Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURE 2.2
Cloud application stack
Application
API CALLS
REST API
GET | POST | PUT | etc.
End
user
OS/VM
Hypervisor
Underlying hardware
Network | Compute | Storage
Foundations of Cloud Computing
In the following sections, we will discuss the primary components that make up a cloud. But
before we discuss each of the components, let's take a look at the overall picture (Figure 2.3).
Infrastructure
Infrastructure is every piece of hardware an enterprise or a public cloud vendor deploys
within a data center. As we discussed in the first chapter, the data center is where all the
servers are housed and interconnected with a high-speed Ethernet or Infiniband (IB) net-
work backbone. The data center is connected to the outside world (in the case of a public
cloud) or within an enterprise through high-speed networking and/or the Internet. In the
world of cloud computing, imagine the infrastructure as the ingredient that enables appli-
cations to be served to hundreds of millions of users across the globe.
The specs for the servers, storage devices, and networking components that make up
the infrastructure do not need to be the same. Servers with varying configurations based
on the target use cases can be deployed within the same data center. This is what enables
complete abstraction of the underlying hardware from the end users who are cloud ten-
ants. This isolation of the infrastructure from the end user also enables cloud providers
to provide key features like scalability, HA, and effective failover support.
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