Puttananjammagari, Utphala

10/29/15

Instructor: Julie Johnson

Paper 3, final copy

Cloud Computing

In earlier days, data are stored in internal or hard drive storage such as C Drive. The

content stored in the computer cannot be accessed by other devices. Later, data are stored on

external storage devices such as SD card, CD/DVD drive, and thumb drives. External storage

allows content to become mobile and compatible with any computer. However, mobile device

usage has become very common these days. Usage of mobile data to store information such as

photos, videos, applications, and messages is increasing tremendously. Storage is becoming a

highly challenging issue to handle as the content grows rapidly every day. In other words, the

data are very high and mobile devices do not have enough memory to store complete data. In

addition to storage space, privacy and security of the data are the main concerns.

What can be done to solve these issues? Cloud computing will help to find solutions for

all these issues. Rountree and Castrillo (2014), states that “Cloud computing is collection of

remote servers to store and manage user data over the network” (p. 1).The stored data can be

accessed by multiple users at a time. According to Rountree and Castrillo (2014), cloud

computing can be called ‘the cloud’ in short (p. 1). Users accessing cloud services from desktop,

laptops, and mobile devices are called cloud clients. Rountree and Castrillo (2014), classifies

cloud computing service models as Software as a service (SaaS), Platform as a service (PaaS),

and Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) (p. 7). In this paper, the application and usage of these

services is explained. Cloud Computing is used to store data with low cost, great flexibility, and

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optimal resource utilization. Cloud computing is mainly achieved by using methods such as a

private cloud, Big Data analytics, and file storage.

A private cloud uses a private network to store personal data, which is highly

confidential. According to Galloway (2012), private clouds are becoming popular due to the fact

that many organizations are reluctant to move their data to a commercialized cloud (p. 232).

Commercial cloud information can be stored in personal computers or on mobile devices, but we

cannot access that information from other computers or from other mobile devices. The cloud

will help to access the information remotely from multiple computers and mobile devices.

Basically, the cloud requires an internet connection to access the information. To access the

cloud storage, users need to create an account with a username and password. Once the account

is created, the users can store their personal data into cloud storage. The information stored in the

cloud can be retrieved by using any computer. Moreover, the private cloud concept has high

security features; by default users will have read only access to the file which is accessed from

other machines. However, users can edit or delete the file by logging into their account and

answering some security questions. Organizations such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are

offering private cloud space to store data with very low cost. The private cloud is helping

individuals to store their data in a secured way. In short, the cloud offers an individual to store

their data locally with low cost.

The private cloud is developed using one of the cloud service method called Software as

a service (SaaS). Rountree and Castrillo (2014), states that a private cloud is achieved using

software as a service where the software application provider makes the software applications to

the customer over the network (p. 7). For example, an individual using internet for storing

personal data. In SaaS multiple networks are connected to each other. When a user sends a

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request to access data, the server will look for the machine which has the data and checks for

user authentication. Fathi and Salehi (2015) states that “Authentication is a process of

determining whether or not a user is the one claiming to be. It also provides a security level that

determines the confidence degree of a system on the authenticated user” (p. 516). If user

information matches with the record, then the data will be sent to the user. Apart from storage of

massive private data, a private cloud also offers a file sharing feature where users can share their

data with others. This feature helps to share content such as photos, presentations, and

documents with other users in remote locations. Overall, a private cloud provides users to store

their high security data.

The cloud is a collection of computing resources delivered as a standard set of services

specified by the organizations. Maintaining and delivering services on the cloud depend on the

customer and their performance. For example, bank and government organizations require high

data security which is offered by a private cloud. To address different security issues a private

cloud offers services such as a self-hosted private cloud, partner hosted private cloud, and private

cloud appliance. The self-hosted private cloud offers architectural and operational control by

providing a dedicated environment designed only for that organization. The partner based private

cloud offers internally designed cloud that is externally hosted and maintained by the partner

organization. The private cloud appliance offers dedicated environment for the retailer that is

developed by the retailer with consumer driven features. In brief, the cloud services are designed

to provide solutions for various retailers which best fits them.

Another significant method of cloud computing is Big Data. The Big Data analytics offer

information derived from multiple sources to provide analytics of a specific product. Big Data

analytics are very helpful to marketing companies, where they can rely on the analytical data to

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gather information about their products. Amazon is providing well-structured tools such as

Amazon Web Services (AWS) to collect the information about users and provide statistical

information such as product reviews and product usage to the delivering company. Big Data

analytics provide current trends for companies to analyze how their product is moving in the

market. The challenging factor in retail organizations is to maintain their data over the internet.

As the number of users grows, managing user request and data are becoming critical. For

example, an individual using Netflix an online tool for watching movies and TV series. Initially,

with less users managing user requests was not critical to Netflix server. Later, Netflix usage has

been increased over the period of time. Hence, managing multiple user requests became a

challenging thing for the servers. However, by using Big Data on a cloud will reduce the server

load. Netflix started using AWS where managing and retrieval of user data is handled by amazon

services.

Big Data is a collection of data over the internet such as web data, e-commerce, purchase

at department stores, bank or credit card statements, and social networking. According to

TechCrunch (2008, 2012) statistics, Google processes 20 PB data per data and Facebook

retrieves 500TB user data per data. Processing and retrieving enormous data is becoming

challenging. Big Data analytics resolves these issues by storing user data in different formats

such as text data, graph data, and in XML format. These formats of data will follow the process

of indexing, aggregation, searching and querying techniques to store user information. In

addition, According to TechCrunch (2008) post, Big Data can be analyzed using software tools

such as data mining, text mining, and statistical analysis. Analysis can be done more effectively

using software framework called Hadoop. Rountree and Castrillo (2014), defines that “a Hadoop

is a collection of distributed processing storage systems” (p. 7). It helps organizations to get a

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quick insight about their structured data. Rountree and Castrillo (2014), explains Hadoop uses

algorithms such as MapReduce, Pig, and Hive to organize structured data (p. 80). Big Data

applications include customer engagement intelligence, fraud management, and sales insight for

retail. Overall, usage of the cloud in Big Data analytics gives organizations a better insight about

their products.

The Big Data analytics is relied on one of the cloud service called Infrastructure as a

Service (IaaS). Rountree and Castrillo (2014), states that Big Data analytics are achieved using

Infrastructure as a Service where software application providers offer hardware infrastructure

such as a server on rental basis for the customers over the internet (p. 7). IaaS organizations can

deploy and build their software on remote machines. According to Sen (2015), “concerns

regarding privacy, security, sensitivity, and solidarity of data and computation are major

obstacles for enterprises willing to adopt the services of cloud computing” (p. 151). These

obstacles are managed by maintenance activities such as retrieval, addition, and deletion of data.

These maintenance activities can be performed using infrastructure provided by the application

vendor. Usage of vendor provided application will save maintenance cost to the purchasing

company. Along with cost, the speed and accuracy of data will be very high. Overall, usage of

the cloud in Big Data analytics increase the data retrieval speed and improve data accuracy to the

organizations.

Another important cloud computing method is file storage. The file storage allows

organizations to store their data and manage it. The cloud helps reducing maintenance cost to the

company, as large file maintenance is a critical issue for most of the organizations. However, by

using cloud services companies concern for storing huge user data and its maintenance will

reduce. The cloud can handle multiple files at a time, hence managing and retrieving data will be

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very quick. File storage in the cloud helps in resource pooling and on demand data retrieval.

Resource pooling helps to collect multiple user information at a time and organize user specific

data into the cloud. On demand data retrieval helps the organization to retrieve user data at any

time from any machine. However, accessing of data from any machine should be secured from

the phishing sites. Ferguson (2012) states that “cloud based content fetching has proven to be a

very viable concept for accessing data from known or suspected phishing sites” (p. 260). Overall,

file storage and retrieval using the cloud is free from corruption.

File storage is designed using one of the cloud service called Platform as a Service

(PaaS). Rountree and Castrillo (2014), states that file storage is achieved using Platform as a

Service where software application provider offers a platform to support file storage operations

and data maintenance software over the network (p. 7). In PaaS cloud vendors will provide a

platform for users and organizations to save and maintain their data. For example, Windows

Azure helps organizations to upload their user information into the cloud through a network.

Using Azure any user information can be accessed from any machine with less time. According

to Myers (2015, September 28), typical usage of Azure for file storage includes migrating

applications that depend on file shares to keep running on Azure virtual machines without costly

rework. Myers (2015, September 28), explains documents can be saved using setting such as

configuration files. Storage of data, tools, and utilities are needed for the Azure development

process. Overall, file storage using cloud platform as a service helps organizations to reduce the

maintenance cost with improved performance.

Cloud computing has several other advantages in business models ranging from

scalability to multi-site data access. According to Rao (2014), significant advantages of the cloud

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computing include cost, reliability, flexibility, and innovation (p. 9). Usage of the cloud services

will save cost for business models, because cloud service providers will resolve the server issue.

So that, business models can focus on their core functionality. Since the services are offered by

the cloud providers most of the times, it will be very reliable to work across multiple sites.

Another advantage of the cloud is Flexibility. The cloud services can work well with any

platform which gives a flexibility to the users. Another significant advantage is innovation.

Usage of the cloud will create opportunities for modernization and creative business models.

However, cloud computing has certain limitations which need to be addressed. According

to Rao (2014), significant limitations of cloud computing include stable internet connection,

performance, speed, and data can vanish (p. 7). Since most of the cloud operations run on the

internet, having a stable internet connection is very crucial. If the internet speed is limited,

downloading large documents will take more time and will consume more bandwidth. Even

though having a stable internet connection with noticeable speed, using machines with high

performance is required. If the application takes more time to process and send the file to a user,

then system’s performance is will be degraded. Also, information needs to be exchanged

between computers connected to the same network. Another limitation of the cloud computing is

restricted features. Many users are not comfortable with latest technologies. For example, users

are comfortable with Microsoft Word rather than Google Docs. For a regular user, creating a file

using Word and sharing it with other user through mail is easier than uploading and sharing in a

cloud. Limited knowledge of users on the cloud technology will make it difficult to access and

use all features. In addition to these, there is one more limitation stored data can disappear. If the

data center of the cloud is not maintained properly, then data stored in the cloud can vanish.

Because most of the data centers will not maintain replicas to restore disappeared data.

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Over the past decade, usage of the cloud services is drastically increased and gained

popularity. The future of the cloud computing is very promising. The cloud engineers are

expecting usage of the cloud will expand to the innovation of hybrid computing. Low cost factor

of the cloud services will encourage individuals to set up their own small scale business. Overall,

the cloud has infinite scope and scale for technology innovations.

In conclusion, cloud computing offers adequate features to provide a storage facility with

high security for public and private organizations. Hale and Gamble (2012) define “The

philosophy of a cloud service is a kind of ‘pay as you go for what you use’ structure that allows

organizations to eliminate, or reduce capital investment cost” (p. 133). Advantages of using

cloud computing are storage on cloud is cheaper than purchasing software or hardware, data

stored in the cloud can be accessed by any computer, data are compatible with any operating

system. Important cloud computing methods involve private cloud, Big Data analytics and file

storage. Future work like interactive data management needs to be developed to make cloud

computing more effective.

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References

Constine, J. (2012, August 22). How Big Is Facebook’s Data? 2.5 Billion Pieces Of Content And 500+ Terabytes Ingested Every Day. Retrieved from http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/22/how-big-is-facebooks-data-2-5-billion-pieces-of-content-and-500-terabytes-ingested-every-day/

Fathi, R., Salehi, A. M., & Leiss, L. E. (2015). User friendly and secure architecture (UFSA) for authentication of cloud services. Eighth International Conference on Cloud Computing, 12, 516-522. DOI: 10.1109/CLOUD.2015.75

Ferguson, E., Weber, J., & Hasan, R. (2012). Cloud based content fetching: Using cloud infrastructure to obfuscate phishing scam analysis. IEEE Eighth World Congress on Services, 12, 251-261. DOI: 10.1109/SERVICES.2012.60

Galloway, J., Smith, K., & Carver, J. (2012). An empirical study of power aware load balancing in local cloud architecture. Ninth International Conference on Information Technology, 12, 232-236. DOI: 10.1109/ITNG.2012.171

Hale, L. M., & Gamble, R. (2012). Secagreement: Advancing security risk calculations in cloud services. IEEE Eighth World Congress on Services, 12, 133-140. DOI: 10.1109/SERVICES.2012.31

Myers, T. (2015, September 28). How to use Azure File storage with Windows. Retrieved from https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/storage-dotnet-how-to-use-files/

Rountree, D. & Castrillo, I. (2014). The basics of cloud computing. Waltham, MA: Elsevier Inc.

Rao, M. N. (2014). Cloud computing. New Delhi, India: Raj press.

Schonfeld, E. (2008, January 9). Google Processing 20,000 Terabytes A Day, and Growing. Retrieved from http://techcrunch.com/2008/01/09/google-processing-20000-terabytes-a-day-and-growing/

Sen, P., Saha, P., & Khatua, S. (2015). A distributed approach towards trusted cloud computing platform. Application and Innovations in Mobile Computing (AIMoC), 15, 146-150.

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