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Bhopu / Tags /
Cloud Computing
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Posted On
Jul 16, 2008
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Experts world over are grappling with a new kind of confusion that is trivial for the common man. But for the purists who have invested so much time and research work to study a particular phenomenon, its really tough to call it trivial. Anyone who has been intimately involved in the evolution of the SaaS or cloud computing worlds has a right to be frustrated by the blurring of the lines between the two concepts. So the obvious question over here is- are the two same or different?
We will go step by step.Firstly we will analyze the two topics in brief and then we will focus on similarities and differences.Let’s begin with SaaS first as it appeared first on the IT radar as compared to Cloud Computing which came into existence few years back. Cloud computing has already been discussed in detail in our previous blog “Amazon on Cloud nine via Elastic Compute Cloud.”
Software as a Service
SaaS is the acronym for Software as a Service.It is also known as Software on Demand. In simple words, an application that is delivered through the SaaS model typically is done so:
Cloud Computing
Cloud computing refers to the virtualization of the data center, such that server machines are not thought of individually but as just a commodity in a greater collection of server machines. Cloud computing solutions in general strive to eliminate the need for an application deployer to be aware of the actual physical machines that are used to host the application. Some have called this idea “hardware as a service”. Read More
For all software developing companies, if they want to provide their software as a service, they need to host their software somewhere in the cloud and provide storage to store and access the user’s data. Also they will have to store all the user’s data in the same place, but the data identifies itself whom it belongs to (Multi-tenancy) think of like a apartment number, if you are living in apartments complex sharing the same address.
SaaS and Cloud Computing
Cloud Computing is viewed as a broad array of web-based services aimed at allowing users to obtain a wide range of functional capabilities on a “pay for what you use” basis that previously required tremendous hardware/software investments and professional skills to acquire. Cloud computing is the realization of the earlier ideals of utility computing without the technical complexities or complicated deployment worries. With this precept in mind, SaaS can be seen as a subset or segment of the cloud computing market that is growing all the time.
Unfortunately, opportunistic vendors, as well as uneducated journalists and overly simplistic industry analysts, are using the terms interchangeably to serve their own purposes.While this might infuriate industry purists, the good news is that both ideas are gaining greater mainstream attention and acceptance as a result of escalating coverage in nearly every IT industry trade publication and even more importantly among the major business pubs like the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune and BusinessWeek, along with the NY Times.
To make things very simple:
- Cloud computing is an "infrastructure" response, a substitute to in-house data centers.
- SaaS is a "usage" response, a substitute to classical software licensing solutions.
IT today
- Infrastructure: In house
- Usages: Software licences
IT tomorrow
- Infrastructures: Cloud computing
- Usages: SaaS
This positive development far outweighs the potential confusion that could arise about the nuances between the two concepts. The surge in demand for cloud computing and SaaS is partially due to macro-market factors, such as the recessionary economic climate and escalating pressures to fundamentally change traditional business practices. But, growing interest in cloud computing and SaaS is also the result of the success and satisfaction of the early adopters who are not only renewing and expanding their use of these web-based services, but recommending them to others, according to THINKstrategies' research and consulting experience.
The 'gold rush' stage we are entering in the cloud computing and SaaS movement will attract plenty of self-serving vendors, overnight experts and tabloid press who will attempt to exploit this exciting market opportunity. |
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Posted On
Jul 10, 2008
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Systems today have evolved from huge bulky awkward looking structures to the sleek and sexy Apple Mac Book Air which is just few centimeters thick at maximum. Blue Ray Disks offer storage spaces from about 1 GB to thousand GB on a disc. And still you were cribbing abour your storage space, then relax! Now you don’t have to worry about the storage capacity of your computer, courtesy Cloud computing. What! Cloud computing? Why it will have a major impact on the storage peripherals of today? Will it affect the software industry as well? Plenty of questions must be hovering around your head just for cloud computing.The condition is akin to the situation when you enter into a restaurant and look at the menu card containing the list of dishes with fancy names. You start wondering what it is, will it satisfy your hunger, how will it taste, so on and so forth.
Companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, IBM and HP have already started work in this regard. Amazon with its Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, popularly called Amazon EC2 and Simple Storage Service or abbreviated as S3, has paved the way for others like Google and Microsoft to improve upon the existing structures and allay the fears and apprehensions vis-à-vis Cloud Computing.
Cloud Computing
The term really took me by surprise when I heard it for the first time and I really had no hint. But it was quite simple. According to Gartner cloud computing is “a style of computing where massively scalable IT-related capabilities are provided ‘as a service’ across the Internet to multiple external customers.” The idea of cloud computing was conceived by Oracle's Larry Ellison. He started the New Internet Computer (NIC) Company in 2000 to lead the industry forward to that goal. By using internet the PC of a user can be linked to a Super Computer which would host all the programs and files. However the concept was ahead of time and the company folded in 2003. [Source: PC World].
Cloud computing is simply using and storing data from and on a remote server with the help of a software interface. If it’s still difficult to understand, let’s take the example of emails. All our mails are stored on a remote server which can be accessed using a software interface like web browser (Firefox Mozilla, IE, Safari etc). However, emails can not be said to be something like cloud computing. Read More
Cloud computing thus provides the alternative for organizations which have limited work space and not adequate financial resources to upgrade their system and software without much shelling out much money. In case of cloud computing remote machines will run everything from emails to word processing to complex data analysis. These machines will then be owned by companies which will levy charges on the basis of time consumed and resources utilized.
Networking and Structure
Cloud Computing is so called because there is a cloud of web servers on which the data and application are stored. It resembles GRID as well as UTILITY computing network. Grid computing system involves accessing the resources available on each system of the network by every computer connected to the common network.
Utility computing system is basically a business model where the user company has the access to data and computer power processing of the provider company. It is very advantageous for companies who can not spend money on establishing servers for each specific purpose. It can be simply said that Utility Computing is somewhat like outsourcing storage and data resources. However, the client has to pay according to the resources used which can be in the form of hardware, software applications, processing power, off-site data storage etc.
Cloud computing consists of an array of servers. The user is connected to the cloud computing through internet and can access all his data and applications after authentication is done.
Why Cloud Computing
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SaaS
This type of cloud computing delivers a single application through the browser to thousands of customers using a multi-tenant architecture. On the customer side, it means no upfront investment in servers or software licensing; on the provider side, with just one app to maintain, costs are low compared to conventional hosting.
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Utility Computing
The idea is not new, but this form of cloud computing is getting new life from Amazon.com, Sun, IBM, and others who now offer storage and virtual servers that IT can access on demand.
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Web services
These offer developers to develop APIs by exploiting the functionality over the internet, rather than full blown applications.
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Platform as a Service
This is another SaaS variation which delivers development environments as a service. Users can build their own applications that run on provider’s infrastructure and are delivered to other users via internet from the provider’s server.
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Managed Service Providers
One of the oldest forms of cloud computing, a managed service is basically an application exposed to IT rather than to end-users, such as a virus scanning service for e-mail or an application monitoring service.Other offerings include desktop management services.
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Service Commerce Platforms
A hybrid of SaaS and MSP, this cloud computing service offers a service hub that users interact with. They're most common in trading environments, such as expense management systems that allow users to order travel or secretarial services from a common platform that then coordinates the service delivery and pricing within the specifications set by the user.
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Internet integration
The integration of cloud-based services is in its early days and it involves integration of different cloud based services.
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Pay for what you use
The biggest advantage of Cloud Computing Services is that you pay for what you use.You don't have to pay for anythign and everything.The charges are proportionate to the resources utilized and time elapsed.
What is Amazon EC2
Don't you think it's so strange that the Amazon is the name of a river and here we are talking about clouds? I am not digressing anywhere from the topic as Amazon happens to be the first one to offer cloud computing services under the aegis of AWS  .
Amazon Web Services are offering two types of services- one is for storage purpose while the other is for computing purpose. The former is described as Amazon S3 (Amazon Simple Storage Service), while the later is called Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud. As the name suggests, it offers flexible computing services with regards to Cloud Computing. It is designed to make web scale computing (also called internet scaling by many) easier and is sold by Amazon Web Services, LLC.
According to Amazon’,” Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) is a web service that provides resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers.” It is offering users to set up a server instance and then access and use the servers they setup like any other. These servers will be located in different parts of the globe and charges will be accordingly for data usage and transfer.
Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3)
Amazon S3 is storage for the Internet. It is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers.Amazon S3 provides a simple web services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web.
Charges For Amazon EC2
The charges have been divided into three categories depending on the bandwidth, storage capacity and data transferred. There is no minimum charge and the user is charged on the basis of resource utilized on hourly basis. The charges range from $ 0.1 for a Small Instance which includes 1.7 GB memory, 1 EC2 Compute Unit and 160 GB of instance storage on a 32-bit platform, to $ 0.80 for Extra Large Instance involving 15 GB Memory, 4 EC2 Compute Units and 850 GB instance storage on 64-bit platform.
If the processing speed required is more it will come under the bracket of High CPU instances which are categorized into two- High CPU Medium Instance @ 0.20/Hour and High CPU Extra Large Instance @ $v0.80/Hour having 1.7 GB of memory, 5 EC2 Compute Units (2 virtual cores with 2.5 EC2 Compute Units each), 350 GB of instance storage, 32-bit platform, and 7 GB of memory, 20 EC2 Compute Units (8 virtual cores with 2.5 EC2 Compute Units each), 1690 GB of instance storage, 64-bit platform, respectively. One EC2 Compute Unit is equivalent to CPU capacity of 1.0 – 1.20 GHz 2007 Opetron or Xeon processor.
On the basis of Internet Data Transfer the amount is differentiated on the basis of size, Public and Elastic IP as well as whether it is being sent into or out of EC2. There are no charges for data transfer between EC2 and S3-US or Amazon SimpleDB. For all the incoming data the rate is $ 0.1 per GB and for the data transferred out of EC2 it varies from $ 0.170 per GB (for the first 10 TB/month) to $0.130/GB (for the next 40TB/month) to $ 0.110/GB (for the next 100 TB/Month) and to $ 0.100 per GB for data transfer over 150 TB/Month.
Apart from these, charges can be based on the usage of Public IP address and the Elastic IP Address used.
Why it is special
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Elasticity
The greatest strength of Cloud Computing has been elasticity. Since it uses web APIs it’s easier for it to expand or deflate its capacity within a short span of time. One can use hundreds or thousands of instances at one go.
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Scalability
A scalable site, system, or business is able to manage resources in such a way that it meets the service, product, or consumer demands as they grow.
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Control
The user has the full control over the instances
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