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.