Unit-1

Introduction to Cloud Computing

Cloud
The term Cloud refers to a Network or Internet. In other words, we can say that Cloud is
something, which is present at remote location. Cloud can provide services over public and
private networks, i.e., WAN, LAN or VPN.
Applications such as e-mail, web conferencing, customer relationship management (CRM)
execute on cloud.
Cloud computing
Cloud Computing refers to manipulating, configuring, and accessing the hardware and
software resources remotely. It offers online data storage, infrastructure, and application.

Figure: Cloud Computing

Cloud computing offers platform independency, as the software is not required to be installed
locally on the PC. Hence, the Cloud Computing is making our business
applications mobile and collaborative.

History of cloud computing

Cloud computing is all about renting computing services. This idea first came in the 1950s.
In making cloud computing what it is today, five technologies played a vital role. These are
distributed systems and its peripherals, virtualization, web 2.0, service orientation, and utility
computing.

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 Distributed Systems:
It is a composition of multiple independent systems but all of them are depicted as a single
entity to the users. The purpose of distributed systems is to share resources and also use
them effectively and efficiently. Distributed systems possess characteristics such as
scalability, concurrency, continuous availability, heterogeneity, and independence in
failures. But the main problem with this system was that all the systems were required to
be present at the same geographical location. Thus to solve this problem, distributed
computing led to three more types of computing and they were Mainframe computing,
cluster computing, and grid computing.

 Mainframe computing:
Mainframes which first came into existence in 1951 are highly powerful and reliable
computing machines. These are responsible for handling large data such as massive input-
output operations. Even today these are used for bulk processing tasks such as online
transactions etc. These systems have almost no downtime with high fault tolerance. After
distributed computing, these increased the processing capabilities of the system. But these
were very expensive. To reduce this cost, cluster computing came as an alternative to
mainframe technology.

 Cluster computing:
In 1980s, cluster computing came as an alternative to mainframe computing. Each
machine in the cluster was connected to each other by a network with high bandwidth.
These were way cheaper than those mainframe systems. These were equally capable of
high computations. Also, new nodes could easily be added to the cluster if it was required.
Thus, the problem of the cost was solved to some extent but the problem related to

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 geographical restrictions still pertained. To solve this, the concept of grid computing was
introduced.
 Grid computing:
In 1990s, the concept of grid computing was introduced. It means that different systems
were placed at entirely different geographical locations and these all were connected via
the internet. These systems belonged to different organizations and thus the grid consisted
of heterogeneous nodes. Although it solved some problems but new problems emerged
as the distance between the nodes increased. The main problem which was encountered
was the low availability of high bandwidth connectivity and with it other network
associated issues. Thus. cloud computing is often referred to as “Successor of grid
computing”.
 Virtualization:
It was introduced nearly 40 years back. It refers to the process of creating a virtual layer
over the hardware which allows the user to run multiple instances simultaneously on the
hardware. It is a key technology used in cloud computing. It is the base on which major
cloud computing services such as Amazon EC2, VMware vCloud, etc work on. Hardware
virtualization is still one of the most common types of virtualization.
 Web 2.0:
It is the interface through which the cloud computing services interact with the clients. It
is because of Web 2.0 that we have interactive and dynamic web pages. It also increases
flexibility among web pages. Popular examples of web 2.0 include Google Maps,
Facebook, Twitter, etc. Needless to say, social media is possible because of this
technology only. In gained major popularity in 2004.
 Service orientation:
It acts as a reference model for cloud computing. It supports low-cost, flexible, and
evolvable applications. Two important concepts were introduced in this computing
model. These were Quality of Service (QoS) which also includes the SLA (Service Level
Agreement) and Software as a Service (SaaS).
 Utility computing:
It is a computing model that defines service provisioning techniques for services such as
compute services along with other major services such as storage, infrastructure, etc
which are provisioned on a pay-per-use basis.

Thus, the above technologies contributed to the making of cloud computing.

Characteristics of cloud computing

Before cloud computing, organizations purchased and maintained an on-premise IT
infrastructure. Though cost-savings drove much of the initial shift to the cloud, many
organizations find that public, private, or a hybrid cloud infrastructure offers a host of benefits.

1. Resource pooling
Resource pooling is one of the essential characteristics of Cloud Computing. Resource pooling
means that a cloud service provider can share resources among several clients, providing
everyone with a different set of services as per their requirements. It is a multi-client strategy

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that can be applied to data storage services, processing services, and bandwidth provided
services. The administration process of allocating resources in real-time doesn’t conflict with
the client’s experience.
2. On-demand service
It is one of the significant and essential features of Cloud Computing. It enables the client to
constantly monitor the server uptime, abilities, and allotted network storage. This is a
fundamental characteristic of Cloud Computing, and a client can likewise control the
computing abilities as per his needs.
3. Easy maintenance
This is one of the best cloud characteristics. The servers are effortlessly maintained, and the
downtime remains low or absolutely zero sometimes. Cloud Computing powered resources
undergo several updates frequently to optimize their capabilities and potential. The updates are
more viable with the devices and perform quicker than the previous versions.
4. Scalability and rapid elasticity
A key characteristic and benefit of cloud computing is its rapid scalability. This cloud
characteristic enables cost-effective running of workloads that require a vast number of servers
but only for a short period. Many clients have such workloads, which can be run very cost-
effectively because of the rapid scalability of Cloud Computing.
5. Economical
This cloud characteristic helps in reducing the IT expenditure of the organizations. In Cloud
Computing, the client needs to pay the administration for the space they have used. There is no
covered up or additional charge which needs to be paid. The administration is economical, and
more often than not, some space is allotted for free.
6. Measured and reporting service
Reporting services are one of the many cloud characteristics that make it the best choice for
organizations. Measuring & reporting service is helpful for both cloud providers and their
clients. It enables both the provider and the client to monitor and report what services have
been used and for what purpose. This helps in monitoring billing and ensuring the optimum
usage of resources.

7. Security
Data security is one of the best characteristics of Cloud Computing. Cloud services create a
copy of the data that is stored to prevent any form of data loss. If one server loses the data by
any chance, the copy version is restored from the other server. This feature comes handy when
several users work on a particular file in real-time and a file suddenly gets corrupted.

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8. Automation
Automation is an essential characteristic of cloud computing. The ability of cloud computing
to automatically install, configure, and maintain a cloud service is known as automation in
cloud computing. In simple terms, it is the process of making the most of technology and
reducing manual effort. However, to achieve automation in the cloud ecosystem is not so easy.
It requires the installation and deployment of virtual machines, servers, and large storage. Upon
successful deployment, these resources require constant maintenance as well.
9. Resilience
Resilience in cloud computing means the ability of the service to quickly recover from any
disruption. A cloud’s resilience is measured by how fast its servers, databases, and network
system restarts and recovers from any kind of harm or damage. Availability is another major
characteristic of cloud computing. Since cloud services can be accessed remotely, there is no
geographic restriction or limitation when it comes to utilizing cloud resources.
10. Large network access
A big part of the cloud characteristics is its ubiquity. The client can access the cloud data or
transfer the data to the cloud from any place just with a device and internet connection. These
capacities are accessible everywhere in the organization and get to with the help of the internet.
Cloud providers save that large network access by monitoring and guaranteeing different
measurements that reflect how clients access cloud resources and data: latency, access time,
data throughput, etc.

Types of cloud

 Public Cloud: The cloud resources that are owned and operated by a third-party cloud
service provider are termed as public clouds. It delivers computing resources such as
servers, software, and storage over the internet
 Private Cloud: The cloud computing resources that are exclusively used inside a single
business or organization are termed as a private cloud. A private cloud may physically be
located on the company’s on-site datacentre or hosted by a third-party service provider.
 Hybrid Cloud: It is the combination of public and private clouds, which is bounded
together by technology that allows data applications to be shared between them. Hybrid
cloud provides flexibility and more deployment options to the business.

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Cloud services

1. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): In IaaS, we can rent IT infrastructures like servers and
virtual machines (VMs), storage, networks, operating systems from a cloud service vendor.
We can create VM running Windows or Linux and install anything we want on it. Using
IaaS, we don’t need to care about the hardware or virtualization software, but other than
that, we do have to manage everything else. Using IaaS, we get maximum flexibility, but
still, we need to put more effort into maintenance.
2. Platform as a Service (PaaS): This service provides an on-demand environment for
developing, testing, delivering, and managing software applications. The developer is
responsible for the application, and the PaaS vendor provides the ability to deploy and run
it. Using PaaS, the flexibility gets reduce, but the management of the environment is taken
care of by the cloud vendors.
3. Software as a Service (SaaS): It provides a centrally hosted and managed software
services to the end-users. It delivers software over the internet, on-demand, and typically
on a subscription basis. E.g., Microsoft One Drive, Dropbox, WordPress, Office 365, and
Amazon Kindle. SaaS is used to minimize the operational cost to the maximum extent.

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Benefits of cloud computing
Cloud Computing has numerous advantages. Some of them are listed below -
 One can access applications as utilities, over the Internet.
 One can manipulate and configure the applications online at any time.
 It does not require to install a software to access or manipulate cloud application.
 Cloud Computing offers online development and deployment tools, programming
runtime environment through PaaS model.
 Cloud resources are available over the network in a manner that provide platform
independent access to any type of clients.
 Cloud Computing offers on-demand self-service. The resources can be used without
interaction with cloud service provider.
 Cloud Computing is highly cost effective because it operates at high efficiency with
optimum utilization. It just requires an Internet connection
 Cloud Computing offers load balancing that makes it more reliable.
Challenges of cloud computing
Although cloud Computing is a promising innovation with various benefits in the world of
computing, it comes with risks.

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 Security and Privacy
It is the biggest concern about cloud computing. Since data management and infrastructure
management in cloud is provided by third-party, it is always a risk to handover the sensitive
information to cloud service providers.
Although the cloud computing vendors ensure highly secured password protected accounts,
any sign of security breach may result in loss of customers and businesses.
 Lock In
It is very difficult for the customers to switch from one Cloud Service Provider (CSP) to
another. It results in dependency on a particular CSP for service.
 Isolation Failure
This risk involves the failure of isolation mechanism that separates storage, memory, and
routing between the different tenants.
 Management Interface Compromise
In case of public cloud provider, the customer management interfaces are accessible through
the Internet.
 Insecure or Incomplete Data Deletion
It is possible that the data requested for deletion may not get deleted. It happens because either
of the following reasons
 Extra copies of data are stored but are not available at the time of deletion
 Disk that stores data of multiple tenants is destroyed.

Cloud Cube Model

The Cloud computing model is developed by the Jericho forum. It helps to classify the
network of cloud-based on the four-dimensional factor: Internal/External, proprietary/open, de-
perimeterized/ perimeterized, and insourced/ outsourced.
The Cloud cube model helps to classified the network of cloud-based on the four-dimensional
factor. The main motive of the cloud model is to secure and protect the cloud network. The
cloud model supports to choose cloud creation for the security association. It also helps IT
managers, organizations, and business leaders by offering a safe and protected network.
Security is an essential aspect for cloud users, and most of the cloud providers understand it.
The customer should also take care of that; the selected cloud formation fulfils the regulatory
and location needs. They also need one thing in their mind that if cloud providers stop offering
the services, where else they can move.

There are three service models which consist:

 SaaS
 PaaS
 IaaS

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There are four deployment models also.

 Public cloud
 Private cloud
 Community cloud
 Hybrid cloud

The models are flexible, user-friendly, and offer many benefits to cloud users.

How data is secured in the cloud cube model?

There are various steps and point you should keep on your mind while securing your data in a
cloud cube model.

1. The categorization of the data, the user must know what rules must be applied to
secure and protect it.
2. It should make sure; that the data exist only in particular trust levels.
3. It should examine that what regulatory compliance and constraints are applicable. For
example: - The data must keep in a specific limit and whether it has to stay in the
secure harbor or not.

When the data is categorized and can put in the needed zone, the assigned person is in a
position to decide the following aspects-

 The processes and data, which are to be shift in the cloud.

 At what level the customer wants to operate in the cloud. Maybe it is infrastructure,
platform, and software.
 The cloud formations, fulfill the requirements.
 In a cloud, the level of operation can be different as per the requirement.

Dimensions of Cloud Cube Model

There are four dimensions in the Cloud cube model.

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  Internal/External
 Proprietary/open
 De-perimeterized/peremeterized
 Insourced/outsourced dimension

Internal/External: - Internal/External is the most common form of the cloud. It describes the
physical location of the data. It agrees us whether the data exists inside or outside of your
organization’s limit. In this, the data that is stored by the help of private cloud deployment will
be referred to as internal, and data outside the cloud will be referred to as external.

Proprietary/Open: - The second dimension of cloud formation is proprietary/open. It defines

the state of ownership of the cloud technology and interfaces. It also defines the level of
incomparability while enabling data transportability between the system and forms of cloud.
The meaning of proprietary dimension means that the organization is offering the service in a
secure and protected manner under their ownership.
The open dimension using such type of technology in which more suppliers are allowing. In
addition to that, the user is not constrained in being able to share the data and cooperate with
selected partners using open technology.

De-perimeterized/Perimeterized: - To reach de-perimeterized/perimeterized form, the user

requires Jericho forum and collaboration oriented architecture commandments. It defines
whether you are working inside your traditional it mindset or outside it.
The meaning Perimeterized dimension is continuing to work within the traditional it boundary,
orphan signaled by network firewalls. With the support of VPN and the operation of the virtual
server in your IP domain, the customer can expand the organization’s boundary into the
external cloud computing domain.
The meaning of De-perimeterized is the system is designed on the principles outlined in the
Jericho forum’s commandments. In this, data is encapsulated with metadata and structure,
which will again support to secure the data and control the inappropriate usage.

Insourced/Outsourced: - Insourced/outsourced is the fourth dimension of the cloud cube

model. In the outsourced dimension, services are offered by the third party, and in the insourced
dimension, the services are offered by the own staff.
In some organizations with traditional bandwidth software or hardware, providers will run
smoothly when they become cloud service providers. Organizations exploring to process cloud
services should have the capability to set a legally binding collaboration agreement. In this, an
organization must ensure that the data is removed from the service provider’s infrastructure.

Cloud Computing Applications

Cloud service providers provide various applications in the field of art, business, data storage
and backup services, education, entertainment, management, social networking, etc. The most
widely used cloud computing applications are given below -

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1. Art Applications

Cloud computing offers various art applications for quickly and easily design attractive cards,
booklets, and images. Some most commonly used cloud art applications are given below:

 Moo

Moo is one of the best cloud art applications. It is used for designing and printing
business cards, postcards, and mini cards.

 Vistaprint CREATE TABLE

Vistaprint allows us to easily design various printed marketing products such as business
cards, Postcards, Booklets, and wedding invitations cards.

 Adobe Creative Cloud

Adobe creative cloud is made for designers, artists, filmmakers, and other creative
professionals. It is a suite of apps which includes PhotoShop image editing programming,
Illustrator, InDesign, TypeKit, Dreamweaver, XD, and Audition.

2. Business Applications

Business applications are based on cloud service providers. Today, every organization
requires the cloud business application to grow their business. It also ensures that business
applications are 24*7 available to users.

There are the following business applications of cloud computing -

 MailChimp

MailChimp is an email publishing platform which provides various options to design,

send, and save templates for emails.

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 Salesforce

Salesforce platform provides tools for sales, service, marketing, e-commerce, and more.
It also provides a cloud development platform.

 Chatter

Chatter helps us to share important information about the organization in real time.

 Bitrix24

Bitrix24 is a collaboration platform which provides communication, management, and

social collaboration tools.

 Paypal

Paypal offers the simplest and easiest online payment mode using a secure internet
account. Paypal accepts the payment through debit cards, credit cards, and also from
Paypal account holders.

 Slack

Slack stands for Searchable Log of all Conversation and Knowledge. It provides
a user-friendly interface that helps us to create public and private channels for
communication.

 Quickbooks

Quickbooks works on the terminology "Run Enterprise anytime, anywhere, on any

device." It provides online accounting solutions for the business. It allows more than 20
users to work simultaneously on the same system.

3. Data Storage and Backup Applications

Cloud computing allows us to store information (data, files, images, audios, and videos) on
the cloud and access this information using an internet connection. As the cloud provider is
responsible for providing security, so they offer various backup recovery application for
retrieving the lost data.

A list of data storage and backup applications in the cloud are given below -

 Box.com

Box provides an online environment for secure content management,

workflow, and collaboration. It allows us to store different files such as Excel, Word,
PDF, and images on the cloud. The main advantage of using box is that it provides drag
& drop service for files and easily integrates with Office 365, G Suite, Salesforce, and
more than 1400 tools.

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 Mozy

Mozy provides powerful online backup solutions for our personal and business data. It
schedules automatically back up for each day at a specific time.

 Joukuu

Joukuu provides the simplest way to share and track cloud-based backup files. Many
users use joukuu to search files, folders, and collaborate on documents.

 Google G Suite

Google G Suite is one of the best cloud storage and backup application. It includes
Google Calendar, Docs, Forms, Google+, Hangouts, as well as cloud storage and tools
for managing cloud apps. The most popular app in the Google G Suite is Gmail. Gmail
offers free email services to users.

4. Education Applications

Cloud computing in the education sector becomes very popular. It offers various online
distance learning platforms and student information portals to the students. The
advantage of using cloud in the field of education is that it offers strong virtual classroom
environments, Ease of accessibility, secure data storage, scalability, greater reach for the
students, and minimal hardware requirements for the applications.

There are the following education applications offered by the cloud -

 Google Apps for Education

Google Apps for Education is the most widely used platform for free web-based email,
calendar, documents, and collaborative study.

 Chromebooks for Education

Chromebook for Education is one of the most important Google's projects. It is designed
for the purpose that it enhances education innovation.

 Tablets with Google Play for Education

It allows educators to quickly implement the latest technology solutions into the
classroom and make it available to their students.

 AWS in Education

AWS cloud provides an education-friendly environment to universities, community

colleges, and schools.

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5. Entertainment Applications

Entertainment industries use a multi-cloud strategy to interact with the target audience.
Cloud computing offers various entertainment applications such as online games and video
conferencing.

 Online games

Today, cloud gaming becomes one of the most important entertainment media. It offers
various online games that run remotely from the cloud. The best cloud gaming services
are Shaow, GeForce Now, Vortex, Project xCloud, and PlayStation Now.

 Video Conferencing Apps

Video conferencing apps provides a simple and instant connected experience. It allows us
to communicate with our business partners, friends, and relatives using a cloud-based
video conferencing. The benefits of using video conferencing are that it reduces cost,
increases efficiency, and removes interoperability.

6. Management Applications

Cloud computing offers various cloud management tools which help admins to manage all
types of cloud activities, such as resource deployment, data integration, and disaster recovery.
These management tools also provide administrative control over the platforms, applications,
and infrastructure.

Some important management applications are -

 Toggl

Toggl helps users to track allocated time period for a particular project.

 Evernote

Evernote allows you to sync and save your recorded notes, typed notes, and other notes
in one convenient place. It is available for both free as well as a paid version. It uses
platforms like Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, Browser, and Unix.

 Outright

Outright is used by management users for the purpose of accounts. It helps to track
income, expenses, profits, and losses in real-time environment.

 GoToMeeting

GoToMeeting provides Video Conferencing and online meeting apps, which allows
you to start a meeting with your business partners from anytime, anywhere using mobile
phones or tablets. Using GoToMeeting app, you can perform the tasks related to the

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 management such as join meetings in seconds, view presentations on the shared screen,
get alerts for upcoming meetings, etc.

7. Social Applications

Social cloud applications allow a large number of users to connect with each other using
social networking applications such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedln, etc.

There are the following cloud based social applications -

 Facebook

Facebook is a social networking website which allows active users to share files,
photos, videos, status, more to their friends, relatives, and business partners using the
cloud storage system. On Facebook, we will always get notifications when our friends
like and comment on the posts.

 Twitter

Twitter is a social networking site. It is a microblogging system. It allows users to

follow high profile celebrities, friends, relatives, and receive news. It sends and receives
short posts called tweets.

 Yammer

Yammer is the best team collaboration tool that allows a team of employees to chat,
share images, documents, and videos.

 LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a social network for students, freshers, and professionals.

Cloud Storage
Cloud storage is a cloud computing model that stores data on the Internet through a cloud
computing provider who manages and operates data storage as a service. It’s delivered on
demand with just-in-time capacity and costs, and eliminates buying and managing your own
data storage infrastructure. This gives you agility, global scale and durability, with “anytime,
anywhere” data access.

Pros

 Off-site management: Your cloud provider assumes responsibility for maintaining and
protecting the stored data. This frees your staff from tasks associated with storage, such
as procurement, installation, administration, and maintenance. As such, your staff can
focus on other priorities.
 Quick implementation: Using a cloud service accelerates the process of setting up and
adding to your storage capabilities. With cloud storage, you can provision the service and
start using it within hours or days, depending on how much capacity is involved.

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 Cost-effective: As mentioned, you pay for the capacity you use. This allows your
organization to treat cloud storage costs as an ongoing operating expense instead of a
capital expense with the associated upfront investments and tax implications.
 Scalability: Growth constraints are one of the most severe limitations of on-premise
storage. With cloud storage, you can scale up as much as you need. Capacity is virtually
unlimited.
 Business continuity: Storing data offsite supports business continuity in the event that a
natural disaster or terrorist attack cuts access to your premises.

Cons

 Security: Security concerns are common with cloud-based services. Cloud storage
providers try to secure their infrastructure with up-to-date technologies and practices, but
occasional breaches have occurred, creating discomfort with users.
 Administrative control: Being able to view your data, access it, and move it at will is
another common concern with cloud resources. Offloading maintenance and management
to a third party offers advantages but also can limit your control over your data.
 Latency: Delays in data transmission to and from the cloud can occur as a result of traffic
congestion, especially when you use shared public internet connections. However,
companies can minimize latency by increasing connection bandwidth.
 Regulatory compliance: Certain industries, such as healthcare and finance, have to
comply with strict data privacy and archival regulations, which may prevent companies
from using cloud storage for certain types of files, such as medical and investment
records. If you can, choose a cloud storage provider that supports compliance with any
industry regulations impacting your business.

Types of cloud storage

There are three types of cloud data storage: object storage, file storage, and block storage.

1. Object Storage - Applications developed in the cloud often take advantage of object
storage's vast scalablity and metadata characteristics. Object storage solutions like Amazon
Simple Storage Service (S3) are ideal for building modern applications from scratch that
require scale and flexibility, and can also be used to import existing data stores for analytics,
backup, or archive.

2. File Storage - Some applications need to access shared files and require a file system. This
type of storage is often supported with a Network Attached Storage (NAS) server. File
storage solutions like Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) are ideal for use cases like large
content repositories, development environments, media stores, or user home directories.

3. Block Storage - Other enterprise applications like databases or ERP systems often require
dedicated, low latency storage for each host. This is analogous to direct-attached storage
(DAS) or a Storage Area Network (SAN). Block-based cloud storage solutions like Amazon
Elastic Block Store (EBS) are provisioned with each virtual server and offer the ultra low
latency required for high performance workloads

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Cloud Services Requirements
1. Efficiency / cost reduction: By using cloud infrastructure, you don't have to spend huge
amounts of money on purchasing and maintaining equipment.

2. Data security: Cloud offers many advanced security features that guarantee that data is
securely stored and handled. Cloud storage providers implement baseline protections for
their platforms and the data they process, such authentication, access control, and
encryption.

3. Scalability: Different companies have different IT needs -- a large enterprise of 1000+

employees won't have the same IT requirements as a start-up. Using cloud is a great
solution because it enables enterprise to efficiently -- and quickly -- scale up/down
according to business demands.

4. Mobility: Cloud computing allows mobile access to corporate data via smartphones and
devices, which is a great way to ensure that no one is ever left out of the loop. Staff with
busy schedules, or who live a long way away from the corporate office, can use this
feature to keep instantly up-to-date with clients and co-workers.

5. Disaster recovery: Data loss is a major concern for all organizations, along with data
security. Storing your data in the cloud guarantees that data is always available, even if
your equipment like laptops or PCs, is damaged. Cloud-based services provide quick data
recovery for all kinds of emergency scenarios.

6. Control: Cloud enables you complete visibility and control over your data. You can
easily decide which users have what level of access to what data.

7. Market reach: Developing in the cloud enables users to get their applications to market
quickly.

8. Automatic Software Updates: Cloud-based applications automatically refresh and update

themselves.

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Cloud and Dynamic Infrastructure

1. Service management: This type of special facility or a functionality is provided to the

cloud IT services by the cloud service providers. This facility includes visibility,
automation and control to delivering the first class IT services.
2. Asset-Management: In this the assets or the property which is involved in providing the
cloud services are getting managed.
3. Virtualization and consolidation: Consolidation is an effort to reduce the cost of a
technology by improving its operating efficiency and effectiveness. It means migrating
from large number of resources to fewer one, which is done by virtualization technology.
4. Information Infrastructure: It helps the business organizations to achieve the following
: Information compliance, availability of resources retention and security objectives.
5. Energy-Efficiency: Here the IT infrastructure or organization sustainable. It means it is
not likely to damage or effect any other thing.
6. Security: This cloud infrastructure is responsible for the risk management. Risk
management Refers to the risks involved in the services which are being provided by the
cloud-service providers.
7. Resilience: This infrastructure provides the feature of resilience means the services are
resilient. It means the infrastructure is safe from all sides. The IT operations will not be
easily get affected.

Cloud Adoption

Cloud adoption is a strategy used by enterprises to improve the scalability of Internet-based

database capabilities while reducing cost and risk. To achieve this, businesses engage in the
practice of cloud computing or using remote servers hosted on the Internet to store, manage,
and process critical data. While cloud computing has been available to the general public for
several years, hybrid cloud computing is a relatively newer concept combining one or more
cloud providers, such as Amazon Web Services, SAP HANA Cloud Platform, VMWare, or
Salesforce, with a private IT infrastructure designed for a specific organization.

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A variety of industries benefit from cloud adoption, including healthcare, marketing and
advertising, retail, finance, and education. Benefits include:
1. Healthcare: Fueled by digital and social consumer behaviours and the need for secure and
accessible electronic health records (EHRs), hospitals, clinics, and other medical
organizations are using cloud computing for document storage, marketing, and human
resources.
2. Marketing and Advertising: In an industry dependent on social media, as well as the
quick creation and publishing of customer-relevant content, agencies are using hybrid cloud
adoption strategies to deliver critical client messages to their local and worldwide
audiences.
3. Retail: A successful e-commerce strategy requires a sound Internet strategy. With the help
of cloud adoption, Internet-based retail is able to effectively market to customers and save
their product data for less money.
4. Finance: Efficient expense management, human resources, and customer communications
are three of the most important business needs of today’s finance organizations. For these
reasons, financial services institutions are now placing their email platforms and marketing
tools in the cloud.
5. Education: Internet-based education opportunities are now more popular than ever. The
cloud allows universities, private institutions, and K-12 public schools to provide learning,
homework, and grading systems online.
In order to make the transition to the cloud, organizations must keep a few critical steps in
mind. These include:
1. Assessment: Executives and IT decision makers must assess the opportunities and
challenges of employing a cloud computing strategy in their marketplace. In addition to
researching popular vendors within their industry, business leaders and their technology
teams should glean data on the challenges and successes of past adopters in their space.
2. Planning: Once organizations do their research, they must plan their specific cloud
strategy. IT leaders should choose platforms and services that are well-known to their
industry and quick to market. They should also decide between a public, private, or hybrid
cloud.
3. Adoption: During the adoption phase, IT leaders should develop risk mitigation strategies.
They should also have an expert understanding of their servers, software, and data stores
for the future reiteration and scalability of their strategy.
4. Optimization: By meeting regularly with their executive team, IT departments can discuss
lessons learned in their cloud computing strategy and create new and improved solutions
for further processes and tasks.
Security aspects of cloud adoption
Businesses that are transitioning to the cloud naturally have concerns about the safety of
sensitive company and customer data. To ensure information is not lost or compromised
through data breaches or account hijacking, the following cloud security considerations are
necessary:
1. Use secure interfaces and APIs: Enterprises should take care to ensure software user
interfaces (UIs) and application programming interfaces (APIs) are updated – and safe.

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 Consistent management and monitoring of reputable tools will help protect against
malicious and unforeseen breaches and errors.
2. Prevent system vulnerabilities: Program bugs allow hackers to take control of cloud
systems or steal data. Keeping track of system updates and quickly identifying
vulnerabilities can help eliminate this risk.
3. Create training programs and disaster plans: Natural disasters, accidental deletion, and
insufficient due diligence in adopting cloud technologies can lead to data loss and malicious
attacks. Companies of all sizes should create a cloud computing roadmap and employee
training program to mitigate these issues.

Distributed Computing
Distributed computing refers to solve a problem over distributed autonomous computers and
they communicate between them over a network. It is a computing technique which allows
to multiple computers to communicate and work to solve a single problem. Distributed
computing helps to achieve computational tasks faster than using a single computer as it takes
a lot of time. Some characteristics of distributed computing are distributing a single task
among computers to progress the work at same time, Remote Procedure calls and Remote
Method Invocation for distributed computations .
Difference between cloud computing and Distributed computing
Cloud computing Distributed computing
1. Cloud computing refers to providing on 1. Distributed computing refers to solve a
demand IT resources/services like server, problem over distributed autonomous
storage, database, networking, analytics, computers and they communicate
software etc. over internet. between them over a network
2. In simple cloud computing can be said as 2. In simple distributed computing can be
a computing technique that delivers said as a computing technique which
hosted services over the internet to its allows to multiple computers to
users/customers communicate and work to solve a single
problem.
3. It is classified into 4 different types such 3. It is classified into 3 different types such
as Public Cloud, Private Cloud, as Distributed Computing Systems,
Community Cloud and Hybrid Cloud Distributed Information Systems and
Distributed Pervasive Systems.
4. There are many benefits of cloud 4. There are many benefits of distributed
computing like cost effective, elasticity computing like flexibility, reliability,
and reliable, economies of Scale, access improved performance etc.
to the global market etc.
5. Cloud computing provides services such 5. Distributed computing helps to achieve
as hardware, software, networking computational tasks more faster than
resources through internet. using a single computer as it takes a lot
of time.
6. The goal of cloud computing is to 6. The goal of distributed computing is to
provide on demand computing services distribute a single task among multiple
over internet on pay per use model computers and to solve it quickly by
maintaining coordination between them.
7. Some characteristics of cloud computing 7. Some characteristics of distributed
are providing shared pool of configurable computing are distributing a single task

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 computing resources, on-demand among computers to progress the work at
service, pay per use, provisioned by thesame time, Remote Procedure calls and
Service Providers etc. Remote Method Invocation for
distributed computations.
8. Some disadvantage of cloud computing 8. Some disadvantage of cloud computing
includes less control especially in the includes chances of failure of nodes, slow
case of public clouds, restrictions on network may create problem in
available services may be faced and communication.
cloud security.

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