Cloud Computing and its benefits

What is Cloud Computing

Generally, website hosted on a cloud hosting operates on a clustered servers where online operations are not limited to a single server. By handling security, load balance and hardware resources virtually, the website has access to the processing power of a number of servers that are distributed in real time.

According to Wikipedia:

Cloud computing is Internet- (“cloud-”) based development and use of computer technology (“computing”). In concept, it is a paradigm shift whereby details are abstracted from the users who no longer need knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure “in the cloud” that supports them. It typically involves the provision of dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources as a service over the Internet.

The term cloud is used as a metaphor for the Internet, based on how the Internet is depicted in computer network diagrams and is an abstraction of the underlying infrastructure it conceals. Typical cloud computing services provide common business applications online that are accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on the servers.

These services are broadly divided into three categories: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). The name cloud computing was inspired by the cloud symbol that is often used to represent the Internet in flow charts and diagrams.”

Cloud Computing Explained

Benefits of Cloud Computing

• Scalability: IT departments that anticipate an enormous uptick in user load need not scramble to secure additional hardware and software with cloud computing. Instead, an organization can add and subtract capacity as its network load dictates. Better yet, because cloud-computing follows a utility model in which service costs are based on consumption, companies pay for only what they use.
• Easy Implementation: Without the need to purchase hardware, software licences or implementation services, a company can get its cloud-computing arrangement off the ground in record time — and for a fraction of the cost of an on-premise solution.
• Skilled Practitioners: When a particular technology becomes popular, it’s not uncommon for a whole slew of vendors to jump on the bandwagon. In the case of cloud computing, however, vendors have typically been reputable enough to offer customers reliable service and large enough to deliver huge datacenters with endless amounts of storage and computing capacity. These vendors include industry stalwarts such as Microsoft, Google, IBM, Yahoo! Inc. and Amazon.com Inc..
• Frees Up Internal Resources: By placing storage and server needs in the hands of an outsourcer, a company essentially shifts the burden placed on its in-house IT team to a third-party provider. The result: In-house IT departments can focus on business-critical tasks without having to incur additional costs in manpower and training.
• Quality of Service: Network outages can send an IT department scrambling for answers. But in the case of cloud computing, it’s up to a company’s selected vendor to offer 24/7 customer support and an immediate response to emergency situations. That’s not to suggest that outages don’t occur. In February 2008, Amazon.com’s S3 cloud-computing service experienced a brief outage that affected a number of companies. Fortunately, service was restored within three hours.

Cloud Computing Providers

Mosso: Arguably the best-known cloud-hosting provider, Mosso is using financing and technical expertise provided by hosting giant Rackspace US Inc. to bring its service into the business mainstream.

Mosso is staking its future on a $100-per-month service package that includes the online software required to create sites, databases and email accounts. The offering also includes 50GB of SAN (storage area network) space, 500GB of monthly bandwidth and 10,000 compute cycles — a measurement of how much processing time a customer’s applications require on the Mosso cloud. The company notes that 10,000 compute cycles are roughly equivalent to the monthly capacity of a server with a 1.2 GHz modern processor. Phone and live-chat support are also included in the $100 package.

Etelos Inc.: Etelos is positioning its Etelos Share service as a way for customers to inexpensively and reliably store and collaborate on files. The company notes that Etelos Share is not a public publishing system but a business file-sharing service.

RightScale Inc.: RightScale’s approach to cloud services is to provide a platform that lets customers create scalable Web applications running on AWS (Amazon Web Services). An automated cloud-computing-management system is designed to help customers create scalable applications with minimal effort. The company claims that its offering is the only end-to-end management platform for AWS that includes everything needed to get a scalable, reliable, high-performance Web application up and running quickly. The RightScale Platform is available in editions that start at $500 per month for managing up to 20 simultaneous virtual servers, with a one-time setup fee that starts at $2,500.

GoGrid: GoGrid describes itself as ” … the world’s first multi-server control panel that enables you to deploy and manage load-balanced cloud servers in just minutes.” GoGrid promises that customers can quickly deploy multiple Windows or Linux Web servers and pay only for the server time and data transfer that they use.

A Web-based control panel is designed to give customers the ability to easily configure free hardware load balancing, and it provides the ability to add or delete servers at any time. Pricing starts at 19 cents per hour, with prepaid packages available.

3tera Inc.: 3tera’s Cloudware offering aims to serve as a flexible architecture for customers who are interested in developing and running large-scale cloud applications. Cloudware is designed to be vendor agnostic under Linux, Windows or Solaris, allowing virtually any third-party vendor’s software to be incorporated into a Cloudware-enabled system.

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