Cloud Computing Chapters 10-12

Chapter 10: Software plus Services

• Software plus Services allows you to maintain some software on-site, which accesses data stored on the cloud.
• Especially good for anyone who needs to be away from the corporate datacenter
• With Software plus Services, locally hosted software is supplemented by cloud offerings.
• PRO
• Software plus Services periodically checks the cloud and updates local software with current information, also sending changed information back to the cloud.  If the connection goes down, the software will have the most recently updated information and work can still continue

• CON
• Costs, Quality (slow response if many people are using your vendor’s equipment), fear (people are afraid information isn’t secure)

• Vendors
• Microsoft, Adobe, Salesforce.com, Apple, Google, WeatherBug

• Mobile Device Integration
• A key component of Software plus Service is the ability to work in the cloud from a mobile device
• Can create and download apps, can edit your documents from a mobile device
• Allows for consumers worldwide to have access to less expensive mobile devices that feature more compelling services, rich Internet applications, and easier to use interfaces.

• Providers
• Software plus Services is a good match for mobile users, telecommuters, and others on the go but there is still value for deskbound users
• Applications can be developed by your organization or your vendor, depending on what your vendor offers or what you need
• Adobe AIR, RIA, Apple iPhone SDK

• Microsoft Online
• Allows organizations to have more choices in how they access and manage enterprise-class software
• Having a variety of solutions to choose from gives customers the mobility and flexibility they need to meet constantly evolving business needs

• Microsoft is moving towards a hybrid strategy of Software plus Services and the goal is to empower customers and partners with richer applications, more choices, and greater opportunity through a combination of on-premise software, partner-hosted software, and Microsoft-hosted software
• Microsoft’s operating system consists of Active Directory.  Active Directory is a Microsoft directory service, and it is used to provision, store, manage users, groups, passwords, and contacts

Chapter 11: Developing Applications
For most of your needs, there is more than likely going to be an application on the cloud that you can subscribe to. For those that aren’t, you can use one of several host sites to develop the application that fits your needs.


Google App Engine won’t do all the complex things that Oracle will allow.  Also,  google will charge users for applications that use excessive amounts of data. They set a limit that is on their site.



Windows Live is a set of building blocks that lays the foundation for applications within Azure.  Developing apps for Azure is different than using other platforms. The Azure platform is designed to be user friendly, so that apps can be created, managed, and distributed with ease.

Trouble Shooting on the Cloud

Trouble shooting on the cloud is a lot different than that which has always been done in the traditional IT environment. Your control of applications on the cloud is limited from your organization. Like we previously mentioned, you are very much dependent upon your web hosts.

Application Management will vary from app to app. Much of that depends on the terms of service you have with the cloud provider you are using. There are products out there to help you manage applications if you are allowed to. One of those is Kaavo.
provides solutions for managing distributed applications and workloads in the clouds. Kaavo is the first and only company to deliver a solution with a top down application focused approach to IT infrastructure management in public and private clouds; enabling users to maximize the full potential of cloud computing”
             - webapps.com







Chapter 12: Local Clouds and Thin Clients

A local cloud- presentation virtualization which skips the service provider component and allows you to manage all the contents yourself


Virtualization: 

• Server Virtualization- A physical server computer into multiple servers.  Each has the appearance as the dedicated machine.
• Application Virtualization- Software that are separate from the underlying operating system
• Presentation Virtualization- Run an application in one location (the server) but be controlled in another (the thin client) 

Why Virtualize?

• Cost
• Administration
• Fast Deployment
• Reduced Infrastructure Cost (reduce the # of physical servers)

When virtualizing, you need to assess, analyze, determine ways to save money, think about the concerns, and think about security.

Server solutions: 

2 major components of a vitualized environment: clients and servers.

Microsoft Hyper-V

Virtual technology that helps professionals and developers build systems.



VMware

Offers a server that provides virtualization products for Linux ans Windows servers.



Thin Clients  (Devices that connect over a network to a centralized server where all the processing and storage takes place.  This reduces maintenance cost, updates, and gives a higher level of security.  It can also be up to 80 percent more power efficient than a regular desktop.)

(Hewlett Packard- leading manufacturer of thin clients.)

Cloud Computing Chapters 7-9

Chapter 7: Cloud Storage

Overview:

• Cloud storage involves storing your data with a cloud service provider rather than on a local system. As with other cloud services, you access the data stored on the cloud via an Internet link.

• Advantages
• If you store your data on a cloud, you can get it from any location that has Internet access
• A cloud service provider can simply add more commodity hard drives to increase the organization’s capacity
• Allows you to protect your data if there is a disaster

Storage as a Service

• Means a third party provider rents  space on their storage  to end users who lack the budget or capital budget to pay for it on their own
• Popular among small and medium sized businesses
• Biggest advantage is cost savings (user simply pays for how much they transfer and save on the provider’s services)

• Providers
• Google docs, web email, flickr, picasa, you tube

• Security
• Encryption, authentication processes, and authorization practices are security measures you can use to keep your data safe on a cloud storage provider

• Reliability
• Cloud storage providers try to address reliability concerns through redundancy and try to keep the system from failing

• Cautions
• Price and reliability
• make sure you are using a good vendor and are getting good quality

• Theft
• Whenever you let your data out of your organization, you give up a measure of security

Cloud Storage Providers

• Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3)
• Best known
• Allows storage and retrieval of data at anytime from anywhere on the web

• Nirvanix
• Uses custom developed software and file system technologies running on Intel storage servers at six locations

• Google Bigtable Datastore
• Database that is capable of handling numerous users on an on-demand basis

• MobileMe
• Solution that delivers push email, push contacts, and push calendars from the MobileMe service in the cloud to native applications on the iphone, macs, itouch

Chapter 8: Standards

Standards make it possible to connect to the could, therefore making them essential to users receiving and sharing content.
Application:
defined- a cloud application is the software architecture that the cloud uses to eliminate the need to install and run on the client computer.

HTTP:
defined- (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) the language that the cloud and your computers use to communicate.

XMPP:
(Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol) protocol which allows for two way communication between the clound and the client, which eliminates polling.XMPP was developed for instant messaging and presence, and it is widely used in those fields. It is very efficient and able to scale to millions of concurrent users on a single service.


Security:

As mentioned before, the perceived vulnerability of information on the cloud is the most significant reason why businesses are reluctant to join. There are ways to  secure your information, encryption and authentication. The first way is the Secure Sockets Layer, probably what was implemented the last time you used your credit card. Using an SSL will take slightly longer to load pages because of the certification process that is happening between your computer and the web server. OpenID is a free solution that can allow you to use the same password for several web sites. Currently it is still in the adoption phase.

Client:

When connected to the cloud, your clients need to run certain software, the majority of will be from your web browser. Here are a few of the different ways currently used to store and show information:
- HTML
-DHTML
-JavaScript

Infrastructure:
Means by which virtualization is delivered to your cloud. Virtualization across the internet would mean your machines are storing information and running from a remote server. On the other hand, local virtualization would mean your computers are running from a local server.

Web Services:

Web services describe how data is communicated from the cloud to the end user, through the client of course. This entails nothing more than understanding how two concepts from Chapter 7 work, SOAP and REST.        

Chapter 9: Software as a Service

(SaaS) This is the general idea of cloud computing.

Advantages:

• Faster
• Lower cost
• Most current version
• Easy to update
• Popular
• Plenty of Platforms
• Can visualize

Company Offering

• Intuit- quickbooks: track business accounts
• Iphone and BlackBerry- can manage their accounts anywhere
• check current bank and credit card balance
• tracking money
• finding vendor and customer contact info
• Run a balance sheet/profit and loss reports
• Google- Apps
• Microsoft- Live business to start a small company
• IBM- “Blue Cloud” a series of cloud computing

Industries:

Healthcare

-Healthvault-managing peoples health information, private

-AdvanceMD-a medical billing software company that provides medical billing software

Collaboration-WebEX

-consists of five applications:

        WebEx Meeting Center
        WebEx Event Center
        WebEx Sales Center
        WebEx Training Center
        WebEx Support Center

Construction-CMiC
    -software that helps the architectural, engineering, and construction industry.

Retail-Epicor
    -gives retailers a delivery method

Banking-OpenChannel
    -online banking, secure

SaaS comes in many different ways and forms and used by many companies and a variety of industries.

Cloud Computing Chapters 4-6

Chapter 4: The Business Case for Going to the Cloud

 
 
--how your organization can benefit from a cloud move and how different cloud services can serve you
 

Cloud Computing Services
·         How your organization can benefit from the cloud
·         Infrastructure as a Service
o   Also known as Everything as a Service
o   You are using a virtualized server and running software on it
o   Most prevalent is Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and GoGrid
·         Platform as a Service
o   A way to build applications and have them hosted by the cloud provider
o   It allows you to deploy applications without having to spend the money to buy the servers on which to house them
o   Examples are Google and RightScale
·         Software as a Service
o   The cloud vendor providing the given piece of software you want to use, on their servers
o   SaaS provides the applications for you
o   It’s hard to differentiate between companies like Google or Salesforce that offer both PaaS and SaaS services
§  Not only can you build an application with Google but you can also allow others to use the application 


you developed
·         Software Plus Services
o   Microsoft’s take on SaaS is slightly different.
o   You run some software onsite and  reach out to the cloud for additional services
o   This provides flexibility of using  a cloud provider, and also the reliability of having data stored on site, as well

How Those Applications Help Your Business
 
·         Operational Benefits
o   Reduced costs- technology is paid incrementally
o   Increased storage- more data storage available on the cloud
o   Automation- provider keeps application up to date
o   Flexibility
o   Better mobility- users can access the cloud from anywhere with an internet connection
o   Better use of IT staff
·         Economic Benefits
o   People- by moving to the cloud you’ll rely on few staffers
o   Hardware- major cloud suppliers can purchase hardware much cheaper than a regular business
o   Pay as you go- you pay for what you use on the cloud
o   Time to market- get apps up and running faster
·         Staffing Benefits
o   For the Consumer
§  No software installation or maintenance
§  Shorter deployment time
§  Worldwide availability
o   For the Provider
§  Operating environment- the provider owns their domain
§  Predictable revenue stream
§  Small, regular upgrades
§  Customer relationship management- management must keep customers happy so a good relationship must be built



Chapter 5 Hardware and Infrastructure

Clients:

Mobile clients are ideal for running small, less complex applications away from the office. There are some concerns when deciding on the type of client you wish to integrate with your cloud. Specifically pertaining to mobile clients, security and speed are primary concerns.

Thin clients are a second type discussed in the text. Thin clients are those computers which have no hard drive. Therefore, they can only be used to access information on your server.

Thick clients on the other hand are those which we are most familiar with. These are computers with hard drives allowing each end user to have different applications installed on each machine. Thick clients are ideal if non-cloud based applications are used. 

 

Security:
   

Although there are some concerns about others accessing information stored on the cloud, there are some notable benefits to using cloud based systems. Some of these include having centralized data storage decreasing the chances for data leaks. Another idea to consider is the possibility that cloud providers may be able to secure your data better than you can.

    Other security aspects to consider are:
        - improved logging
        - ability to create a forensic server online

SSL VPN (Secure Sockets Layer Virtual Private Network) can be used with any standard web browser without downloading special software on the end users’ computers. These have the ability to be sure certain security measures are in place prior to accessing information stored in the cloud. Examples of such precautionary steps include but are not limited to:

    -requiring antivirus software to be running

    -verifying that operating systems patches have been installed

    -checking to see if malware applications are running

Network:

    There are 4 different levels of connectivity allowing users to access information stored in the cloud.
        1) Basic Public Internet
        2) Accelerated Internet
        3) Optimized Internet Overlay
        4) Site-to-Site VPN
        *See Table 5-1 on page 103 for details comparing the four options

Some things to consider when deciding on the appropriate level of connectivity for your use includes the size of your network, optimal transmission speed, symmetry of data transfers.

Services:

    Identity: how applications know about its users. (Just think about signing into google to access your documents; user name and password)
    Integration: how applications share information, or talk among themselves
   
    Also discussed are the fairly basic services such as mapping, payments and searching capabilities.














Chapter 6 Accessing the Cloud

Platforms:
   
    A platform is how the cloud is delivered to you.  AJAX is a group of web development techniques used to create web applications.
    Pros:

• can retrieve new info and adjust how the content is presented (very efficient)
• More interactive and respond quickly to user inputs
• connections to the server are reduced

Cons:

• The back button doesn’t work
• difficult to bookmark
• If a browser does not support AJAX then it can’t be used
• There is no standards body behind it so no widely adopted best practice to test it.

Web Hosting Service
   
    You need a “cloud provider” to store your data and applications.  It serves as the organization that will host your data.

Proprietary Methods

    These are individual companies that offer their own ways to connect to the could.  Microsoft is an example.

Web Applications
   
    Someone else may have already created the application, therefore using what they have created is an easy way to use an applications.  Google is an example.  Google offers may apps that hopefully satisfy what your looking for.  



Web APIs

    APIs stands for Application programming interface, which is a set of programming instructions to access a web-based program.  An example of API usage, is when you enter your credit card number on the computer, API is what gets the job done.  Another example is when calling back and forth is done by a computer.

Web Browsers

    For the most part, all browsers are the same and you should be able to use any browser you want.  Internet explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome are examples of web browsers.  Each have specific features, so choosing the best one that satisfies your needs is ideal.