The Cloud

The Cloud

1. Platform as a service

   • Infrastructure as a service
     • Software as a service
       • Access to software at ‘low cost’ without the additional complexity of installation, maintenance etc at higher cost.
       • SaaS is a distribution model whereby software applications are hosted by a provider and made available to customers via the Internet
     • An IaaS provider makes all of the computing hardware resources available, and the customers, in turn, are responsible for installing and managing the systems, which they can normally do, for the most part, over the Internet
   • Provide a collection of hardware and software resources that developers can use to build and deploy applications within the cloud
   • PaaS offers services to develop, test, deploy, host and manage applications to support the application development life cycle

2. Pros

   • Can be used across multiple devices
     • Scalability
       • pay as you go - Utility style
         • centralization of resources
           • reduced cost
             • no maintenance costs
             • no hardware outlay

3. Data Storage

   • advantages
     • Pay per use - Customers only pay for the storage they need
       • Access - Can be accesses from anywhere, anytime, on multiple devices
         • Scalability - Storage requirements can be increased / decreased according to needs at the time
           • Reliability - Excellent rates of up-time and backups automated by provider
   • disadvantages
     • Slower speeds -Due to Internet speeds file transfer/access is slower than local device access speeds
       • Resistance - Security concerns about data in cloud preventing some companies from making the switch
         • Data redundancy - May be a tendency to leave data in the cloud rather than deleting old data.
   • Stores data in cloud servers which impliment raid
     • automatically backups all data
       • Encryption of data to keep content private
         • Cloud File System (CFS) enables users a way to directly manipulate files in the cloud across multiple operating system platforms

4. Security

   • advantages
     • Immediate deployment of software patches
       • employee checks
         • In event of hardware failure backup hardware can take over
           • Dedicated specialists looking for threats and attacks
             • Financial strength to employ specialists
   • disadvantages
     • You have no control over ‘cloud’ employees
       • If cloud-resources are in different countries and may have different laws relating to data protection
         • Risk of Cloud provider going out of business
           • Vendor lock-in A company may find it difficult to move to another cloud provider because of service level agreement lock-in
   • types of threat
     • viruses
       • power failures
         • hardware failures
           • dos attacks/SQL-injection attack
             • natural disasters