Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 2
Cloud Computing
Cloud computing technology represents a new paradigm for the provisioning of
computing resources. This paradigm shifts the location of resources to the network
to reduce the costs associated with the management of hardware and software
resources. It represents the long-held dream of envisioning computing as a utility
[
68
] where the economy of scale principles help to effectively drive down the cost of
computing resources. Cloud computing simplifies the time-consuming processes of
hardware provisioning, hardware purchasing and software deployment. Therefore, it
promises a number of advantages for the deployment of data-intensive applications,
such as elasticity of resources, pay-per-use cost model, low time to market, and
the perception of unlimited resources and infinite scalability. Hence, it becomes
possible, at least theoretically, to achieve unlimited throughput by continuously
adding computing resources if the workload increases.
To take advantage of cloud-hosted data storage systems, it is important to well
understand the different aspects of the cloud computing technology. This chapter
provides an overview of cloud computing technology from the perspectives of key
definitions (Sect.
2.1
), related technologies (Sect.
2.2
), service models (Sect.
2.3
)
and deployment models (Sect.
2.4
), followed by Sect.
2.5
which analyzes state-of-
the-art of current public cloud computing platforms, with focus on their provisioning
capabilities. Section
2.6
summarizes the business benefits for building software
applications using cloud computing technologies.
2.1
Definitions
Cloud computing is an emerging trend that leads to the next step of computing
evolution, building on decades of research in virtualization, autonomic computing,
grid computing, and utility computing, as well as more recent technologies in
networking, web, and software services [
227
]. Although cloud computing is widely
accepted nowadays, the definition of cloud computing has been arguable, due
to the diversity of technologies composing the overall view of cloud computing.
