The word that the weathermen used commonly when delivering their daily reports has now entered the technology arena too. It’s the Cloud. If you ask about Cloud randomly to a hundred people you come across daily, they would stay it is some storage facility in a remote location which can also be accessed and managed remotely.
However, confining cloud to just a remote storage would be narrowing its potential and not fully a understanding the broader application of the revolutionary technology. In simple terms, cloud enables a company to remotely store data, software and technology platform and access it 24/7 accessing through internet.
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Cloud touches everyone
Just as the physical cloud is ubiquitous, cloud computing is also becoming more universal and usage not restricted to techies and scientists. If you are using shared email services such as Google, Yahoo , you are using the cloud, as the software and applications are not installed on your PC. If you are a Dropbox or Google Drive user, again you are part of a cloud architecture provided by the vendors. Similarly, social media platforms such as FaceBook, Linkedin, Twitter are all daily use applications hosted on the cloud.
As laymen, here are some of the most commonly used free cloud computing tools that may be useful:
Google Docs helps account holders to share documents and has real –time editing tools.
Box.net allows users to extend their storage functionality. It can be linked to a social media account such as Linkedin and computer accessories. It has fax connectors that connect the cloud to the physical machinery at home or in the office.
Cloudshare: Allows setting up connectivity between two windows machines.
Windows Livemesh helps users to remotely control Windows and Mac desk tops. It helps synchronise files between computers and standardize bookmarks and favourites.
Advantage of Cloud Computing
Cloud provides several advantages for service provider, vendors and companies who utilize the cloud services.
Reduces server, installation costs: For companies which scale up their IT deployment, often increased costs of onsite installation of storage, maintenance and accessibility costs can be a huge burden on their already stretched financials. Using the Cloud enables user companies to reduce costs on storage, hardware costs and related installation costs, maintenance costs among others.
Reduces Software licensing, application costs: Central to computer systems are the software and platforms that enable services to be delivered to customers. For most small and medium enterprises opting for the cloud technology can help considerably reduce software licensing costs, data storage and application software costs.
Big Data Services: Big Data vendors, the revolutionary business-technology confluence that enables firms to better understand the market and devise appropriate strategies heavily depend on cloud platform to provide affordable, accessible services to customers. It is like the pay-per-use model and the more talked about Software-as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS).
Sharing of resources: As already outlined, cloud is not just storage but pooling of available resources including storage, software, appications and databases which could be in different locations but accessible through internet. Hence, the end user is not aware of the geographical location of the stored data, applications and resources.
Downers of Cloud Computing
No universal applicability: Cloud technology could be useful in some scenarios but not across industries and verticals. Hence, a case-by-case study has to be done to find out the suitability of deploying cloud.
Security risks: Many firms are still wary of the security risks involved in hosting data and applications on the cloud although vendors claim that is secure and safe. According to Jeff Fleece of Sungard Availability Services, cloud implementations fail due to lack of planning, understanding of clearly defined business objectives and cloud security. The conclusions are based on a survey of IT professionals.
Difficulties in financial industry: World wide financial services industry is growing at a rapid rate and hence a hot target for cloud service providers. However, financial industry has been cautious, as it is believed cloud cannot be implemented in half-steps and there is no transition period for migrating to cloud. This was the topic of discussion at a recent cloud business summit in New York according to Joe Mckendrick.The transition to cloud based financial system requires the organization be prepared at multiple levels.
Cloud Computing opportunities
Several million new jobs are expected to be created in cloud technology space as its adoption rises, according to industry analysts. David Linthicum, Cloud Technology Partners quoting Forbes magazine said that there are 3384,878 of 3.9 mn jobs in cloud computing in United States currently with 384,478 of them in IT. The median salary in this industry is $90,950 and there are 18,239,258 jobs worldwide. China accounts for 40.8% of the demand for cloud computing professionals worldwide.
The demand is for IT professionals with specific cloud skills are IT admins with know-how of cloud architecture, he noted.
Thanks to stronger growth rates in Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure, job openings are showing a corresponding rise among public cloud providers. Close behind are IBM, HP, Verizon and CenturyLink when it comes to generating jobs in cloud platforms.
Cloud Certification programs
Naturaly enough several cloud certification programs provided by industry are in huge demand some of which are generic but others are specific to their own platforms. The top certifications for cloud computing are :
VMware Certified Professional
Certified Cloud Professional
IBM Certified Solution-Architect- Cloud Computing Infrastructure
Microsoft Azure Certifications
AWS Certifications
IBM Certified Solution Architect-Cloud Computing Architecture
Google Cloud Platform Cloud Academy
A number of free online courses are also available for those enthusiastic of cloud computing.
edX & UC Berkeley has programs that cover SaaS, Ruby on Rails, and enhancing performance using Javascript
MIT openCourseWare provides all MIT course content as a web-based publication
Newer applications
E-learning:
One of rapidly growing application for cloud computing could be in e-learning space where service providers will be able to provide course material, audio, video files, live conferencing and collaboration tools and simulation practices across geographies. Moreover, content can be structured in basic/foundation, intermediate and advanced levels to cope with the needs of the learner in terms of knowledge adoption and financial capabilities. E-learning can be much more affordable and accessible for a vast majority and there is no limit to the topics that can be handled in the cloud platform. SAP provides Learning Hub program for its ERP software modules at a highly subsidized costs for the industry, students and faculty. The Big Data platforms such as Hadoop learning programs are also becoming increasingly delivered online which is suitable for all categories of learners.
Hybrid Cloud
Hybrid cloud utilizes both private and public clouds with the objective of performing distinct functions in the same company. The public and private cloud which work independently within an organization is integrated over an encrypted connection. Hybrid technology provides for portability of data and applications. The hybrid architecture enables privileged data to be hosted on private cloud, it could be sensitive financial information, customer details or sales data. On the other hand less security sensitive and computational data is moved to the public cloud. This system is convenient to comply with regulatory and statutory issues.
Despite the several advantages that Hybrid cloud offers, it too suffers from issues related to security and privacy. There could also be transportation delays across a network and hence unsuitable for mission-critical operations.
PaaS or Platform as a Service
After Software as a Service (SaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) has emerged as a hot favourite in the hybrid cloud era. It allows users to create software applications using tools that are provided by vendors.
PaaS provides operating system, server-side scripting, database management, server software, support, storage, network access, tools for design and development apart from design and hosting.
Cloud hosting:
Cloud hosting provides hosting on virtual servers and is not dependent on one server. In such a system, the web site is hosted on a network of servers and not on a single server. The concept is based on pay-per-use model.
Among its salient features are reliability, physical security, scalability and flexibility utility style costing and responsive load balancing.
The cloud computing architecture
It’s often easier to talk of cloud but how does the system work and what are the components or devices that go into the making of cloud. Each vendor might say their cloud is the best in terms of architecture and resources but the fact is that no two clouds are the same.
Typically, cloud architecture is composed of servers, data centers, networked cables, and associated proprietary management systems.
Data Centres spread across locations typically have several servers supported by fiber links, dedicated generators and battery backup. IBM points out that all Soft Layer data centers features one or more pods, each supporting up to 5000 servers. It has data centres across the globe that are connected through private, managed and public high speed networks.
Typically there are three parts to a cloud computing architecture: Front end operated by clients or users, back end containing the storage, servers, hardware and power systems offered by vendors and supporting high speed network systems. Each application may have its own server although at any point of time some servers will be un-utilised. The administration of the system is usually by a central server which follows a set of protocols. It uses a special kind of software called middle ware that allows networked computers to communicate with each other. To ensure that proper backup of client’s data, redundant servers are kept by service providers so that it can be relied on in emergency situations such as a server crash or hacking attempt.
Future of Cloud Computing
According to IDG Enterprise Cloud Computing Study, enterprises will invest an average of $2.87 mn in cloud computing technologies in 2016.
25% of total IT budgets will be spent on cloud computing
Majority of enterprises (90%) are relying on API’s for their cloud integration plans in 2016. Security remains a major issue to be addressed in cloud computing according to the IDG survey that covered 962 respondents from the industry.
In the Indian scenario,Gartner estimates the public cloud market is expected to treble to $1.9 bn (Rs 12,000 cr) by 2018. Initially, it was expected that small and medium enterprises would have the best adoption rates for cloud.However, large enterprises are also seeing the benefits of cloud with 65% adopting the new platform.
According to Venkatesh Swaminathan, Country Head, India, Novell, there are a few key reasons why industry is embracing cloud in a big way. The fierce competition has put time-to-market in the forefront that means organisations need to quickly respond to changing dynamics. The second requirement for industry is quickness in new product development and faster revenue generation. Hours not years are the new benchmark for realization of return on investments (ROI) on cloud, he said.
Compared to software-based technology platform, open source platforms have been found to be scalable, allow continuous development and improvisation without major cost implications. In Big Data, Hadoop, the open source platform written on C and Java had already become popular for emulating. OpenStack Community in cloud platform is now witnessing increasing number of vendors supporting the project.
Meanwhile, Exuberant Support for Data Services (ESDS) has received India’s first Cloud Computing Patent for its eNlight Cloud from United States Patent & Trademark Office. Global average compute consumption in any organization is as low as 8% and in India 5%. eNight Cloud constantly monitors consumption of virtuous machines and assign computing resources in real time. This in turn will enable the cloud industry to move from commodity model to utility model. ESDS feels 90% computing resources in the industry are lying utilised putting huge financial burden on firms and hence scalable, affordable cloud computing is the need of the hour.
As competition is hotting up the cloud industry, several established players are planning massive price cuts to get an edge over others. Amazon, Google and Microsoft are among the majors who are going to cut prices that could have impact on IBM and VMWare’s cloud business, analysts said.
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