Definition of Cloud Computing - Its Essential Features

Origin of Cloud Computing

         Comes from the early days of the Internet where we drew the network as a cloud… we didn’t care where the messages went… the cloud hid it from us” – Kevin Marks, Google. 

• First cloud around networking (TCP/IP abstraction)
• Second cloud around documents (WWW data abstraction)

         The emerging cloud abstracts infrastructure complexities of servers, applications, data, and heterogeneous platforms.

Cloud computing is a model for enabling 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 or service provider interaction.
This cloud model promotes availability and is composed of five essential characteristics, three service models,and four deployment models.

This cloud model promotes availability and is composed of five essential characteristics, three service models,and four deployment models.

Five essential characterstics

*   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’s 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, laptops, and PDAs). 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. There is a sense of location independence in that the customer generally has no control or knowledge over the exact location of the provided resources but may be able to specify location at a higher level of abstraction (e.g., country, state, or data center). Examples of resources include storage, processing, memory, network bandwidth, and virtual machines.

*  Rapid Elasticity. Capabilities can be rapidly and elastically provisioned, in some cases automatically, to quickly scale out, and rapidly released to quickly scale in. To the consumer, the capabilities availablefor provisioning often appear to be unlimited and can be purchased 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.