth visibility of security and disaster preparedness.
  • Negative:
    • Significant capital required.
    • Significant development effort.
    • Annual maintenance costs.
    • Ongoing support costs.
    • Staff and train personnel.
    • Increased management requirements.
    • Difficult (impossible?) to accommodate fluctuating demand.
    • Cost uncertainties.
    • Obsolescence.

Reasons for Cloud Popularity

  • Cheap processors, essentially free data communication and data storage.
  • Virtualization technology.
  • Internet-based standards enable flexible, standardized processing capabilities.

When the Cloud Doesn't Make Sense

  • When law or standard industry practice requires physical control or possession of the data.
    • E.g., Financial institutions legally required to maintain physical control over their data.

How Organizations Use the Cloud

  • Organizations use cloud services in several different ways. The most popular is using cloud services.

Cloud Types

  • Three fundamental cloud types:
    • Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
    • Platform as a Service (PaaS)
    • Software as a Service (SaaS)

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

  • Bare server computer, data storage, network, and virtualization hosted by the cloud.
    • E.g., provide hardware for customers to load a specific operating system (Rackspace Inc.).
    • E.g., provide unlimited, reliable data storage in the cloud (Amazon’s Simple Storage Service).
  • The cost savings of IaaS over traditional on-premises hosting can be substantial.

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

  • Hosted computers with an operating system, runtime environment, and middleware provided by vendors.
    • Middleware: Bridges different applications to provide unified service (e.g., Web server, DBMS).
  • Organizations add their own applications to the host.
  • PaaS examples:
    • Microsoft Windows Azure provides servers installed with Windows Server.
      • Customers of Windows Azure then add their own applications on top of the hosted platform.
    • Microsoft SQL Azure provides a host with Windows Server and SQL Server.
    • Oracle On Demand provides a hosted server with Oracle Database.
    • Amazon EC2 provides servers with Windows Server or Linux installed.

Software as a Service (SaaS)

  • Hardware infrastructure, operating system, application programs, and databases provided by organizations.
  • Examples:
    • Provides hardware and programs for customer and sales tracking (Salesforce.com).
    • Google Drive, OneDrive.
    • Office 365, Exchange, Skype for Business, SharePoint applications.

Cloud Category Examples

  • SaaS (Software as a Service)
    • Salesforce.com
    • Google Grid
    • Microsoft OneDrive and Office 365
    • Apple iCloud
  • PaaS (Platform as a Service)
    • Microsoft Azure
    • Oracle on Demand
  • IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)
    • Amazon EC2 (Elastic Cloud 2)
    • Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)

Content Delivery Network (CDN)

  • A system of distributed servers that delivers webpages and other Web content.
    • A system of hardware and software that stores user data in many different geographical locations and makes those data available on demand.
  • Specialized type of PaaS, own category.
  • Minimizes latency.

Distributed CDN vs. Traditional Server Content Distribution

  • Diagram illustrating the difference between traditional server distribution and CDN with media company, home users, and CDN server.

CDN Benefits

  • Decreased, even guaranteed load time.
  • Reduced load on origin server.
  • Increased reliability.
  • Protection from DoS attacks.
  • Reduced delivery costs for mobile users.
  • Pay-as-you-go.

Internal Web Services Example

  • Best Bikes runs its own servers on its own infrastructure, sets up a private internet within the company, and writes the applications for processing inventory using Web services standards.
  • Application users access the inventory Web services using JavaScript (sent down to the user’s browsers).
  • Strictly speaking, this is not using the cloud, as it does not provide elasticity and the advantages of pooled resources, but it does advantageously use cloud standards.

Falcon Security's Cloud Usage

  • SaaS
  • PaaS
  • IaaS

SaaS Services at Falcon Security

  • Some SaaS products Falcon Security could use:
    • Google Mail
    • Google Drive
    • Office 365
    • Salesforce.com
    • Microsoft CRM OnLine
    • Many others

PaaS Services at Falcon Security

  • Leases hardware and operating systems in the cloud from the cloud vendor.
    • Falcon installs its own software.
  • Obtains Windows Servers with SQL Server already installed from the Microsoft Azure cloud offerings.
  • Some cloud vendors include DBMS products in their PaaS services.
  • Uses CDN to distribute content worldwide and respond to leads generated from advertising.

IaaS Services at Falcon Security

  • Provides basic hardware in the cloud.
  • May acquire servers to load operating systems.
  • Considerable technical expertise and management.
  • Alternative: use elastic data storage services.
  • SaaS and PaaS provide more added value to Falcon Security.

Secure Cloud Services

  • Virtual Private Network (VPN)
  • Private Cloud
  • Virtual Private Cloud

Virtual Private Network (VPN)

  • Uses the Internet to create the appearance of private, secure connections.
    • A private connection on a secure network remote computer virtual private pathway.

Remote Access Using VPN

  • Diagram illustrating remote access using VPN.

Private Cloud

  • Cloud owned and operated by an organization for its own benefit.
  • Private cloud creation:
    • Create a private internet.
    • Design applications using Web services standards.
    • Create a farm of servers.
    • Manage servers with elastic load balancing in a server farm.

Private Cloud Security

  • Security is provided within the organizational infrastructure but does not provide secure access from outside that infrastructure.
  • To provide such access, organizations set up a VPN, and users employ it to securely access the private cloud.

Virtual Private Cloud

  • A subset of a public cloud that has highly restricted, secure access.
  • An organization can build its own VPC on top of public cloud infrastructure like AWS or that provided by other cloud vendors.
  • An organization can:
    • Store its most sensitive data on its own infrastructure.
    • Store the less sensitive data on the VPC.
    • Gain the advantages of cloud storage and possibly cloud processing for that portion of its data that it need not physically control.

The Future of Cloud Computing

  • Cloud services faster, easier to use, cheaper.
  • Fewer organizations set up their own computing infrastructure.
  • More pooling of servers across organizations.
  • Overall size of the cloud gets bigger.
  • Individuals, small businesses, large organizations obtain elastic resources at a very low cost.
  • Cloud fosters new categories of work.

Remote Action Systems

  • Telediagnosis
  • Telesurgery
  • Telelaw enforcement
  • Provide services in dangerous locations.
  • Watch top-notch performers and performances.
  • Reduces the value of local mediocrity?

Benefits of Cloud Knowledge

  • Cloud knowledge is key for all business professionals in the early years of their careers.
  • Anticipate new categories of jobs you might find rewarding.
  • Save your organization considerable money.

Active Review Questions

  • Q1: Why is the cloud the future for most organizations?
  • Q2: How do organizations use the cloud?
  • Q3: How can Falcon Security use the cloud?
  • Q4: How can organizations use cloud services securely?
  • Q5: What does the cloud mean for your future?
  • How does the knowledge in this chapter help you?

Homework Questions

  1. What is the Cloud? Explain each of the characteristics of the Cloud.
  2. What is cloud-based hosting?
  3. What is the difference between cloud-based hosting and in-house hosting?
  4. What are the advantages and disadvantages of cloud-based hosting?
  5. Any situation when cloud-hosting does not make sense?
  6. What are the three fundamental cloud types? Explain the differences.
  7. What is CDN? What are the advantages?
  8. What is VPN?
  9. What is a private cloud?
  10. What is a virtual private cloud?