Page 18 - DCAP609_CLOUD_COMPUTING

Unit 1: Introduction to Cloud Computing

In an era of technological advancements, world that sees new technological trends Notes
blossoming and fading from time to time, but one new trend still promises more longevity
and permanence. This trend is called cloud computing.
Cloud computing signifies a major change in the way we run various applications and
store our information. Everything is hosted in the “cloud”, a vague assemblage of
computers and servers accessed via the Internet, instead of the method of running programs
and data on a single desktop computer.
In the usual traditional desktop computing, you run copies of software programs on the
computer you own. The documents created are then stored on the same computer. Here
even though documents can be accessed from other computers on the network, they can’t
be accessed by computers not connected to the network.
With cloud computing, the software programs you use are stored on servers accessed via
the Internet and are not run from your personal computer. Hence, even if your computer
stops working, the software is still available for use.

The “cloud” itself is the key to the definition of cloud computing. The cloud is usually
defined as a large group of interconnected computers. These computers include network
servers or personal computers.
Cloud computing has its ancestors both as client/server computing and peer-to-peer
distributed computing. It is all about how centralized storage of data and content facilitates
collaborations, associations and partnerships.
The obvious need to connect one computer to another without first hitting the server led
to the development of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) computing. The P2P was an equalizing concept.
The P2P was also a decentralizing concept.

Today, people are using cloud services and storage to create, share, find, and organize
information of all different types. Tomorrow, this functionality will be available not only
to computer users, but to users of any device that connects to the Internet-mobile phones,
portable music players, even automobiles and home television sets.

One of the primary uses of cloud computing is for data storage. With cloud storage, data
is stored on multiple third-party servers, rather than on the dedicated servers used in
traditional networked data storage.
Any Web-based application or service offered via cloud computing is called cloud services.
Cloud services can include anything from calendar and contact applications to word
processing and presentations.

For developers, cloud computing provides increased amount of storage and processing
power to run the applications they develop. For end users, cloud computing offers all
those benefits and more. A person using a Web-based application is not physically bound
to a single PC, location or network. His applications and documents can be accessed
wherever he is, whenever he wants. Gone is the fear of losing data if a computer crashes.

1.6 Keywords

Amazon S3 cloud storage: Amazon S3 is storage for the Internet. It is designed to make
web-scale computing easier for developers.

Cloud: The cloud is usually defined as a large group of interconnected computers. These
computers include network servers or personal computers.

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 13