Category: Cloud

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Cloud

SaaS, PaaS, IaaS Are The Fundamental Models of Cloud Services

Cloud Computing: Cloud Services

It has been long since the cloud computing services have provided solutions to many organizations. But all these services are derived from the three most fundamental models of cloud services: SaaS (Software as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service) and IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service). In this article we describe in simple and plain English what these three fundamental models mean and how they differ from each other.

SaaS, PaaS, IaaS Are The Fundamental Models of Cloud Services

Image Courtesy By : Edx

Here is What You Need to Know about Cloud Services:

SaaS (Software as a Service):

Compared to the other fundamental cloud services, SaaS are the fastest growing ones. This tremendous customer demand is due to its capability of offering extended convenience to its users. In this model, the applications hosted by the cloud service providers are delivered to the client-side (users) over the Internet. Also the fact that there is no need to download or install these applications makes them much simpler and a web browser on the client-side is all that’s required.  These applications are generally regarded as on-demand software. The most popular SaaS applications are the e-mail and customer relationship manager (CRM).

Examples: Microsoft Office 365, Gmail, SalesForce

PaaS (Platform as a Service):

This model is not as simple as the SaaS or not as complex as the IaaS. PaaS provides the client a platform (an environment) to develop and deploy new software abstracting their work on servers. Here developers or organizations are free to customize the software as per their requirements. This model provides a quick, cost-effective and simple environment to clients for developing, testing and deploying software. With this model business don’t have to bother about all the hardware and network aspects, thus, allowing them to concentrate more of business development and scalability.

Operating Systems, Web Servers, Programming Language execution environment are some of those included in the platforms offered in cloud platform services.

Examples: Google App Engine, Force.com, Windows Azure.

IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service):

As it goes with the other two fundamental cloud services, the IaaS model also provides access to computer resources over the ‘the Cloud’. But it is of the much higher order than SaaS and PaaS; where-in-which the client has the entire infrastructure in his control. It is the most preferred model amongst the others and also can be used for development and deployment of not just applications but also SaaS and PaaS themselves. In this model, the power of the cloud service provider is restricted to maintaining all the hardware resources (storage, servers, networking etc.).

Most generally speaking, purchasing the IaaS model involves paying for the data consumption and is quite similar to paying your electricity bills or Broadband bills.

Examples: Softlayer, CloudSigma, Google Compute Engine

Conclusion:

The common aspects of all these three fundamental cloud services is that they help organizations develop cost effective and quick applications leaving the hardware and maintenance into the hands of the cloud service providers. The best model among these three depends completely on the organizations.

 

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Cloud

These 5 Points Will Boost Your Knowledge Of Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing

With time computer technologies have always become better and better. One such greater technology services is the cloud computing. Today, you we will take you across a few aspects of cloud computing which we believe will help you to recollect its significance or if in case you are a newbie, this article will help you perceive what actually cloud computing is all about.

Here Are 5 Things You Should Know About Cloud Computing:

1.) Cloud = Internet
Cloud ComputingThe term ‘cloud’ in cloud computing refers to internet. And the basic concept of cloud computing is set forth to be the sharing of computer resources (say data, software, music, videos and so on) through a network connection. Actually this interpretation of cloud as internet is based on the cloud symbol used to represent internet is diagrams. As simple as that!

2.) Front End and Back End:  cloud computing The cloud computing system is divided into two main parts: front end and back end. The front end or the so called ‘client-section’ is where users see and utilize the resources. All the ‘client-section’ requires is appropriate applications to run these resources. At the back end is the hardware that processes and contain all these resources. There are additional duties on the back end to ensure security and privacy of resources of various clients. And the internet acts as a bridge between these two sections.

3.) The Boon:

The one significant aspect cloud computing could solve is the need for humungous hardware which could eat up a lot of money, space and time. Though initially this mostly favored just the Information Technology (IT) Companies in reducing hardware and software investments, but now it is a boon to all variety of consumers and businesses. So what exactly happens is you don’t have to actually house the 15GB of free usage space Gmail offers you on your hard disk but enjoy it with your Gmail Account. Also the fact that it is on the network, all that your computer needs is a suitable application (in this instance a web browser) to make use of what these web services offer you.

4.) All the other advantages:

The other advantages with cloud computing services include the Accessibility, the user gets where nothing much than getting connected to the internet does the job. Automatically Updated Software, keeping organizations away from large recurring costs. Storage Space, much larger than the local computers thereby allowing large scale information storage at low costs. Getting Better, with time due to the various bells and whistles cloud computing is offering, these services will only get better and cost less.

5.) Bottlenecks:

Well as it goes with everything else, these cloud computing services do have some bottlenecks. They include the Security Risk, as the basic ideology starts at entrusting one’s information into the hands of service providers. Reliability Factor, the track record and the promises the cloud computing service providers standby. Software Pre-intended Upgrades, while this could be a real pain for many organizations as an un-timely and un-intended software up gradation could spur a loss of productivity

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Cloud Tech News

IBM Bluemix: The Platform Built For Developers

IBM Bluemix

Bluemix is the open cloud platform of IBM that provides developers complete access to all the software of IBM and associated business partners. Through Bluemix they can integrate, consolidate and perform many key functions on their applications with enhanced security.

 

Through Bluemix, IBM intends to simplify the process of application delivery by offering various services which handle immediate deployment and hosting. This means that now a mobile or web application developer wouldn’t have to worry about the infrastructure to host his application and can concentrate more on the application design. Here is our take on IBM Bluemix starting from its background.

 

Into the Details – IBM Bluemix Platform

IBM Bluemix platform is based on the Platform as a Service (PaaS) model and is built upon the open source technology of Cloud Foundry, an acquisition made by IBM in early 2015. In addition to PaaS, IBM’s Bluemix provides MBaaS (Mobile Backend as a Service) capabilities.

 

At the end the goal of IBM is quite clear and it is to facilitate developers in building game-changing apps for the future. The concept is the same even if you are a small business or a large scale enterprise, at the end of the day perfectly built and maintained apps are always top priority. IBM’s Bluemix helps organisations achieve just that!

 

Each developer is now more powerful given the easy access to services ranging from analytics to Big Data all under one platform, i.e the IBM Bluemix. Here’s a list of several benefits you are imposed on by Bluemix:

  • Easy access to services to build and extends apps.
  • Continuos support to app changes and delivery.
  • Ability to develop apps in many programming languages.
  • Optimised management of backend resources.

These are some of the benefits developers and organisations would have high interests in. Apart from these the other significant benefit Bluemix offers you is the ability to run this tool on any operating system without any performance issues. That’s handy!

 

This article is just a brief introduction to IBM’s cloud based Bluemix platform, you can learn a lot more about Bluemix from the official website of Bluemix – click here.

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Cloud

Big Data: The Beginner’s Guide To Digital Data Storage

big data

Big data is a well-known term in which huge amounts of data is generated by (possibly) everything around us round the clock in the digital format. The term ‘Big Data’ is most often used for predictive analytics or for certain advanced methods to extract important value from the data at hand. The several challenges involved with this term include data curation, search, analysis, storage, information privacy, storage, capture, transfer, sharing and visualization. The accuracy of this entire chunk of data may lead to more confident decision making, which reflects greater operational efficiency, reduced risk and cost reduction.

 

In Big Data, the datasets grow in size because they are gradually being filled with data from numerous wireless sensor networks, information-sensing mobile devices, cameras, software logs, aerials, radio frequency identification (RFID) readers, microphones. There is no surprise even if some 2.5 Exabyte of data were created every day. And the common fact is that nearly 90% of the world’s data has been generated with the last few years itself.

 

In 2012, Gartner updated its definition of this buzzword as follows “Big data is high volume, high velocity, and/or high variety information assets that require new forms of processing to enable enhanced decision making, insight discovery and process optimization.” [Source: Gartner]. Additionally, a new V is been added “veracity by some organization to describe it and hence here’s what it has been shaped into.

 

Volume – The quantity of data that is generated is very important in some circumstances. The name ‘Big Data’ itself involves a term which is related to size and hence the characteristic.

Variety – the next characteristic of big data is its variety. Which refers to the number of types of data.

Velocity – the term ‘velocity’ here refers to speed of production of data or how fast the data is generated and processed to meet the challenges and demands which lie in the path of development and growth.

Veracity – the value of data being captured can differ greatly. Validity of analysis depends on the veracity of the source data.

Complexity – data management can become a very compound process, particularly when the large volumes of data come from diverse sources.

 

If you are still wondering how zetabytes of data is being generated, the best way to understand is by looking right at the sources. These sources are categorized based on their functionality and usage and here’s a compiled list of all the Big Data sources:

  • Black Box: A black box is an essential component of air-borne vehicles. It records voices of the entire flight crew, all the information of the flight including all the performance parameters.
  • Social Media: Data from this source is on the high with the world becoming more connected and sharing is undoubtedly the new order of the day. Platform such as Facebook and Whatsapp have always attracted more people and now hold data millions of people from all remote corners of the world.
  • Stock Exchange: The stock exchange market is a very big contributor as well. All statistics related to buying and selling of shares, the behavior of shares in different companies and customer information are al being piled on.

 

These are the top players in this sphere. Several other domains are also actively involved in building up the world’s digital data.

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Cloud Tech News

This is the IBM Watson – An IBM Supercomputer

IBM Watson Supercomputer

IBM Watson is the supercomputer of the International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation, named after the company’s founder Thomas J. Watson. This supercomputer is built with the ability to answer questions – like in a ‘question answering’ machine. The fact that answering a question is more complicated (especially for computers) than pointing to a set of relevant answers, like a search engine does, was definitely the biggest challenge; IBM only came out more successful and it could defeat the best human brains of the television show – jeopardy!

 

Watch how IBM Watson took the game away from the two highest ranked jeopardy players here.

 

IBM Watson – A Deeper Investigation

Watson is that supercomputer in which, artificial intelligence teams up with much-sophisticated analytical software which helps its answer questions. One significant reason why it’s able to show such abilities is because the IBM Watson uses natural language processing (NLP), machine learning and automated reasoning to answer questions which a general desktop computer doesn’t. Here’s a look at the hardware aspects that make these possible:

 

  • Enterprise Linux Server 11
  • A total of 2880 processor cores.
  • 15 Terabytes of RAM.
  • IBM’s DeepQA software.
  • Size: Covers a space that can accommodate 10 refrigerators. [Source: Whatis.com]

 

In all means this configuration is by far the most advanced available, and hats-off to the entire IBM research team for using all of it to empower the IBM Watson Supercomputer.

 

Watson’s Strengths and Results:

This supercomputer which can think similar to a human being has the following strengths:

 

Watson can understand, analyze and answer even those questions which are posed in the usual human languages (natural languages) not just with speed and accuracy but also with a degree of confidence.

 

Watson doesn’t simply answer questions based on keyboards, instead generates hypothesis based on evidence.

 

Watson is not the end! According to us the best thing about Watson is that it can be taught. It learns with user interactions and keeps itself abreast of what’s going on.

 

Though it initially occupied an entire master sized bedroom, it’s shrinking more and more and is now 90% smaller than that featured in the “Jeopardy!” television show.

 

Since its launch, Watson has helped developed over 6000 apps of great value.

 

Anyways, the biggest achievement of this IBM supercomputer is that it could defeat two of the best “Jeopardy!” Players in 2011, and has always kept improving since then.

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Cloud

Managed Cloud Vs Unmanaged Cloud Computing Models

The Priced Benefits of Cloud Computing for Businesses, Managed Cloud vs Unmanaged Cloud

Since the start of this century, cloud computing has expanded more than any other computer technologies. Cloud computing can be utilized to provide access to banking, health care, education etc. Apart from all such fields, one sector that is constantly reaping benefits of this cutting edge technology is the IT sector. Since its implementation there have always been changes enabling smarter and better business infrastructure delivery models. Did you ever think of the answer for managed cloud vs unmanaged cloud? In this article we help you understand the underlying differences between these two models.

Also Read: Difference between different types of cloud based on services offered 

Every organization, while adopting the cloud comes to this point where they’ll have to choose between a managed cloud vs unmanaged cloud infrastructure delivery model (IaaS). The choices will certainly have to depend upon a lot of criteria (say, the work load the business in planning to move to the cloud).

10 Things You Should Know About Cloud Computing Before Implementing: Managed Cloud vs Unmanaged Cloud

 

Managed Cloud vs Unmanaged Cloud

  • Managed Cloud:

A company can choose to manage the cloud all by itself. For this, it hires experts who could handle all the complex issues related to the infrastructure, tools and applications. The other way around it can also manage across multiple cloud service providers. The other option is it can entrust all this cloud storage into the hands of a single storage provider. The third case where-in-which the entire cloud structure is handled by one trusted service provider is the managed cloud.

The benefit is that, businesses can tap the entire power of the cloud computing technology without actually becoming experts in that field. This indirectly benefits businesses to concentrate harder on their core products and applications. They can simply stay fast and protected without having to spend a lot of money and time in hiring experts who can manage the cloud.

In the managed cloud model, the cloud provider takes care of customers computing, operating systems, storage, networks and also several complex tools and tasks in proper maintenance of the cloud infrastructure.

Also Read: Choosing the most suitable cloud computing model – simplified

  • Unmanaged Cloud:

In the unmanaged delivery model, there aren’t so many privileges as with a managed cloud model. In this case, customers rent infrastructure resources from bigger cloud storage providers (say Amazon, Google etc.) The believed benefit with such a model is that customers can pay much lesser for the infrastructure than what they will have to for a managed cloud. Usually in this cloud model there are several hidden costs which almost go unnoticed. Because maintaining a cloud atleast demands engineers with good understanding of the cloud.

Business and several organizations could be self-sufficient enough and order only the most required  computer, network and storage they require. Hence many organizations choose this cloud model for development and testing several applications. In our opinion the better model for your needs can be best selected if you are clear with what you want.

Which cloud storage model do you prefer to be the best? Write us your answers and suggestions in the comments box below.

Also Read: Priced Benefits of cloud for businesses

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Cloud

The Priced Benefits of Cloud Computing for Businesses

The Priced Benefits of Cloud Computing for Businesses, Managed Cloud vs Unmanaged Cloud

Gartner, a consulting and research information technology, defines cloud computing as Internet-based “scalable and elastic service” provided to multiple external customers. The data and applications no longer reside exclusively on desktops, now in the cloud, which is a shared network application servers and databases hosted scalable data in multiple locations around the world. Software as a service and remote file management are some of the applications of cloud computing.

The Priced Benefits of Cloud Computing for Businesses

Benefits of Cloud Computing :

Cost :

Cloud computing offers flexibility in costs. Businesses can avoid significant upfront costs of purchasing and installing software applications and hardware systems. This is particularly useful for small businesses operating on a tight budget. These can rent software applications and store space as needed. This avoids the risk of installing expensive systems, only to discover that they are insufficient for the needs of the company. The cloud computing becomes fixed costs into variable costs. Businesses use and pay for only what they need, reducing fixed overheads.

 

Flexibility :

Business operations are more flexible to use cloud computing. Companies can hire operations routine information technologies, such as data storage and backup, and focus on core operations such as design and development. For example, a software design company can use storage devices based on the cloud for backup operations information data and focus only on the design component of value added business. Cloud computing enables easier collaboration group. A software company can engage independent software engineers worldwide, which may use shared documents and virtual meetings to collaborate on projects.

 

Performance :

Internet connections allow high speed fast data transfer and real-time communication. Administrators can use mobile technology to keep in touch with headquarters and field offices. Cloud computing perite employees log on from their homes and interact in real time with colleagues working at remote sites several time zones away. Cloud computing offers unlimited storage capacity and releases the storage and processing on the desktop. The lightning strike or a system failure can destroy data on a personal computer, but not the data stored on network servers through redundancy created in Internet. Businesses may also be able to reduce their electricity costs, since cloud computing enables the sharing of resources.

 

Considerations :

Cloud computing represents some challenges. Relying on the cloud for storage and other critical IT needs can cause companies vulnerable in case of a network outage. For example, the outage of email can leave thousands of customers without a major communication tool. Privacy is something troubling, because the criminal elements can access personal data. Companies may also be reluctant to use cloud computing due to security issues such as hacking (hacking), information theft and unauthorized access to private data.

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Cloud

A Personal Private Cloud In Your Home Isn’t A Bad Idea

personal private cloud

There has been a tremendous growth in cloud service providers all around the world. With personal and partly free cloud services like the Dropbox , Google Drive, iCloud and others offering excellent services, why is there any need at all for having a personal private cloud within our homes?

 

At least the answer is not because managing or maintaining a personal cloud is easy or something and believe me, it isn’t. But there surely are several other factors that give you the edge over conventional data storage cloud solutions, of which a few will be discussed clearly later on in this post.

 

Before actually getting down to the benefits of a personal private cloud, let me make it clear that there’s no need to panic and migrate your data present in the existing solutions to a personal cloud. But this personal private cloud model can be extensively used as a cost effective and more secure means of storing all your sensitive information.

 

Actually, the main bottleneck with all these standard cloud solutions is, they provide you no more tools than those with which you can sync data among various devices. There’s no one to blame here for that because that’s what they want to offer you; just that storage space. But then there’s the problem with manipulating data that has been transferred to the cloud.

 

The main difference of a personal private cloud from these conventional cloud solutions is the fact that though they use common computing resources, in case of a private cloud you can set it up all by yourself at the comfort of your home. You can learn how to set up your own private cloud by simply using a NAS attached to your internet router in the coming posts.

 

Here’s why setting up your personal private cloud isn’t bad:

1. Larger Storage:

The amount of storage you get for free from any online storage service is limited. Once you cross this particular limit, you will have to pay for your usage and this payment tariff varies between various service providers. If you are clear about how much data you’ll require and if any case it’s over a few gigabytes, the best way to proceed is to set up your personal cloud storage solution (provides storage space in terabytes).

 

2. Faster uploads

One very common issue we face in utilizing the cloud services is the upload time. Be it pictures, your family’s personal videos or blockbuster movies, the first step you have to pass through is the uploading part, and it’s quite long than convenient. But if in case you have your own cloud, the transfer speeds will be much better and almost the local area network (LAN) and wireless speeds that your local network can handle.

 

3. Cheaper costs

This aspect is a little debatable, the fact is, though setting up your personal private cloud initially costs much, with time you don’t have to put any money on it. Instead if you go for a cloud solution, you’ll have to pay in smaller sums but a little more than actually setting up your personal cloud.

 

4. Sync Data for On-the-go access. 

The ability to sync data among various devices has become very common. Similar to several other tools, you’ll have a data storage centre in your home, which you can access on the go with any of the devices (say, laptops, tablets, smartphones etc) connected to the cloud.

 

Now, you have gone through several reasons which encourage you to set up your own cloud storage. What do you think of these points? Have anything else to share? Feel free and write to us in the comments box below. Also, don’t forget to like us on social media.