EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The advent of technological innovation has led to the birth of Cloud computing, a paradigm that is advancing quickly in ICT due to its suppleness of utilizing a standout infrastructure readily available thereby saving an organization from a huge expenditure on server facilities since they can use the service on pay-per-use model. Cloud computing has unanimously become a mode of work.
CLOUD COMPUTING AS A NEW PARADIGM
1.0 Background
Cloud computing is a new paradigm in computing in which data, information and different applications or software are kept on storage ensuring that the services are availed to the end users through Internet. The most growing platforms are world wide web and mobile applications. With file sharing ability, Cloud computing makes life at work easy.
1.1 Problem Statement
The shift in computing paradigm and technological progression entails that deployment of cloud computing increases, users are moving toward cloud computing away from conventional computing imminently. However, it poses a challenge for institutions and companies to make a suitable choice among cloud computing services and cloud deployment models and to avoid unnecessary expenditure. This has either called for a dedicated technical team, though dedicated team are scarce, but also called for strong infrastructure within an organization if this mission is to be fulfilled. Researchers have continued to face challenges in assessing cloud performances because they use tools that may misrepresent some aspects of the cloud leading to the simulated implemented being different from the actual cloud performance. This therefore resorts many companies to misplacement of their budget in an attempt to implement cloud computing.
1.2 Objectives General Objective
The broad purpose of this report is to provide a suitable road map and framework, which will aid an organization and implementation team with important insight of different cloud computing delivery methods, architectural modularity, and implementation architecture:
1. To give an indepth account of the growth of cloud computing as a new paradigm by modelling different cloud computing services and deployment models using different cloud simulation tools to see how all the components fit together.
1.3 Specific Objective
- To discuss different cloud computing implementation strategies and deployment.
- To discuss different benefits of cloud computing to an organization.
- To show a complete perspective of what is happening in cloud computing with some real-life examples and some lumpy descriptions of the services currently offered in the market.
1.4 Scope
The dissertation delved mainly on the cloud computing end-user, IT companies and the main stream cloud service providers both locally and internationally. The research will also compare and contrast various cloud computing functionalities and tools.
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction Origin of the Cloud
Cloud computing has taken a rapid change since its inception a way back. Among different phases it has taken include grid and utility computing, application service provision (ASP), and Software as a Service (SaaS). Its evolution equally attracted the vendors to up their game to meet the deployment standard of the overall service as a whole.
2.2 Architecture of Cloud Computing
The scholarly resources indicate that the architectural modularity allows cloud computing to support a wide range of application requirements while reducing management and maintenance overhead. The Cloud Computing Architecture is made up of four layers:
2.2.1 The hardware layer: This is responsible for managing physical resources of the cloud, such as physical server, routers, switches, power and cooling system. The typical challenges at hardware layer include hardware configuration, fault tolerance, traffic management, power and cooling resource management.
2.2.2 The Infrastructure Layer: Also known as the virtualization layer, the infrastructure layer creates a pool of storage and computing resources by partitioning the physical resources using virtualization technologies such as Xen, KVM, and VMware.
2.2.3 The platform layer: Built on top of the infrastructure layer, the platform layer consists of operating systems and application frameworks. The purpose of the platform layer is to minimize the burden of deploying applications directly into VM containers.
2.2.4 The application layer: At the highest level of the hierarchy, the application layer consists of the actual cloud applications. Different from traditional applications, cloud applications can leverage the automatic-scaling feature to achieve better performance, availability, and lower operating cost.
2.3 Cloud Deployment Models
The existing literature information discusses the detailed cloud computing deployment models. According to other scholars, Clouds are deployed in different modes, depending on the usage scopes. There are four primary cloud deployment models as follows:
2.3.1 Private cloud. The cloud that is run and managed only for a single organization is the private cloud. The organization may or may not own the physical infrastructure and can be managed by the organization itself or by a third party.
2.3.2 Public cloud. The clouds physical infrastructure is owned and manage by the CSP and is open to general public and organizations. The resources are shared among all the customers. The customers pay the cloud owner according to the services and resources they use.
2.3.3 Community cloud. The community cloud is shared by a number of organizations and/or customers forming a community. Generally, the community shares common interests, such as the mission, security requirements, policy, and compliance considerations.
2.3.4 Hybrid cloud. The hybrid cloud is the mix of two or more clouds (public, private, or community). All of the participating clouds retain their status of a unique entity, but share standardized or proprietary technology.
2.4 Components of Cloud Computing
With its growing popularity, the components of cloud computing is intended to expand its dimension of use. As such, scholars indicate that Cloud Computing encompasses three layers which cover all the computing stack of a system.
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
This consider to be at the lowest layer of the cloud offering which consists of virtual machines or physical machines, storage, and clusters. Cloud infrastructures can also be heterogeneous, integrating clusters, PCs and workstations. Moreover, the system infrastructure can also include database management systems and other storage services.
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
This layer offered Cloud users a development platform to build their applications. Google App Engine, Aneka, and Microsoft Azure are some of the most prominent example of PaaS Clouds. PaaS includes the lower layer (IaaS) as well that is bundled with the offered service. PaaS offers only the user level middleware, which allows development and deployment of applications on any Cloud infrastructure. As noted by Appistry.com, the essential characteristics that identify a Platform as a Service solution include:
2.4.1 Runtime framework It represents the software stack of the PaaS model. The runtime framework executes end-user code according to the service level policies set by the user and the provider.
2.4.2 Abstraction PaaS solutions are distinguished by the higher level abstraction that they provide. PaaS focuses on the applications the Cloud must support. PaaS solutions offer a way to deploy and manage applications on the Cloud rather than a bunch of virtual machines on top of which the IT infrastructure is built and configured.
2.4.3 Cloud Services PaaS offerings provide developers and architects with services and APIs helping them to simplify delivering of elastically scalable and highly available Cloud applications. These services are the key differentiators among competing PaaS solutions, include specific component for developing applications, advanced services for application monitoring, management, and reporting.
Multi-tenancy is another core feature of SaaS compared to traditional packaged software, allowing providers to outsource the effort of managing large hardware infrastructure, maintaining and upgrading applications, and optimizing resources by sharing the costs among the large user base.
Software as a Service (SaaS)
This is a software delivery model providing on-demand access to applications. The most common examples of such service are CRM and ERPF applications that are commonly used in almost all the enterprises. SaaS providers also constitute other layers of Cloud computing and thus, maintain the customer data and configure the applications according to customer need.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.0 Introduction
In this chapter, the researcher discusses the best action points and guidelines relevant in ensuring that the whole research is carried out professionally. After demonstrating a very good perspective of the study through the opinion of other scholars prior to this section, the framework that shows the relationship and relevance of the questions with respect to research problem and hypothesis was developed and will be tested.
3.1 Research Design
The broader objective of this dissertation is to have strong information on cloud computing and compare different functionalities of tools relevant in running its simulation. The researcher will use qualitative research method with the main aim of getting both the general knowledge of Cloud Computing with the perceived pros and cons related to them.
3.2 Sources of Data
The prominent source of information all throughout the research mainly included the secondary source that is to say journals and articles of different scholars regarding the main subject of study, that is to say cloud computing.
With the secondary data collection method, qualitative approach will be used to gather information from various sources such as journals, periodic publications, newsletters, books and internet.
3.3 Data analysis and interpretation
The validity of data can only happen if the collected data using different data collection tools like questionnaires and interview guide have been processed, analyzed and interpreted for completeness.
3.4 Recommendations
Cloud computing is associated with myriad of opportunities that can be embraced by a number of organizations both small and big, both locally and internationally for all types of organizations. Based on this background, organizations are encouraged to:
- Procure a strong and efficient local servers for hybrid implementation of cloud computing platforms to increase the efficiency and security of their information.
- They are also encouraged to carry out different trainings for the existing staff regarding the use of those platforms therefore rendering its efficiency relevant for organizational growth and development.
- There is also need conduct a proper change management in different organizations to ensure the top-down buy in for all the staff in an organization.
3.5 Conclusion
The new paradigm computing referred to as cloud computing is already a big thing. Companies should harness their resources and embrace the new paradigm. This is if they want to grow their efficiency in their different business processes. The section summarizes the various methods suitable for research to achieve its intended objectives of the study.
Bibliography
- Kumar, P., Rai, A. K. (2014). An overview and survey of various cloud simulation tools. Journal of Global Research in Computer Science, 5(1), 24-26.
- Ettikyala, K., Devi, Y. R. (2015). A Study on Cloud Simulation Tools. International Journal of Computer Applications, 115(14).
- Atanasov, D., Ruskov, T. (2014). Simulation of Cloud Computing Environments with CloudSim. Information Technologies and Control, 12(3-4), 1-6.
- Sinha, U., Shekhar, M. (2015). Comparison of Various Cloud Simulation tools available in Cloud Computing. International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer and Communication Engineering, 4(3).
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