Cloud Computing Applications

Cloud Computing has its applications in almost all the fields such as business, entertainment, data storage, social networking, management, entertainment, education, art and global positioning system, etc. Some of the widely famous cloud computing applications are discussed here in this tutorial: 

 

Business Applications

Cloud computing has made businesses more collaborative and easy by incorporating various apps such as MailChimp, Chatter, Google Apps for business, and Quickbooks.


Application Description 

1 MailChimp 
It offers an e-mail publishing platform. It is widely employed by the businesses to design and send their e-mail campaigns. 

2 Chatter
 Chatter app helps the employee to share important information about organization in real time. One can get the instant feed regarding any issue. 

3 Google 
Apps for Business Google offers creating text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, etc., on Google Docswhich allows the business users to share them in collaborating manner. 

4 Quickbooks 
It offers online accounting solutions for a business. It helps in monitoring cash flow, creating VAT returns and creating business reports.

Data Storage and Backup

Box.com, Mozy, Joukuu are the applications offering data storage and backup services in cloud. 

Application Description 

1 Box.com 
Box.com offers drag and drop service for files. It just required to drop the files into Box and access from anywhere. 

2 Mozy 
Mozy offers online backup service for files during a data loss. 

3 Joukuu
Joukuu is a web-based interface. It allows to display a single list of contents for files stored inGoogle Docs, Box.net and Dropbox. 

Management Applications

There are apps available for management task such as time tracking, organizing notes. Applications performing such tasks are discussed below: 

Application Description 

1 Toggl 
It helps in tracking time period assigned to a particular project. 

2 Evernote 
Evernote is an application that organizes the sticky notes and even can read the text from images which helps the user to locate the notes easily.

3 Outright 
It is an accounting app. It helps to track income, expenses, profits and losses in real time. 

Social Applications

There are several social networking services providing websites such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. 

Application Description 

1 Facebook 
Facebook offers social networking service. One can share photos, videos, files, status and much more. 

2 Twitter 
Twitter helps to interact directly with the public. One can follow any celebrity, organization and any person, who is on twitter and can have latest updates regarding the same. 

Entertainment Applications

Application Description 

1 Audiobox.fm 
It offers streaming service, i.e., music can be stored online and can be played from cloud using service's own media player. 

Art Applications

Application Description 

1 Moo 
It offers art services such as designing and printing business cards, postcards and minicards.

Cloud Computing Operations

Cloud Computing operation refers to delivering superior cloud service. Today, cloud computing operations have become very popular and widely employed by many of the organizations just because it allows to perform all business operations over the Internet. 

These operations can be performed using a web application or mobile based applications. There are a number of operations that are performed in cloud, some of them are shown in the following diagram:

Managing Cloud Operations 

There are several ways to manage day-to-day cloud operations, as shown in the following diagram:

• Always employ right tools and resources to perform any function in the cloud.

• Things should be done at right time and at right cost.

• Selecting an appropriate resource is mandatory for operation management.

• The process should be standardized and automated to avoid repetitive tasks.

• Using efficient process will eliminate the waste and redundancy.

• One should maintain the quality of service to avoid re-work later.

Cloud Computing Providers

Various Cloud Computing platforms are available today. Follow mention the popular Cloud Computing platforms:

Platform's Description 

1 Salesforce.com 
This is a Force.com development platform. This provide a simple user interface and lets users log in, build an app and push it in the cloud.

2 Appistry 
The Appistry'sCloudQ platform is efficient in delivering a runtime application platform. This platform is very useful to create scalable and service oriented applications.

3 AppScale 
The AppScale is an open source platform for Google App Engine applications.

4 AT&T 
The AT&T allows access to virtual servers and manages the virtualization infrastructure. This virtualization infrastructure includes network, server and storage.

5 Engine Yard 
The Engine Yard is a Rails Application cloud computing platform.

6 Enomaly
Enomaly provides the Infrastructure-as-a-Service platform.

7 FlexiScale 
The FlexiScale offers a cloud computing platform that allows flexible, scalable and automated cloud infrastructure.

8 GCloud3 
The GCloud3 offers private cloud solution in its gPlatform.

9 Gizmox 
The Gizmox Visual WebGUI platform is best suited for developing new web apps and modernize the legacy apps based on ASP.net, DHTML, etc.

10 GoGrid 
The GoGrid platform allows the users to deploy web and database cloud services.

11 Google 
The Google's App Engine lets the users build, run and maintain their applications on Google's infrastructure.

12 LongJump
The LongJump offers a Business Application Platform, a platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).

13 Microsoft 
The Microsoft's Windows Azure is a cloud computing platform offering an environment to create cloud apps and services.

14 OrangeScape 
OrangeScape offers a Platform-as-a-Service (Paas) for non-programmers. Building an app is as easy as spreadsheet.

15 RackSpace 
The RackSpace provide servers-on-demand via a cloud-driven platform of virtualized servers.

16 Amazon EC2 The Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) lets the users configure and control computing resources while running them on Amazon's environment.

Cloud Computing Security

Security in cloud computing is a major concern. Data in cloud should be stored in encrypted form. To restrict client from direct accessing the shared data, proxy and brokerage services should be employed. 

Security Planning 

Before deploying a particular resource to cloud, one should need to analyze several attributes about the resource such as: 

• Select which resources he is going to move to cloud and analyze its sensitivity to risk.

• Consider cloud service models such as IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS. These models require consumer to be responsible for security at different levels of service.

• Consider which cloud type such as public, private, community or hybrid.

• Understand the cloud service provider's system that how data is transferred, where it is stored and how to move data into and out of cloud.

Mainly the risk in cloud deployment depends upon the service models and cloud types.

Understanding Security of Cloud 

SECURITY BOUNDARIES 

A particular service model defines the boundary between the responsibilities of service provider and consumer. Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) stack model defines the boundaries between each service model and shows how different functional units relate to each other. The following diagram shows theCSA stack model:

KEY POINTS TO CSA MODEL: 

•  IaaS is the most basic level of service with PaaS and SaaS next two above levels of service.

• Moving upwards each of the service inherits capabilities and security concerns of the model beneath.

• IaaS provides the infrastructure, PaaS provides platform development environment and SaaS provides operating environment.

• IaaS has the least level of integrated functionalities and integrated security while SaaS has the most.

• This model describes the security boundaries at which cloud service provider's responsibility ends and the consumer's responsibilities begin.

• Any security mechanism below the security boundary must be built into the system and above should me maintained by the consumer.

Although each service model has security mechanism but security needs also depends upon where these services are located, in private, public, hybrid or community cloud. 

UNDERSTANDING DATA SECURITY 

Since all the data is transferred using Internet, data security is of major concern in cloud. Here are key mechanisms for protecting data mechanisms listed below:

• Access Control

• Auditing

• Authentication

• Authorization

All of the service models should incorporate security mechanism operating in all above-mentioned areas. 

ISOLATED ACCESS TO DATA 

Since data stored in cloud can be accessed from anywhere, therefore to protect the data, we must have a mechanism to isolate data from direct client access. 

Brokered Cloud Storage Access is one of the approaches for isolating storage in cloud. In this approach, two services are created: 

• A broker with full access to storage but no access to client.

• A proxy with no access to storage but access to both client and broker.

WORKING OF BROKERED CLOUD STORAGE ACCESS SYSTEM

When the client issue request to access data: 

• The client data request goes to proxy's external service interface.

• The proxy forwards the request to the broker.

• The broker requests the data from cloud storage system.

• The cloud storage system returns the data to the broker.

• The broker returns the data to proxy.

• Finally the proxy sends the data to the client

• Encryption

Encryption helps to protect data from being compromised. It protects data that is being transferred as well as data stored in the cloud. Although encryption helps to protect data from any unauthorized access, it does not prevent from data loss.

Virtualization in Cloud Computing

Virtualization

Virtualization is a technique, which allows to share single physical instance of an application or resource among multiple organizations or tenants (customers). It does so by assigning a logical nameto a physical resource and providing a pointer to that physical resource when demanded. 

Virtualization Concept 

Creating a virtual machine over existing operating system and hardware is referred as Hardware Virtualization. Virtual Machines provide an environment that is logically separated from the underlying hardware. 

The machine on which the virtual machine is created is known as host machine and virtual machineis referred as a guest machine. This virtual machine is managed by a software or firmware, which is known as hypervisor. 

HYPERVISOR

Hypervisor is a firmware or low-level program that acts as a Virtual Machine Manager. There are two types of hypervisor: 

Type 1 hypervisor runs on bare system. LynxSecure, RTS Hypervisor, Oracle VM, Sun xVM Server, VirtualLogic VLX are examples of Type 1 hypervisor. The following diagram shows the Type 1 hypervisor.

 The type1 hypervisor does not have any host operating system because they are installed on a bare system. Type 2 hypervisor is a software interface that emulates the devices with which a system normally interacts. Containers, KVM, Microsoft Hyper V, VMWare Fusion, Virtual Server 2005 R2, Windows Virtual PC and VMWare workstation 6.0 are examples of Type 2 hypervisor. The following diagram shows the Type 2 hypervisor.

Types of Hardware Virtualization 

Here are the three types of hardware virtualization: 

1. Full Virtualization 

2. Emulation Virtualization 

3. Paravirtualization 

FULL VIRTUALIZATION

In Full Virtualization, the underlying hardware is completely simulated. Guest software does not require any modification to run.

EMULATION VIRTUALIZATION 

In Emulation, the virtual machine simulates the hardware and hence become independent of the it. In this, the guest operating system does not require modification.

PARAVIRTUALIZATION 

In Paravirtualization, the hardware is not simulated. The guest software run their own isolated domains.

VMware vSphere is highly developed infrastructure that offers a management infrastructure framework for virtualization. It virtualizes the system, storage and networking hardware.

Creating Cloud Storage System

The cloud storage system stores multiple copies of data on multiple servers and in multiple locations. If one system fails, then it only requires to change the pointer to stored object's location. 

To aggregate storage assets into cloud storage systems, the cloud provider can use storage virtualization software, StorageGRID. It creates a virtualization layer that fetches storage from different storage devices into a single management system. It can also manage data from CIFS and NFS file system over the Internet. The following diagram shows how SystemGRID virtualizes the storage into storage clouds:

Virtual Storage Containers 

Virtual storage containers offer high performance cloud storage systems. Logical Unit Number (LNU) of device, files and other objects are created in virtual storage containers. Following diagram shows a virtual storage container, defining a cloud storage domain:

Challenges 

Storing the data in cloud is not that simple task. Apart from its flexibility and convenience, it also has several challenges faced by the consumers. The consumers require ability to: 

• Provision additional storage on demand.

• Know and restrict the physical location of the stored data.

• Verify how data was erased?

• Have access to a documented process for surely disposing of data storage hardware.

• Administrator access control over data.

Cloud Computing Data Storage

Cloud Storage is a service that allows to save data on offsite storage system managed by third-party and is made accessible by a web services API. 

Storage Devices 

Storage devices can be broadly classified into two categories: 

• Block Storage Devices

• File Storage Devices

BLOCK STORAGE DEVICES 

Block Storage Devices offer raw storage to the clients. This raw storage can be partitioned to create volumes. 

FILE STORAGE DEVICES 

File Storage Devices offers storage to clients in form of files, maintaining its own file system. This storage is in the form of Network Attached Storage (NAS). 

Cloud Storage Classes 

Cloud Storage can be broadly classified into two categories: 

• Unmanaged Cloud Storage

• Managed Cloud Storage 

UNMANAGED CLOUD STORAGE

Unmanaged Cloud Storage means that the storage is preconfigured for the consumer. The consumer cannot format nor the consumer can install own file system or change drive properties.

MANAGED CLOUD STORAGE 

Managed Cloud Storage offers online storage space on demand. Managed cloud storage system presents what appears to the user to be a raw disk that the user can partition and format.

The Cloud Computing Advantages of Efficient Server Utilization

Before Cloud Computing:

Here we will discuss the cloud computing advantages of efficient server utilization. Prior to the availability of virtualization and cloud computing .When a business required computer applications, such as email, to increase their efficiency, they would need to acquire a Serverwhich would be dedicated to only one specific application and each server cost between $3000 to $20000.

On that server, they would need to install operating system software. And then on the top of the operating system they would need to install software for this specific application.

Why Servers are not beneficial as Cloud Computing:

Servers are dependent on many active components. These components include a CPU, hard drive, power supply, RAM and operating system software. Servers also require IT staff to program them. For servers to operate properly all components are dependent on each other, if any component is not working, all server go down. Now with virtualization and cloud computing, each server can operate at near full capacity by facilitating multiple applications. This drastically reduces the number of costly and partially used servers and eliminates the need for Sever Sprawl. If the public cloud is utilized, businesses can eliminate the need for and all of the expense associated with on-premise servers.

How to Minimize Security and Privacy Issue:

With Cloud Computing, companies are now able to obtain flexible access to virtually any application without the need to invest in building and maintain a costly IT infrastructure.

People tend to believe that the cloud is scary, these are the things they are scared aboutprivacy and security. Yes, their concerns are valid but also look at what you have today and compare it, and do the same analysis on servers. You really have to talk with the cloud vendor and understand what their security is, and how well they are protecting it. Most of the vendors should have this information posted on their websites, or it should be in the contract. Also if the claim that they are certified, then they needs to have been audited by someone, so you can check out who did they audit.

Hybrid Cloud’s Security Issues and Benefits

cloud security

Hybrid Cloud’s Security Issues and Benefits:

Sometimes a situation arises where you are insecure about something but you still have to do it because the benefits are far higher than security issues. Before we go into details of security issues, you might incur we should first understand Hybrid Cloud technology.

It is an innovative idea that is the guarantee to save your data on a third-party server so you can back it up anytime you want. Think of a mini internet network that only contains the information related to you.

hybrid cloud

Does Hybrid Cloud System Really Works?

Several years ago before it was even invented, the idea was still there, it tickled many, but security issues arise with this system stopped any further work to be carried out on it.

The idea was to create a giant storage space to help the organizations and individuals to store their data using 3^rd party storage spaces. You can understand why this idea was delayed but with the new services came into being as if ‘Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, or Joyent Compute’ people are starting to put their trust into these companies.

Private Cloud Public Cloud Hybrid Cloud

Cloud Computing/Hybrid Computing via cloud is the combination of public cloud providers (names as mentioned above) with a private cloud policy. Private Cloud means the cloud designed to use by one individual or organization at large. The public and private cloud both work on a same goal but through different means but what is common between them is as follows.

• Communication over an encrypted connection
• High-tech technology that allows for the portability of your data
• Reliable third party Hosts

Is It Possible To Minimize The Security Risks?

Cloud Security Risks

 Any common man will say after reading about hybrid clouds that it seems like a good idea and why he care somebody tapped in his files? A company is a person but a big person, sometimes a giant person, so they think thousands time before taking a serious step like that. The main concern is that, many organizations believe that if third party which is proving storage can also access their important data and we hear news every day hackers hacking this site or that site. In an environment like that it is a tough decision to make but the benefits are great.

You can store unlimited amount of data, so it stay secure even your whole business fall into pieces, also it helps you access the information by using server. It makes the job easy and provides problem check and balance.