Cloud Computing

Cloud computing provides a means of delivering computing services that makes the underlying
technology, beyond the user device, almost invisible. It allows applications and services to be
uncoupled from the underlying infrastructure thereby enabling businesses to adjust quickly to
change making them more dynamic in nature.

Cloud computing is a paradigm of computing in which dynamically scalable and often

virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet. Users need not have knowledge
of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure in the "cloud" that supports them.

The concept generally incorporates combinations of the following:

• Infrastructure as a service (IaaS).

• Platform as a service (PaaS).
• Software as a service (SaaS).

In a cloud computing environment, applications and services are not tethered to specific
hardware components. Instead, processing is handled across a distributed, globally accessible
network of resources, which are dispensed on demand, as a service. The availability of a highly
dynamic infrastructure enables corporate data centers to operate with improved flexibility and
scalability, ready to respond quickly to changing business requirements. Such flexibility is
essential in the fast-paced, constantly changing, globalized world—and even more so in an
economic downturn, where rigid and fragmented infrastructures can severely limit a company’s
responsiveness.

Cloud computing customers do not own the hardware or software infrastructure. Instead, they
rent usage from a third-party provider. This helps to avoid huge capital expenditure when setting
up their IT infrastructure. They use these IT resources as a service and pay only for those IT
resources that they use. Many cloud-computing offerings employ the utility computing model,
which is analogous to how traditional utility services (such as electricity) are used, while others
bill on a subscription basis. The structure of Cloud computing and the various services offered by
them can be seen below.
Sharing "perishable and intangible" computing power among multiple users improves utilization
rates, as servers are not unnecessarily left idle which can reduce costs significantly. The
availability of high-speed bandwidth makes it possible to receive the same response times from
cloud computing as compared to centralized IT infrastructure.

So, how has the “Cloud” been faring in India? This has been aptly and bluntly answered by
Kishore Madhyam, CEO of ImpelCRM who in his address to The Indian IT trade association's
conclave, held in New Delhi, said that "The Indian market for cloud computing is huge”. He
pointed out the fact the biggest beneficiaries of cloud computing in India are the SMEs with
more than 8 million SMEs in India with around 35 million employees and 10 million potential
users of cloud computing. Taking the case of ImpelCRM alone, the company now has a base of
6,000 users, of which 1,100 are paid users which is continuing to increase. In addition, the spend
on cloud-computing services is expected to grow almost threefold, reaching US$42 billion by 2012 and
will account for 25 percent of IT spending growth in 2012.

India has also played a part in growth of cloud computing. In fact, the first academic use of the
term in this context appears to be by Prof. Ramnath K. Chellappa who originally defined it as a
“computing paradigm where the boundaries of computing will be determined by economic rationale
rather than technical limits”.
A good example of the penetration of cloud computing is SDMIMD itself. We have recently
migrated our email service from our own server to Google servers i.e. we have subscribed to
Google’s e-mail service and they in turn provide e-mail services for all SDMIMD users. This
itself is indicative of how cloud computing has become a viable option for many SMEs and other
institutions.

The cloud computing services offered can be by a subscription service i.e. Public or it can be set-
up by the organization itself i.e. Private. An insight into the two different models can be seen
below.

So, how can Cloud computing be beneficial to organizations?

• Business Innovation — Cloud computing fosters business innovation by enabling

organizations to quickly and cost-effectively explore the potential of new, IT-enabled
business enhancements.

• Service delivery — Cloud computing enables the dynamic availability of IT applications

and infrastructure. More rapid service delivery results from the ability to orchestrate the
tasks to create, configure, provision and add computing power in support of IT and
business services much more quickly than would be possible with today’s computing
infrastructure.

• IT optimization — Cloud computing supports massive scalability. Services can be

quickly expanded or contracted without requiring major overhauls to the core data center.
 The benefits include lower cost of ownership, which drives higher profitability. Clouds
can provide rapid access to computing capacity at a lower cost of ownership and thus
helps to answer the core question of all businesses i.e. “How do I do more with fewer
resources?”

• Sustainability Cloud computing improves sustainability of businesses through improved

resource utilization, more efficient systems, and carbon neutrality.

• Multi-tenancy enables sharing of resources and costs across a large pool of users thus
allowing for
o Centralization of infrastructure in locations with lower costs
o Peak-load capacity increases allowing users not to engineer for highest possible
load-levels
o Utilization and efficiency improvements for systems

• A highly standardized environment that facilitates simultaneous service deployment and

upgrades for all users, no matter where they reside.

• Self-managing, autonomic systems that enable capacity, provisioning and other IT

service management decisions to be made dynamically, without human intervention or
increased administrative costs.

• Cloud computing provides a cohesive platform for more rapid, full scale adoption of
virtualization and other business enabling initiatives such as service oriented architecture
(SOA) and Web2.0. This is made possible by providing the scalability, automation,
service management and geographic mobility to make them more robust.

While cloud computing sounds too good to be true, it also raises a few concerns, namely

1. Security - Organizations today protect their data as if its pure gold. Loss of such data
can severely compromise the competitive advantage of companies. So, by utilizing cloud
computing, the company will be storing their sensitive data outside their servers with an
external provider. Many companies distrust cloud computing because of this very reason.
2. Not Platform Independent - Most clouds force participants to rely on a single platform
or host only one type of product. For example, Google Apps Engine locks users into
proprietary formats. If you need to support multiple platforms, as most enterprises do,
then you’re looking at multiple clouds. That can be a nightmare to manage.
3. Speed - Putting data in the cloud means accepting the latency inherent in transmitting
data across the country and the wait as corporate users ping the cloud and wait for a
response. While methods like off-line syncing are there to solve this problem, it continues
to be a road block for wider adoption of cloud computing.
 4. Reliability – There have been instances where the services offered by providers have
experienced outages. On May 14, an outage at Google left many customers unable to use
its online applications. Reliability, though has improved, has still to be made 100%.

For the $3.4 trillion global tech industry, the shift to cloud computing offers a path out of the
economic doldrums. In fact, it may be the largest growth opportunity since the Internet boom.
While market researcher Gartner expects the global tech market to shrink by 3.8% this year,
forecasters have high hopes for portables, wireless networks, and cloud computing over the next
few years. In fact, Gartner predicts the market for cloud products and services will vault from
$46.4 billion last year to $150.1 billion by 2013.

Chipmakers such as Qualcomm and Intel are creating products for portables that pack more
capability on a single slice of silicon while reducing power consumption, making it easier to
access information in the cloud from anywhere. Hardware makers Hewlett-Packard and IBM,
among others, are packing cloud technologies into their server computers. Software giants such
as Microsoft and SAP are developing cloud services. All this points to the potential that cloud
computing has in the future.

It won't be easy for companies to make good on the opportunities. There is still a great deal of
work to be done to get all these technologies functioning seamlessly and reliably. Tech
companies have shifted a lot of the software applications that businesses typically handle for
themselves over to the cloud, but many more have yet to be switched over. Cloud computing will
be big, both in and outside of the enterprise, but being aware of the challenges will help
technology providers think of ways around the problems, and let cloud providers know what
they’re up against.