Cloud computing

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cloud computing metaphor: For a user, the network elements representing the provider-rendered services are
invisible, as if obscured by a cloud.

Cloud computing, also known as on-demand computing, is a kind of Internet-based computing,

where shared resources, data and information are provided to computers and other devices ondemand. It is a model for enabling ubiquitous, on-demand access to a shared pool of configurable
computing resources.[1][2] Cloud computing and storage solutions provide users and enterprises with
various capabilities to store and process their data in third-party data centers.[3] It relies on sharing of
resources to achieve coherence and economies of scale, similar to a utility (like theelectricity grid)
over a network.[4] At the foundation of cloud computing is the broader concept ofconverged
infrastructure and shared services.
Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a
shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications and
services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort.
Cloud computing, or in simpler shorthand just "the cloud", also focuses on maximizing the
effectiveness of the shared resources. Cloud resources are usually not only shared by multiple users
but are also dynamically reallocated per demand. This can work for allocating resources to users.
For example, a cloud computer facility that serves European users during European business hours
with a specific application (e.g., email) may reallocate the same resources to serve North American
users during North America's business hours with a different application (e.g., a web server). This
approach helps maximize the use of computing power while reducing the overall cost of resources
by using less power, air conditioning, rack space, etc. to maintain the system. With cloud computing,
multiple users can access a single server to retrieve and update their data without purchasing
licenses for different applications.

The term "moving to cloud" also refers to an organization moving away from a
traditional CAPEX model (buy the dedicated hardware and depreciate it over a period of time) to
the OPEX model (use a shared cloud infrastructure and pay as one uses it). [dubious discuss]
Proponents claim that cloud computing allows companies to avoid upfront infrastructure costs, and
focus on projects that differentiate their businesses instead of on infrastructure. [5] Proponents also
claim that cloud computing allows enterprises to get their applications up and running faster, with
improved manageability and less maintenance, and enables IT to more rapidly adjust resources to
meet fluctuating and unpredictable business demand. [5][6][7] Cloud providers typically use a "pay as you
go" model. This can lead to unexpectedly high charges if administrators do not adapt to the cloud
pricing model.[8]
The present availability of high-capacity networks, low-cost computers and storage devices as well
as the widespread adoption of hardware virtualization, service-oriented architecture,
and autonomic and utility computing have led to a growth in cloud computing.[9][10][11] Companies can
scale up as computing needs increase and then scale down again as demands decrease.
Cloud computing has now become a highly demanded service or utility due to the advantages of
high computing power, cheap cost of services, high performance, scalability, accessibility as well as
availability. Cloud vendors are experiencing growth rates of 50% per annum. [12] But due to being in a
stage of infancy, it still has some pitfalls which need to be given proper attention to make cloud
computing services more reliable and user friendly.[13][14]
Contents
[hide]

1History of cloud computing

o

1.1Origin of the term

1.2The 1970s

1.3The 1990s

1.4The New Millennium: 2000s

2Similar concepts

3Characteristics

4Service models
o

4.1Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)

4.2Platform as a service (PaaS)

4.3Software as a service (SaaS)

5Cloud clients

6Deployment models

6.1Private cloud

6.2Public cloud

6.3Hybrid cloud

6.4Others

6.4.1Community cloud

6.4.2Distributed cloud

6.4.3Intercloud

6.4.4Multicloud
7Architecture

7.1Cloud engineering

8Security and privacy

9The future

10See also

11References

12Further reading

13External links

History of cloud computing[edit]

Origin of the term[edit]
The origin of the term cloud computing is unclear. The word "cloud" is commonly used in science to
describe a large agglomeration of objects that visually appear from a distance as a cloud and
describes any set of things whose details are not inspected further in a given context. [15] Another
explanation is that the old programs that drew network schematics surrounded the icons for servers
with a circle, and a cluster of servers in a network diagram had several overlapping circles, which
resembled a cloud.[16]
In analogy to above usage the word cloud was used as a metaphor for the Internet and a
standardized cloud-like shape was used to denote a network on telephony schematics and later to
depict the Internet in computer network diagrams. With this simplification, the implication is that the
specifics of how the end points of a network are connected are not relevant for the purposes of
understanding the diagram. The cloud symbol was used to represent networks of computing
equipment in the original ARPANET by as early as 1977,[17] and the CSNET by 1981[18]both
predecessors to the Internet itself.

The term cloud has been used to refer to platforms for distributed computing. In Wired's April 1994
feature "Bill and Andy's Excellent Adventure II" on the Apple spin-offGeneral Magic, Andy
Hertzfeld comments on General Magic's distributed programming language Telescript that:[19]
"The beauty of Telescript ... is that now, instead of just having a device to program, we now have the
entire Cloud out there, where a single program can go and travel to many different sources of
information and create sort of a virtual service. No one had conceived that before. The example Jim
White [the designer of Telescript, X.400 and ASN.1] uses now is a date-arranging service where a
software agent goes to the flower store and orders flowers and then goes to the ticket shop and gets
the tickets for the show, and everything is communicated to both parties."
References to "cloud computing" in its modern sense appeared as early as 1996, with the earliest
known mention in a Compaq internal document.[20]
The popularization of the term can be traced to 2006 when Amazon.com introduced the Elastic
Compute Cloud.[21]

The 1970s[edit]
During the mid-1970s, time-sharing was popularly known as RJE (Remote Job Entry);[citation needed] this
terminology was mostly associated with large vendors such asIBM and DEC.[citation needed] IBM developed
the VM Operating System (first released in 1972) to provide time-sharing services[citation needed] via virtual
machines.

The 1990s[edit]
In the 1990s, telecommunications companies, who previously offered primarily dedicated point-topoint data circuits, began offering virtual private network (VPN) services with comparable quality of
service, but at a lower cost. By switching traffic as they saw fit to balance server use, they could use
overall network bandwidth more effectively.[citation needed] They began to use the cloud symbol to denote
the demarcation point between what the provider was responsible for and what users were
responsible for. Cloud computing extends this boundary to cover all servers as well as the network
infrastructure.[22]
As computers became more prevalent, scientists and technologists explored ways to make largescale computing power available to more users through time-sharing.[citation needed] They experimented
with algorithms to optimize the infrastructure, platform, and applications to prioritize CPUs and
increase efficiency for end users.[23]

The New Millennium: 2000s[edit]

Since 2000 cloud computing has come into existence. In early 2008, NASA's OpenNebula,
enhanced in the RESERVOIR European Commission-funded project, became the first open-source
software for deploying private and hybrid clouds, and for the federation of clouds. [24] In the same year,
efforts were focused on providingquality of service guarantees (as required by real-time interactive
applications) to cloud-based infrastructures, in the framework of the IRMOS European Commissionfunded project, resulting in a real-time cloud environment.[25][26] By mid-2008, Gartner saw an
opportunity for cloud computing "to shape the relationship among consumers of IT services, those
who use IT services and those who sell them"[27] and observed that "organizations are switching from
company-owned hardware and software assets to per-use service-based models" so that the
"projected shift to computing ... will result in dramatic growth in IT products in some areas and
significant reductions in other areas."[28]
Microsoft Azure was announced as "Azure" in October 2008 and released on 1 February 2010
as Windows Azure, before being renamed to Microsoft Azure on 25 March 2014.[29]
In July 2010, Rackspace Hosting and NASA jointly launched an open-source cloud-software
initiative known as OpenStack. The OpenStack project intended to help organizations offer cloud-

computing services running on standard hardware. The early code came from NASA's Nebula
platform as well as from Rackspace's Cloud Files platform.
On March 1, 2011, IBM announced the IBM SmartCloud framework to support Smarter Planet.
[30]
Among the various components of the Smarter Computingfoundation, cloud computing is a critical
piece.
On June 7, 2012, Oracle announced the Oracle Cloud.[31] While aspects of the Oracle Cloud are still
in development, this cloud offering is poised to be the first to provide users with access to an
integrated set of IT solutions, including the Applications (SaaS), Platform (PaaS), and Infrastructure
(IaaS) layers.[32][33][34]

Similar concepts[edit]
Cloud computing is the result of the evolution and adoption of existing technologies and paradigms.
The goal of cloud computing is to allow users to take benet from all of these technologies, without
the need for deep knowledge about or expertise with each one of them. The cloud aims to cut costs,
and helps the users focus on their core business instead of being impeded by IT obstacles. [35]
The main enabling technology for cloud computing is virtualization. Virtualization software separates
a physical computing device into one or more "virtual" devices, each of which can be easily used
and managed to perform computing tasks. With operating systemlevel virtualization essentially
creating a scalable system of multiple independent computing devices, idle computing resources can
be allocated and used more efficiently. Virtualization provides the agility required to speed up IT
operations, and reduces cost by increasing infrastructure utilization. Autonomic computing
automates the process through which the user can provision resources on-demand. By minimizing
user involvement, automation speeds up the process, reduces labor costs and reduces the
possibility of human errors.[35]
Users routinely face difficult business problems. Cloud computing adopts concepts from Serviceoriented Architecture (SOA) that can help the user break these problems into services that can be
integrated to provide a solution. Cloud computing provides all of its resources as services, and
makes use of the well-established standards and best practices gained in the domain of SOA to
allow global and easy access to cloud services in a standardized way.
Cloud computing also leverages concepts from utility computing to provide metrics for the services
used. Such metrics are at the core of the public cloud pay-per-use models. In addition, measured
services are an essential part of the feedback loop in autonomic computing, allowing services to
scale on-demand and to perform automatic failure recovery.
Cloud computing is a kind of grid computing; it has evolved by addressing the QoS (quality of
service) and reliability problems. Cloud computing provides the tools and technologies to build
data/compute intensive parallel applications with much more affordable prices compared to
traditional parallel computing techniques.[35]
Cloud computing shares characteristics with:

Clientserver model Clientserver computing refers broadly to any distributed

application that distinguishes between service providers (servers) and service requestors
(clients).[36]

Grid computing "A form of distributed and parallel computing, whereby a 'super and virtual
computer' is composed of a cluster of networked, loosely coupledcomputers acting in concert to
perform very large tasks."

Mainframe computer Powerful computers used mainly by large organizations for critical
applications, typically bulk data processing such as: census; industry and consumer statistics;
police and secret intelligence services; enterprise resource planning; and financial transaction
processing.

Utility computing The "packaging of computing resources, such as computation and

storage, as a metered service similar to a traditional public utility, such as electricity." [37][38]

Peer-to-peer A distributed architecture without the need for central coordination.

Participants are both suppliers and consumers of resources (in contrast to the traditional client
server model).

Characteristics[edit]
Cloud computing exhibits the following key characteristics:

Agility improves with users' ability to re-provision technological infrastructure resources. [wtf?]

Cost reductions claimed by cloud providers. A public-cloud delivery model converts capital
expenditure to operational expenditure.[39] This purportedly lowersbarriers to entry, as
infrastructure is typically provided by a third party and does not need to be purchased for onetime or infrequent intensive computing tasks. Pricing on a utility computing basis is fine-grained,
with usage-based options and fewer IT skills are required for implementation (in-house). [40] The
e-FISCAL project's state-of-the-art repository[41] contains several articles looking into cost aspects
in more detail, most of them concluding that costs savings depend on the type of activities
supported and the type of infrastructure available in-house.

Device and location independence[42] enable users to access systems using a web browser
regardless of their location or what device they use (e.g., PC, mobile phone). As infrastructure is
off-site (typically provided by a third-party) and accessed via the Internet, users can connect
from anywhere.[40]

Maintenance of cloud computing applications is easier, because they do not need to be

installed on each user's computer and can be accessed from different places.

Multitenancy enables sharing of resources and costs across a large pool of users thus
allowing for:

centralization of infrastructure in locations with lower costs (such as real estate,

electricity, etc.)

peak-load capacity increases (users need not engineer for highest possible loadlevels)

utilisation and efficiency improvements for systems that are often only 1020%
utilised.[43][44]

Performance is monitored, and consistent and loosely coupled architectures are constructed
using web services as the system interface.[40][45][46]

Productivity may be increased when multiple users can work on the same data
simultaneously, rather than waiting for it to be saved and emailed. Time may be saved as
information does not need to be re-entered when fields are matched, nor do users need to install
application software upgrades to their computer.[47]

Reliability improves with the use of multiple redundant sites, which makes well-designed
cloud computing suitable for business continuity and disaster recovery.[48]

Scalability and elasticity via dynamic ("on-demand") provisioning of resources on a finegrained, self-service basis in near real-time[49][50] (Note, the VM startup time varies by VM type,
location, OS and cloud providers[49]), without users having to engineer for peak loads.[51][52][53] This
gives the ability to scale up when the usage need increases or down if resources are not being
used.[54]

Security can improve due to centralization of data, increased security-focused resources,

etc., but concerns can persist about loss of control over certain sensitive data, and the lack of
security for stored kernels. Security is often as good as or better than other traditional systems,
in part because providers are able to devote resources to solving security issues that many
customers cannot afford to tackle.[55] However, the complexity of security is greatly increased
when data is distributed over a wider area or over a greater number of devices, as well as in
multi-tenant systems shared by unrelated users. In addition, user access to security audit
logsmay be difficult or impossible. Private cloud installations are in part motivated by users'
desire to retain control over the infrastructure and avoid losing control of information security.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology's definition of cloud computing identifies "five
essential characteristics":
On-demand self-service. A consumer can unilaterally provision computing capabilities, such as
server time and network storage, as needed automatically without requiring human interaction with
each service provider.
Broad network access. Capabilities are available over the network and accessed through standard
mechanisms that promote use by heterogeneous thin or thick client platforms (e.g., mobile phones,
tablets, laptops, and workstations).
Resource pooling. The provider's computing resources are pooled to serve multiple consumers
using a multi-tenant model, with different physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned and
reassigned according to consumer demand.
Rapid elasticity. Capabilities can be elastically provisioned and released, in some cases
automatically, to scale rapidly outward and inward commensurate with demand. To the consumer,
the capabilities available for provisioning often appear unlimited and can be appropriated in any
quantity at any time.
Measured service. Cloud systems automatically control and optimize resource use by leveraging a
metering capability at some level of abstraction appropriate to the type of service (e.g., storage,
processing, bandwidth, and active user accounts). Resource usage can be monitored, controlled,
and reported, providing transparency for both the provider and consumer of the utilized service.
National Institute of Standards and Technology[4]

Service models[edit]
Though service-oriented architecture advocates "everything as a service" (with the
acronyms EaaS or XaaS or simply aas),[56] cloud-computing providers offer their "services" according

to different models,[4][57][need quotation to verify] which happen to form a stack: infrastructure-, platform- and
software-as-a-service.[58]

Cloud-computing layers accessible within a stack

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)[edit]

See also: Category:Cloud infrastructure
In the most basic cloud-service model - and according to the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force)
- providers of IaaS offer computers physical or (more often) virtual machines and other
resources. IaaS refers to online services that abstract user from the detail of infrastructure like
physical computing resources, location, data partitioning, scaling, security, backup etc. A hypervisor,
such as Xen, Oracle VirtualBox, KVM, VMware ESX/ESXi, orHyper-V runs the virtual machines as
guests. Pools of hypervisors within the cloud operational system can support large numbers of
virtual machines and the ability to scale services up and down according to customers' varying
requirements. IaaS clouds often offer additional resources such as a virtual-machine diskimage library, raw block storage, file or object storage, firewalls, load balancers, IP addresses, virtual
local area networks (VLANs), and software bundles.[59] IaaS-cloud providers supply these resources
on-demand from their large pools of equipment installed in data centers. For wide-area connectivity,
customers can use either the Internet or carrier clouds(dedicated virtual private networks).
To deploy their applications, cloud users install operating-system images and their application
software on the cloud infrastructure. In this model, the cloud user patches and maintains the
operating systems and the application software. Cloud providers typically bill IaaS services on a
utility computing basis: cost reflects the amount of resources allocated and consumed. [60][61][62][63]

Platform as a service (PaaS)[edit]

Main article: Platform as a service
See also: Category:Cloud platforms
PaaS vendors offers a development environment to application developers. The provider typically
develops toolkit and standards for development and channels for distribution and payment. In the
PaaS models, cloud providers deliver a computing platform, typically including operating system,
programming-language execution environment, database, and web server. Application developers
can develop and run their software solutions on a cloud platform without the cost and complexity of
buying and managing the underlying hardware and software layers. With some PaaS offers
like Microsoft Azure and Google App Engine, the underlying computer and storage resources scale

automatically to match application demand so that the cloud user does not have to allocate
resources manually. The latter has also been proposed by an architecture aiming to facilitate realtime in cloud environments.[64][need quotation to verify] Even more specific application types can be provided via
PaaS, such as media encoding as provided by services like bitcodin.com [65] or media.io.[66]
Some integration and data management providers have also embraced specialized applications of
PaaS as delivery models for data solutions. Examples include iPaaSand dPaaS. iPaaS (Integration
Platform as a Service) enables customers to develop, execute and govern integration flows. [67] Under
the iPaaS integration model, customers drive the development and deployment of integrations
without installing or managing any hardware or middleware. [68] dPaaS (Data Platform as a Service)
delivers integrationand data-managementproducts as a fully managed service. [69] Under the
dPaaS model, the PaaS provider, not the customer, manages the development and execution of
data solutions by building tailored data applications for the customer. dPaaS users retain
transparency and control over data throughdata-visualization tools.[70]
Platform as a Service (PaaS) the consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud
infrastructure including network, servers, operating systems, or storage, but has control over the
deployed applications and possibly configuration settings for the application-hosting environment.

Software as a service (SaaS)[edit]

Main article: Software as a service
In the software as a service (SaaS) model, users gain access to application software and databases.
Cloud providers manage the infrastructure and platforms that run the applications. SaaS is
sometimes referred to as "on-demand software" and is usually priced on a pay-per-use basis or
using a subscription fee.[citation needed]
In the SaaS model, cloud providers install and operate application software in the cloud and cloud
users access the software from cloud clients. Cloud users do not manage the cloud infrastructure
and platform where the application runs. This eliminates the need to install and run the application
on the cloud user's own computers, which simplifies maintenance and support. Cloud applications
differ from other applications in their scalabilitywhich can be achieved by cloning tasks onto
multiplevirtual machines at run-time to meet changing work demand.[71] Load balancers distribute the
work over the set of virtual machines. This process is transparent to the cloud user, who sees only a
single access-point. To accommodate a large number of cloud users, cloud applications can
be multitenant, meaning that any machine may serve more than one cloud-user organization.
The pricing model for SaaS applications is typically a monthly or yearly flat fee per user,[72] so prices
become scalable and adjustable if users are added or removed at any point. [73]
Proponents claim that SaaS gives a business the potential to reduce IT operational costs by
outsourcing hardware and software maintenance and support to the cloud provider. This enables the
business to reallocate IT operations costs away from hardware/software spending and from
personnel expenses, towards meeting other goals. In addition, with applications hosted centrally,
updates can be released without the need for users to install new software. One drawback of SaaS
comes with storing the users' data on the cloud provider's server. As a result, [citation needed] there could be
unauthorized access to the data. For this reason, users are increasingly[quantify] adopting intelligent
third-party key-management systems to help secure their data.[citation needed]
Software as a Service (SaaS) known as on-demand software, it provides the software service to the
consumer hosted on cloud.

Cloud clients[edit]
See also: Category:Cloud clients and Cloud API
Users access cloud computing using networked client devices, such as desktop
computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones and any Ethernet enabled device such as Home

Automation Gadgets. Some of these devices cloud clients rely on cloud computing for all or a
majority of their applications so as to be essentially useless without it. Examples are thin clients and
the browser-based Chromebook. Many cloud applications do not require specific software on the
client and instead use a web browser to interact with the cloud application.
With Ajax and HTML5 these Web user interfaces can achieve a similar, or even better, look and
feel to native applications. Some cloud applications, however, support specific client software
dedicated to these applications (e.g., virtual desktop clients and most email clients). Some legacy
applications (line of business applications that until now have been prevalent in thin client
computing) are delivered via a screen-sharing technology.

Deployment models[edit]

Cloud computing types

Private cloud[edit]
Private cloud is cloud infrastructure operated solely for a single organization, whether managed
internally or by a third-party, and hosted either internally or externally.[4] Undertaking a private cloud
project requires a significant level and degree of engagement to virtualize the business environment,
and requires the organization to reevaluate decisions about existing resources. When done right, it
can improve business, but every step in the project raises security issues that must be addressed to
prevent serious vulnerabilities. Self-run data centers[74] are generally capital intensive. They have a
significant physical footprint, requiring allocations of space, hardware, and environmental controls.
These assets have to be refreshed periodically, resulting in additional capital expenditures. They
have attracted criticism because users "still have to buy, build, and manage them" and thus do not
benefit from less hands-on management,[75] essentially "[lacking] the economic model that makes
cloud computing such an intriguing concept".[76][77]

Public cloud[edit]
A cloud is called a "public cloud" when the services are rendered over a network that is open for
public use. Public cloud services may be free.[78] Technically there may be little or no difference
between public and private cloud architecture, however, security consideration may be substantially
different for services (applications, storage, and other resources) that are made available by a
service provider for a public audience and when communication is effected over a non-trusted
network. Generally, public cloud service providers like Amazon AWS, Microsoft and Google own and
operate the infrastructure at their data center and access is generally via the Internet. AWS and
Microsoft also offer direct connect services called "AWS Direct Connect" and "Azure ExpressRoute"
respectively, such connections require customers to purchase or lease a private connection to a
peering point offered by the cloud provider.[40]

Hybrid cloud[edit]
Hybrid cloud is a composition of two or more clouds (private, community or public) that remain
distinct entities but are bound together, offering the benefits of multiple deployment models. Hybrid
cloud can also mean the ability to connect collocation, managed and/or dedicated services with
cloud resources.[4]
Gartner, Inc. defines a hybrid cloud service as a cloud computing service that is composed of some
combination of private, public and community cloud services, from different service providers. [79] A
hybrid cloud service crosses isolation and provider boundaries so that it can't be simply put in one
category of private, public, or community cloud service. It allows one to extend either the capacity or
the capability of a cloud service, by aggregation, integration or customization with another cloud
service.
Varied use cases for hybrid cloud composition exist. For example, an organization may store
sensitive client data in house on a private cloud application, but interconnect that application to a
business intelligence application provided on a public cloud as a software service. [80] This example of
hybrid cloud extends the capabilities of the enterprise to deliver a specific business service through
the addition of externally available public cloud services. Hybrid cloud adoption depends on a
number of factors such as data security and compliance requirements, level of control needed over
data, and the applications an organization uses.[81]
Another example of hybrid cloud is one where IT organizations use public cloud computing
resources to meet temporary capacity needs that can not be met by the private cloud. [82] This
capability enables hybrid clouds to employ cloud bursting for scaling across clouds. [4] Cloud bursting
is an application deployment model in which an application runs in a private cloud or data center and
"bursts" to a public cloud when the demand for computing capacity increases. A primary advantage
of cloud bursting and a hybrid cloud model is that an organization only pays for extra compute
resources when they are needed.[83] Cloud bursting enables data centers to create an in-house IT
infrastructure that supports average workloads, and use cloud resources from public or private
clouds, during spikes in processing demands.[84]
The specialized model of hybrid cloud, which is built atop heterogeneous hardware, is called "Crossplatform Hybrid Cloud". A cross-platform hybrid cloud is usually powered by different CPU
architectures, for example, x86-64 and ARM, underneath. Users can transparently deploy and scale
applications without knowledge of the cloud's hardware diversity.[85] This kind of cloud emerges from
the raise of ARM-based system-on-chip for server-class computing.

Others[edit]
Community cloud[edit]
Community cloud shares infrastructure between several organizations from a specific community
with common concerns (security, compliance, jurisdiction, etc.), whether managed internally or by a
third-party, and either hosted internally or externally. The costs are spread over fewer users than a
public cloud (but more than a private cloud), so only some of the cost savings potential of cloud
computing are realized.[4]
Distributed cloud[edit]
A cloud computing platform can be assembled from a distributed set of machines in different
locations, connected to a single network or hub service. It is possible to distinguish between two
types of distributed clouds: public-resource computing and volunteer cloud.

Public-resource computing: This type of distributed cloud results from an expansive

definition of cloud computing, because they are more akin to distributed computing than cloud

computing. Nonetheless, it is considered a sub-class of cloud computing, and some examples

include distributed computing platforms such asBOINC and Folding@Home.

Volunteer cloud: Volunteer cloud computing is characterized as the intersection of publicresource computing and cloud computing, where a cloud computing infrastructure is built using
volunteered resources. Many challenges arise from this type of infrastructure, because of the
volatility of the resources used to built it and the dynamic environment it operates in. It can also
be called peer-to-peer clouds, or ad-hoc clouds. An interesting effort in such direction is
Cloud@Home, it aims to implement a cloud computing infrastructure using volunteered
resources providing a business-model to incentivize contributions through financial restitution [86]

Intercloud[edit]
Main article: Intercloud
The Intercloud[87] is an interconnected global "cloud of clouds"[88][89] and an extension of the Internet
"network of networks" on which it is based. The focus is on directinteroperability between public
cloud service providers, more so than between providers and consumers (as is the case for hybridand multi-cloud).[90][91][92]
Multicloud[edit]
Main article: Multicloud
Multicloud is the use of multiple cloud computing services in a single heterogeneous architecture to
reduce reliance on single vendors, increase flexibility through choice, mitigate against disasters, etc.
It differs from hybrid cloud in that it refers to multiple cloud services, rather than multiple deployment
modes (public, private, legacy).[93][94][95]

Architecture[edit]

Cloud computing sample architecture

Cloud architecture,[96] the systems architecture of the software systems involved in the delivery of
cloud computing, typically involves multiple cloud components communicating with each other over a
loose coupling mechanism such as a messaging queue. Elastic provision implies intelligence in the
use of tight or loose coupling as applied to mechanisms such as these and others.

Cloud engineering[edit]
Cloud engineering is the application of engineering disciplines to cloud computing. It brings a
systematic approach to the high-level concerns of commercialization, standardization, and
governance in conceiving, developing, operating and maintaining cloud computing systems. It is a

multidisciplinary method encompassing contributions from diverse areas such

as systems, software, web, performance, information, security, platform,risk, and quality engineering.

Security and privacy[edit]

Main article: Cloud computing issues
Cloud computing poses privacy concerns because the service provider can access the data that is in
the cloud at any time. It could accidentally or deliberately alter or even delete information. [97] Many
cloud providers can share information with third parties if necessary for purposes of law and order
even without a warrant. That is permitted in their privacy policies which users have to agree to
before they start using cloud services. Solutions to privacy include policy and legislation as well as
end users' choices for how data is stored.[97] Users can encrypt data that is processed or stored
within the cloud to prevent unauthorized access.[3][97]
According to the Cloud Security Alliance, the top three threats in the cloud are "Insecure Interfaces
and API's", "Data Loss & Leakage", and "Hardware Failure" which accounted for 29%, 25% and 10%
of all cloud security outages respectively together these form shared technology vulnerabilities. In
a cloud provider platform being shared by different users there may be a possibility that information
belonging to different customers resides on same data server. Therefore, Information leakage may
arise by mistake when information for one customer is given to other.[98] Additionally, Eugene Schultz,
chief technology officer at Emagined Security, said that hackers are spending substantial time and
effort looking for ways to penetrate the cloud. "There are some real Achilles' heels in the cloud
infrastructure that are making big holes for the bad guys to get into". Because data from hundreds or
thousands of companies can be stored on large cloud servers, hackers can theoretically gain control
of huge stores of information through a single attack a process he called "hyperjacking". Some
examples of this include the Dropbox security breach, and iCloud 2014 leak. [99] Dropbox had been
breached in October 2014, having over 7 million of its users passwords stolen by hackers in an effort
to get monetary value from it by Bitcoins (BTC). By having these passwords, they are able to read
private data as well as have this data be indexed by search engines (making the information public).
[99]

There is the problem of legal ownership of the data (If a user stores some data in the cloud, can the
cloud provider profit from it?). Many Terms of Service agreements are silent on the question of
ownership.[100]
Physical control of the computer equipment (private cloud) is more secure than having the
equipment off site and under someone else's control (public cloud). This delivers great incentive to
public cloud computing service providers to prioritize building and maintaining strong management of
secure services.[101] Some small businesses that don't have expertise in IT security could find that it's
more secure for them to use a public cloud.
There is the risk that end users don't understand the issues involved when signing on to a cloud
service (persons sometimes don't read the many pages of the terms of service agreement, and just
click "Accept" without reading). This is important now that cloud computing is becoming popular and
required for some services to work, for example for an intelligent personal
assistant (Apple's Siri or Google Now).
Fundamentally private cloud is seen as more secure with higher levels of control for the owner,
however public cloud is seen to be more flexible and requires less time and money investment from
the user.[102]

The future[edit]
Cloud computing is therefore still as much a research topic, as it is a market offering. [103] What is clear
through the evolution of Cloud Computing services is that the CTO is a major driving force behind

Cloud adoption.[104] The major Cloud technology developers continue to invest billions a year in Cloud
R&D; for example, in 2011 Microsoft committed 90% of its $9.6bn R&D budget to Cloud. [105] Centaur
Partners also predict that SaaS revenue will be growing from 13.5B in 2011 to $32.8B in 2016.
[106]
Additionally, more industries are turning to cloud technology as an efficient way to improve quality
services due to its capabilities to reduce overhead costs, downtime, and automate infrastructure
deployment.[107]

See also[edit]