Cloud Computing - Questions & Answers
Compiled from multiple resources that I've gone through over the last few months:
* 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 electricity.
- Pooled resources - Available to any subscribing users
- Virtualization - High utilization of hardware assets
- Elasticity - Dynamic scale without CAPEX (capital or upfront expenses)
- Automation - Build, deploy, configure, provision, and move, all without manual intervention
- Metered billing - Per-usage business model; pay only for what you use
- Economic - shift of capital expenses (CAPEX) to operational expenses (OPEX), and the potential reduction in OPEX associated with operating the infrastructure.
- Agility benefits - not having to procure and provision servers
- Efficiency - time-to-market advantages
- Security
- IaaS, Infrastructure as a Service - Environment for building a native application. Users create Virtual Machines (VMs) on demand. Ex - Amazon EC2 (runs about 1 percent of the entire internet)
- PaaS or Platform as a Service - Environment for building a managed application with an IDE with a rich class library that xecutes in a runtime container. Ex - Google’s AppEngine, Windows Azure, SalesForce AppForce & Heroku (Ruby focussed)
- SaaS, Software as a Service - Packaged software application. Examples - Salesforce, Google Apps, Office 365, Zoho, IBM Lotus Live
- Low-tech example: corporate website
- Medium-tech example: backup and file-storage systems
- High-tech example: new product development
- VMs for a Dev/Test lab
- Disaster recovery
- Deadline-driven, large compute problems. Ex - Washington Post
- Large data set, high-compute scenarios. Ex - Eli Lilly
- Online web presence and community. Ex -Virgin Atlantic
- Legacy systems
- Applications involving real-time/mission-critical scenarios
- Applications dealing with confidential data
- Security
- Performance
- Availability
- Hard to integrate with in-house IT
- Not enough ability to customize
- Worry that on-demand will cost more
- Bringing it back in-house may be difficult
- Regulatory requirements prohibit cloud
- Not enough major suppliers yet
- Cloud platform used by a single organization
- Faster deployment
- Usage-based pricing
- Less financial risk
- Reduced need for on-premises resources
- Easier upgrades
- Requires trusting a SaaS provider
- Can raise legal/regulatory concerns
- Can limit customization
- Can be harder to integrate
- Can have lower performance
- Offers potential to reach new customers
- Can sell directly to business decision makers
- Can provide more predicatable revenue
- Can lower support costs
- Provides more knowledge about how customers use the application
- Must demonstrate real value
- Revenue builds up more slowly
- May lessen ability to sell customization
- Requires significant business changes
- Shift from mainframes to client-server to web
- Data center evolution through hardware & networking improvements
- SOA - Things that humans did through browsers that interacted with a web server are now done machine-to-machine using the same web-based standard protocols
- Virtualization - Server virtualization transforms or virtualizes the hardware resources of a computer including the CPU, RAM, hard disk, and network controller—to create a fully functional virtual machine that can run its own operating system and applications like a physical computer.
- SaaS - business model innovation
Resources:
Comments
Post a Comment