Cloud Infrastructure Technologies - ilya-khadykin/notes-outdated GitHub Wiki

Cloud Computing can be referred as the allocation of resources on the Cloud. According to NIST (National Institute of Standard and Technology), the formal definition of Cloud Computing is the following:

"Cloud Computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, 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."

Cloud Computing providers offer different kinds of services built on top of basic provisioning and releasing of resources. Most of these services fall into one of the following categories:

  • Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
  • Platform as a Service (PaaS)
  • Software as a Service (SaaS).

Key Features of Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing provides key features such as:

  • Speed and Agility The required resources are just one click away, which saves time and provides agility. We can also easily scale up or down, depending on our need.

  • Cost It reduces the up-front cost to setup the infrastructure and allows us to focus on applications and business. Cloud providers have features to estimate the cost, which helps us plan better.

  • Easy access to resources As users, we can access our infrastructure from any place and device, as long as we can connect to the provider.

  • Maintenance All the maintenance work for the resources is done by the provider. As end-users, we do not have to worry about this aspect.

  • Multi-tenancy Multiple users can use the same pool of resources.

  • Reliability Resources can be hosted in different Datacenter locations, to provide increased reliability.

Cloud Deployment Models

Generally, a Cloud is deployed in the following models:

  • Private Cloud It is designated and operated solely for one organization. It can be hosted internally or externally and managed by internal teams or a third party. We can build a Private Cloud using a software stack like OpenStack.

  • Public Cloud It is open to the public and anybody can use it after swiping the credit card. AWS and Google Compute Engine are examples of Public Clouds.

  • Hybrid Cloud Public and Private Clouds are bound together to offer the Hybrid Cloud

References