Within the Cloud: Technical Concepts of Cloud Computing - Deploying and Managing a Cloud Infrastructure - page 54

In this chapter, we dive right inside the cloud to explain
concepts that you'll need in order to further understand the
choices that have been made in cloud computing as well as
their technical significance. For cloud technicians and administrators (or those who are
preparing for or have passed the CompTIA Cloud+ exam), this serves as a review and
reminder of the basic concepts behind cloud computing in general and gives a glimpse
into its direction going forward.
The discussion of the technical concepts of cloud computing includes explanations of
the hardware technology involved in the field, something that few cloud technicians take
for granted. We compare cloud technology hardware to traditional non-cloud data center
hardware and provide some insight on the hardware being used for cloud systems. Knowing
about hardware technology will help technicians and executives to better select a proper
cloud service provider for the needs of their organization by evaluating the methods and
hardware that service providers use.
It's important for cloud technicians to understand the technical concepts behind cloud
computing's enormous benefits and economies of scale in terms of how these benefits are
achieved and implemented. Oftentimes we assume that a service carries over the benefit being
highlighted, but this is often on a case-to-case basis that needs to be evaluated first. The con-
cepts being discussed in this chapter will help technicians develop their own methods
of evaluation.
Technical Basics of Cloud and
Scalable Computing
When we hear the term scalable computing , we often associate it with technology being
used for cloud computing, or even assume that it is a synonym for cloud computing , but
that is just a misconception for us professionals in the cloud computing field. The truth
is that cloud computing is just an application in the broader field of scalable computing.
Scalable computing encompasses the hardware and software being used in different areas
of the computer sciences, such as the design of chip-to-chip communication and the tools
and interfaces being used in parallel computer systems. Just to be on the same page here,
we are referring to our own area of scalable computing—that of cloud computing, virtual-
ization , and variable provisioning .
In the following sections, we will discuss the data center, the hardware infrastructure
that has become the backbone of modern business organizations, and how that definition