Cloud Computing: Characteristics
Cloud Computing: Characteristics
A cloud refers to a distinct IT environment that is designed for the purpose of remotely provisioning scalable and measured IT resources. The term originated as a metaphor for the Internet which is, in essence, a network of networks providing remote access to a set of decentralized IT resources. Prior to cloud computing becoming its own formalized IT industry segment, the symbol of a cloud was commonly used to represent the Internet in a variety of specifications and mainstream documentation of Web-based architectures. Let's discuss some characteristics of Cloud Computing that sets it one huge step ahead in this modern age of telecommunications and information systems.
“Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.”
The following is a list of characteristics of a cloud-computing environment. Not all characteristics may be present in a specific cloud solution. However, some of the key characteristics are given as follows:
Elasticity and Scalability
Cloud computing gives us the ability to expand and reduce resources according to the specific service requirement. For example, we may need a large number of server resources for the duration of a specific task. We can then release these server resources after we complete our task.
Pay-per-Use
We pay for cloud services only when we use them, either for the short term (for example, for CPU time) or for a longer duration (for example, for cloud-based storage or vault services).
On-demand
Because we invoke cloud services only when we need them, they are not permanent parts of the IT infrastructure. This is a significant advantage for cloud use as opposed to internal IT services. With cloud services there is no need to have dedicated resources waiting to be used, as is the case with internal services.
Resiliency
The resiliency of a cloud service offering can completely isolate the failure of server and storage resources from cloud users. Work is migrated to a different physical resource in the cloud with or without user awareness and intervention.
Multi Tenancy
Public cloud service providers often can host the cloud services for multiple users within the same infrastructure. Server and storage isolation may be physical or virtual depending upon the specific user requirements.
Workload Movement
This characteristic is related to resiliency and cost considerations. Here, cloud-computing providers can migrate workloads across servers both inside the data center and across data centers (even in a different geographic area).
This migration might be necessitated by cost (less expensive to run a workload in a data center in another country based on time of day or power requirements) or efficiency considerations (for example, network bandwidth). A third reason could be regulatory considerations for certain types of workloads.
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