Cloud Computing and Virtualisation - Assignment Example

CLOUD COMPUTING AND VIRTUALISATION Student’s name Course code + name Professor’s name University name City, State Date of submission Question 1 The six enabling technologies for constructing cloud computing solutions include service oriented architecture (SOA), Web services, virtualisation components and technologies, virtualisation platforms, virtual disk images, and network virtualisation. The three technological innovations used to construct cloud computing solutions include Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) (Gorelik 2013). Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) SOA provides a basis for the interaction of services. It uses services to enable interaction between systems regardless of the existing similarities or differences in the underlying implementations (IEEE 2016). From a technical perspective, SOA provides an architectural approach to the creation of systems constructed from autonomous services. In essence, SOA enables communication between processes, data access, application, and user client. Web Services Web services suffice to be the most common SOA implementation platform. The main actors in Web Services include a Service Customer, Service Registry, and Service Provider (IEEE 2016). The Service Customer seeks to utilise the service. The Service Registry enables the Service Customer to get a desired service. Finally, the Service Provider is the owner of the service that the Service Customer intends to find. Virtualisation Components and Technologies Virtualisation suffices to be the enabler of several cloud computing properties. Scalability is one of the properties. It entails the automatic scale up of the virtual machine. Secondly, virtualisation enables the availability property of cloud computing solutions. This ensures that cloud computing software and hardware are fault tolerant. Thirdly, virtualisation enables the manageability aspect of cloud computing solutions. This is responsible for the automation of system transformation from physical to virtual. Finally, virtualisation enables the performance attribute of cloud computing solutions (IEEE 2016). This enables the dynamic level load balancing of the virtual machine. Virtualisation Platforms and Hypervisors Type 1 and Type 2 hypervisors have different architecture even though they play similar roles. Type 1 hypervisors (bare metal) run directly on the hardware of the host. They also permit the management of guest operating systems besides enabling the user to use guest systems to access functions of the hardware. On the other hand, Type 2 hypervisors (host metal) run on multi-purpose operating systems (IEEE 2016). As a result, the user can use the host operating system to run several guest operating systems. Virtual Disk Images Virtual disk image complement hypervisors. Each hypervisor requires a different format of the virtual disk image (IEEE 2016). Network Virtualisation A Virtual Private Network (VPN) ensures the secure interconnection between user or enterprise premises and the cloud based services. Cloud computing solutions also include core components of the network topology that include the Network Interface Card (NIC), router, switch, the Cache Network hierarchy, and firewall (IEEE 2016). Software as a Service (SaaS) The SaaS enabling technology enables demand-based access to applications by users (Gorelik 2013). Platform as a Service (PaaS) The PaaS enabling technology provides a platform for the construction and distribution of Web applications (Gorelik 2013). Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) The IaaS provides an open, innovative, scalable, and flexible physical infrastructure that enables the configuration of individual IT resources into the IaaS cloud (Gorelik 2013). PaaS Providers Engine Yard is one of the PaaS providers that meets the needs of developers of web applications that want to capitalise on cloud computing with the exclusion of responsibilities associated with operations management. The languages supported by Engine Yard include Ruby, PHP, Rubiniu, REE, JRuby, and Node.js. Google App Engine is the other PaaS provider that serves developers of web applications using Go, PHP, Python, and Java languages. Windows Azure Cloud Services is the other PaaS provider. The languages supported by the provider include PHP, Java, Python, Ruby, Node.js, and .NET. Question 2 Cloud Service Models Cloud service models provide a description of the mode of delivery of cloud services to clients. In most cases, the service models necessitate a combination of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS), and Platform as a Service (SaaS). Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) The model avails components of the infrastructure to customers that include firewalls, networks, virtual machines, storage, and load balancers, among others. IaaS enables clients to access lowest-level software available in the stack (Gorelik 2013). This includes the firewall’s management dashboard, load balancers, and the operating system that runs on virtual machines. Amazon Web Services suffices to be one of the greatest IaaS providers. Platform as a Service (PaaS) The model avails an already built application platform to clients. As a result, there is no need for building the basic infrastructure on the part of clients onto which their applications would run. The scaling and provision of the necessary infrastructure components is a backend role of the PaaS (Gorelik 2013). The PaaS executes the function automatically. The resultant API provides functions for solution development and programmatic management of the platform. One of the most popular PaaS providers is Google App Engine. However, Amazon Web Services is also a PaaS provider besides being an IaaS provider. Software as a Service (SaaS) The service delivery model delivers online software solutions that are ready for use by clients. The provider of the SaaS software has complete control over the application software. Some of the SaaS software applications include online mail, CRMs, social media platforms, and project management systems (Gorelik 2013). The distinction between PaaS and SaaS is the fact that that PaaS provides the platform that enables the development of the web application whereas SaaS provides an already developed online application that is ready for use by clients. Problems associated with the cloud delivery models Data security suffices to be one of the problems associated with cloud computing solutions (Gorelik 2013). Companies consider data to be their most treasured asset that explains their success strategies. As a result, they regard data security to be a major determining factor in the adoption of cloud computing solutions. Data compromise occurs during the various data life-cycle stages that include data transfer to the public cloud from the firm’s internal network, data storage in the public cloud, and during the data restore and back up processes. Customers also encounter lock-in challenges associated with learning specific APIs and interfaces of the provider especially in the case of SaaS and PaaS service delivery models. The failure of customers to learn such interfaces impedes their ability to operate and manage the interfaces. Clients may also encounter performance-related issues emanating from the inability of the availed infrastructure to meet the performance requirements of the company. Software compatibility is the other challenge that companies face in the adoption of cloud computing solutions. Providers of cloud computing solutions provide infrastructure that supports specific software versions and vendors. The fact that cloud providers serve many customers imply that they cannot provide custom software packages especially in the case of SaaS and PaaS clouds. Technical loss of control is the other challenge firms encounter in the adoption of cloud computing solutions. Some of the factors that result into technical loss control include software updates and versions, access control, and the control of timing specific operations such as data restores and backups (Gorelik 2013). In essence, technical loss of control relates to the issues associated with data security. It is possible to solve the above-mentioned problems associated with cloud computing hardware and software through the availing and understanding of all tools associated with the cloud computing solution on the part of the client. Question 3 Multi-tenancy Multi-tenancy refers to the allocation of a single cloud service or application to two or more clients without considering the underlying resources of the clients with the economic gain objective (AlJahdali et al. 2014). In essence, multi-tenancy entails the implementation of resource-sharing and virtualisation in the cloud computing environment. Even though several contradicting arguments have emerged from software developers and security experts, cloud service providers (CSPs) continue to use multi-tenancy in certain cases. In the SaaS model, the client does not have control and monitoring powers over the underlying infrastructure of the cloud service or application provided by the CSP. As a result, the CSP capitalises on the advantage to assign one service or application to two or more clients. Even though the client has the power of provisioning the computing, networking and storage resources under the IaaS service model, the client only exercises control over the underlying infrastructure. However, the service model does not allow the client to manage the underlying infrastructure. The CSP capitalises on the advantage to assign two or more virtual machines belonging to different clients to one hysical machine. Cloud Characteristics The four important i. Service-Oriented Cloud computing services are available in three categories: Software as a Service (SaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS). This implies that the only objective of the software, infrastructure and platform is to deliver service to clients. ii. Loose Coupling This is an important feature of cloud computing that enables the CSP to use virtualisation and other technologies to separate infrastructures either physically or logically without affecting the individual parts (Gong et al. 2010). iii. Strong fault tolerant CSPs use the fault tolerant technology to prevent error incidences. This motivates clients to use their services because of the guaranteed safety and minimal errors associated with their data. iv. Ease of use This is an important feature since it enables clients that do not have background knowledge in the working of the underlying infrastructure to use the applications effectively. Reasons of using a cloud application over a non-cloud application a. Cloud applications guarantee flexibility on the part of the client keeping in mind that businesses exhibit fluctuating or growing bandwidths. Non-cloud applications cannot cope with fluctuations in the scope and magnitude of the problem. b. Cloud applications are also effective in data recovery as opposed to non-cloud applications. In the case of data loss from the company database, the firm can retrieve lost data from its CSP. This ensures the smooth process of solving a problem to its completion without the risk of potential interruptions. c. Cloud computing applications are also free from additional capital expenditure. As opposed to non-cloud applications where the firm would have to incur additional costs to solve the problem in the event of increasing storage needs, cloud applications use the pay as you go approach. d. Enhanced collaboration is the other benefit that firms enjoy from cloud applications when solving a problem. Cloud applications enable data access to all members of the decision team regardless of their geographical location. This enhances the decision-making process thereby reducing the time required to solve the problem. Non-cloud applications do not provide similar capabilities. Reference List AlJahdali, H., Albatli, A., Garraghan, P., Townend, P., Lau, L. and Xu, J., 2014, April. Multi-tenancy in cloud computing. In Service Oriented System Engineering (SOSE), 2014 IEEE 8th International Symposium on (pp. 344-351). IEEE. Gong, C., Liu, J., Zhang, Q., Chen, H. and Gong, Z., 2010, September. The characteristics of cloud computing. In 2010 39th International Conference on Parallel Processing Workshops (pp. 275-279). IEEE. Gorelik, E., 2013. Cloud computing models (Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology). IEEE., 2016. Cloud Computing Enabling Technologies. Cloud Strategy Partners, LLC. Read More