Cloud Computing White Paper Essays

Cloud Computing White Paper Essays Cloud Computing White Paper Essay Cloud Computing White Paper Essay Cloud computing is a â€Å"newsworthy† term in the IT industry in recent times and it is here to stay! Cloud computing is not a technology, or even a set of technologies – it’s an idea. Cloud computing is not a standard defined by any standards organization. Basic understanding for Cloud: â€Å"Cloud† represents the Internet; Instead of using applications installed on your computer or saving data to your hard drive, you’re working and storing stuff on the Web.Data is kept on servers and used by the service you’re using; tasks are performed in your browser using an interface/ console provided by the service. A credit card and internet access is all you need to make an investment in technology. Business will find it easier than ever to provision technology services without the involvement of IT. There are many definitions available in the market for Cloud Computing but we have aligned it with NIST publication and with our understanding.NIST def ines cloud computing by describing five essential characteristics, three cloud service models, and fur cloud deployment models. Cloud Computing is a self service which is on demand, Elastic, Measured, Multi-tenant, Pay per use, Cost-effective and efficient. It is the access of data, software applications, and ad computer processing power through a cloud or a group of many on line/demand resources. Tasks are assigned to a combination of connections, software and services accessed over a network. This network of servers and connections is collectively known as â€Å"the cloud. Cloud service delivery is divided among three fundamental classifications referred as the â€Å"SPI Model. † Cloud computing  is the delivery of computing and storage capacity  Ã‚  as a service  to a community of end-recipients. The name comes from the use of a cloud-shaped symbol  as an abstraction for the complex infrastructure it contains in system diagrams. Cloud computing entrusts services w ith a users data, software and computation over a network. There are three types of cloud computing: * Infrastructure as a Service  (IaaS), * Platform as a Service  (PaaS), and Software asd a Service  (SaaS). The business model,  IT as a service  (ITaaS), is used by in-house, enterprise IT organizations that offer any or all of the above services. Using software as a service, users also rent application software and databases. The  cloud providers  manage the infrastructure and platforms on which the applications run. End users access cloud-based  applications  through a  web browser  or a light-weight desktop or  mobile app  while the business software  and users data are stored on servers at a remote location.Proponents claim that cloud computing allows enterprises to get their applications up and running faster, with improved manageability and less maintenance, and enables IT to more rapidly adjust resources to meet fluctuating and unpredictable busine ss demand. Cloud computing relies on sharing of resources to achieve coherence and  economies of scale  similar to a  utility  (like the  electricity grid) over a network. At the foundation of cloud computing is the broader concept of  converged infrastructure and  shared services.The origin of the term  cloud computing  is obscure, but it appears to derive from the practice of using drawings of stylized clouds to denote networks in diagrams of computing and communications systems. The word  cloud  is used as a metaphor for the Internet, based on the standardized use of a cloud-like shape to denote a network on telephony schematics and later to depict the Internet in  computer network diagrams  as an abstraction of the underlying infrastructure it represents. The cloud symbol was used to represent the Internet as early as 1994.In the 1990s,  telecommunications companies  who previously offered primarily dedicated point-to-point data circuits, began offe ring  virtual private network  (VPN) services with comparable quality of service but at a much lower cost. By switching traffic to balance utilization as they saw fit, they were able to utilize their overall network bandwidth more effectively. The cloud symbol was used to denote the demarcation point between that which was the responsibility of the provider and that which was the responsibility of the users. Cloud computing extends this boundary to cover servers as well as the network infrastructure.The underlying concept of cloud computing  dates  back to the 1950s; when large-scale  mainframe  became available in  academia  and corporations, accessible via  thin clients  /  terminal  computers. Because it was costly to buy a mainframe, it became important to find ways to get the greatest return on the investment in them, allowing multiple users to share both the physical access to the computer from multiple terminals as well as to share the  CPU  time, eliminating periods of inactivity, which became known in the industry as  time-sharing.As computers became more prevalent, scientists and technologists explored ways to make large-scale computing power available to more users through time sharing, experimenting with algorithms to provide the optimal use of the infrastructure, platform and applications with prioritized access to the CPU and efficiency for the end users. John McCarthy  opined in the 1960s that computation may someday be organized as a  public utility. Almost all the modern-day characteristics of cloud computing (elastic provision, provided as a utility, online, illusion of infinite supply), the comparison to the electricity industry and the use of public, private, government, and community forms, were thoroughly explored in  Douglas Parkhill’s 1966 book,  The Challenge of the Computer Utility. Other scholars have shown that cloud computings roots go all the way back to the 1950s when scientist  Herb Grosch  (the author of Groschs law) postulated that the entire world would operate on dumb terminals powered by about 15 large data centers.Due to the expense of these powerful computers, many corporations and other entities could avail themselves of computing capability through time sharing and several organizations, such as GEs GEISCO, IBM subsidiary The Service Bureau Corporation, Tymshare (founded in 1966), National CSS (founded in 1967 and bought by Dun ;amp; Bradstreet in 1979), Dial Data (bought by Tymshare in 1968), and  Bolt, Beranek and Newman  marketed time sharing as a commercial venture.The ubiquitous availability of high capacity networks, low cost computers and storage devices as well as the widespread adoption of  hardware virtualization,  service-oriented architecture, autonomic, and utility computing have led to a tremendous growth in cloud computing. After the  dot-com bubble,  Amazon  played a key role in the development of cloud computing by mod ernizing their  data centers, which, like most  computer networks, were using as little as 10% of their capacity at any one time, ust to leave room for occasional spikes. Having found that the new cloud architecture resulted in significant internal efficiency improvements whereby small, fast-moving two-pizza teams could add new features faster and more easily, Amazon initiated a new product development effort to provide cloud computing to external customers, and launched Amazon Web Service (AWS)  on a utility computing basis in 2006. [14][15] In early 2008,  Eucalyptus  became the first open-source, AWS API-compatible platform for deploying private clouds.In early 2008,  OpenNebula, enhanced in the RESERVOIR European Commission-funded project, became the first open-source software for deploying private and hybrid clouds, and for the federation of clouds. In the same year, efforts were focused on providing quality of service  guarantees (as required by real-time interac tive applications) to cloud-based infrastructures, in the framework of the IRMOS European Commission-funded project, resulting to a real-time cloud environment.By mid-2008, Gartner saw an opportunity for cloud computing to shape the relationship among consumers of IT services, those who use IT services and those who sell them  and observed that organizations are switching from company-owned hardware and software assets to per-use service-based models so that the projected shift to computing will result in dramatic growth in IT products in some areas and significant reductions in other areas. On March 1, 2011, IBM announced the  Smarter Computing  framework to support Smarter Planet.Among the various components of the Smarter Computing foundation, cloud computing is a critical piece. In 2012, Dr. Biju John and Dr. Souheil Khaddaj describe the cloud as a  virtualized,  semantic source of information: Cloud computing is a universal collection of data which extends over the i nternet in the form of resources (such as information hardware, various platforms, services etc. ) and forms individual units within the virtualization environment. Held together by infrastructure providers, service providers and the consumer, then it is semantically accessed by various users.Cloud computing shares characteristics with: * Autonomic computing  - Computer systems capable of  self-management. * Client–server model  -   Client–server computing  refers broadly to any  distributed application that distinguishes between service providers (servers) and service requesters (clients). * Grid computing  - A form of  distributed  and  parallel computing, whereby a super and virtual computer is composed of a  cluster  of networked,  loosely coupled  computers acting in concert to perform very large tasks. * Mainframe computer  - Powerful computers used mainly by large organizations for critical applications, typically bulk data proce ssing such as  census, industry and consumer statistics, police and secret intelligence services,  enterprise resource planning, and financial  transaction processing. * Utility computing  - The packaging of  computing resources, such as computation and storage, as a metered service similar to a traditional public utility, such as electricity. * Peer-to-peer  - Distributed architecture without the need for central coordination, with participants being at the same time both suppliers and consumers of resources (in contrast to the traditional client–server model). * Cloud gaming   Also called On-demand gaming is a way of delivering to games to computers. The gaming data will be stored in the providers server, so that gaming will be independent of client computers used to play the game. The attributes of Cloud Networking are: Scalable:  Cloud Networks scale to thousands of nodes and provide a non-blocking fabric across the entire cloud. * Low Latency: Latency i s key to improving application performance. The network needs to provide ultra-low latency in a large-scale environment. * Guaranteed Delivery: The cloud must provide predictable and reliable performance to a large number services, including HPC applications, web, video and data. * Extensible Management: Cloud Networks cross all traditional boundaries between servers, enterprise networks, and service provider networks.They need to be managed in a  hybrid  environment, often with customizations that are unique to that individual deployment. The management of the network needs to be extensible and customizable to allow such applications. * Self-Healing Resiliency: With larger scale, networks become much more critical and faults need to be contained and healed automatically. Arista Networks offers a unique Cloud Networking Platform that meet the above requirements. Please see our Products amp; Services sections for more information.In early 2008,  Eucalyptus  became the first o pen-source, AWS API-compatible platform for deploying private clouds. In early 2008,  Open Nebula, enhanced in the RESERVOIR European Commission-funded project, became the first open-source software for deploying private and hybrid clouds, and for the federation of clouds. [19]  In the same year, efforts were focused on providing quality of service  guarantees (as required by real-time interactive applications) to cloud-based infrastructures, in the framework of the IRMOS European Commission-funded project, resulting to a real-time cloud environment.By mid-2008, Gartner saw an opportunity for cloud computing to shape the relationship among consumers of IT services, those who use IT services and those who sell them  and observed that organizations are switching from company-owned hardware and software assets to per-use service-based models so that the projected shift to computing will result in dramatic growth in IT products in some areas and significant reductions in other a reas. On March 1, 2011, IBM announced the  Smarter Computing framework to support Smarter Planet.Among the various components of the Smarter Computing foundation, cloud computing is a critical piece. In 2012, Dr. Biju John and Dr. Souheil Khaddaj incorporated the semantic term into the cloud Cloud computing is a universal collection of data which extends over the internet in the form of resources (such as information hardware, various platforms, services etc. ) and forms individual units within the virtualization environment. Held together by infrastructure providers, service providers and the consumer, then it is semantically accessed by various users. (CLUSE 2012), Bangalore, April 2012 Cloud computing is all the rage. Its become the phrase du jour, says Gartner senior analyst Ben Pring, echoing many of his peers. The problem is that (as with Web 2. 0) everyone seems to have a different definition. As a metaphor for the Internet, the cloud is a familiar cliche, but when combin ed with computing, the meaning gets bigger and fuzzier. Some analysts and vendors define cloud computing narrowly as an updated version of utility computing: basically  virtual servers  available over the Internet. Others go very broad, arguing anything you consume outside the firewall is in the cloud, including conventional  outsourcing.Cloud computing comes into focus only when you think about what IT always needs: a way to increase capacity or add capabilities on the fly without investing in new infrastructure,  training  new personnel, or licensing new software. Cloud computing encompasses any subscription-based or pay-per-use service that, in real time over the Internet, extends ITs existing capabilities. Cloud computing is at an early stage, with a motley crew of providers large and small delivering a slew of cloud-based services, from full-blown applications to storage services to spam filtering.Yes, utility-style infrastructure providers are part of the mix, but so are  SaaS (software as a service)  providers such as Salesforce. com. Today, for the most part, IT must plug into cloud-based services individually, but cloud computing aggregators and integrators are already emerging. InfoWorld talked to dozens of vendors, analysts, and IT customers to tease out the various components of cloud computing. Based on those discussions, heres a rough breakdown of what cloud computing is all about: 1. SaaSThis type of cloud computing delivers a single application through the browser to thousands of customers using a multitenant architecture. On the customer side, it means no upfront investment in servers or software licensing; on the provider side, with just one app to maintain, costs are low compared to conventional hosting. Salesforce. com is by far the best-known example among enterprise applications, but SaaS is also common for HR apps and has even worked its way up the food chain to  ERP, with players such as Workday. And who could have predi cted the sudden rise of SaaS  desktop applications, such as Google Apps and Zoho Office? . Utility computing The idea is not new, but this form of cloud computing is getting new life from Amazon. com, Sun, IBM, and others who now offer storage and virtual servers that IT can access on demand. Early enterprise adopters mainly use utility computing for supplemental, non-mission-critical needs, but one day, they may replace parts of the datacenter. Other providers offer solutions that help IT create virtual datacenters from commodity servers, such as 3Teras AppLogic and Cohesive Flexible Technologies Elastic Server on Demand.Liquid Computings LiquidQ offers similar capabilities, enabling IT to stitch together memory, I/O, storage, and computational capacity as a virtualized  resource pool available over the network. 3. Web services in the cloud Closely related to SaaS, Web service providers offer APIs that enable developers to exploit functionality over the Internet, rather than de livering full-blown applications. They range from providers offering discrete business services such as Strike Iron and Xignite to the full range of APIs offered by Google Maps, ADP payroll processing, the U.S. Postal Service, Bloomberg, and even conventional credit  card processing  services. 4. Platform as a service Another SaaS variation, this form of cloud computing delivers development environments as a service. You build your own applications that run on the providers infrastructure and are delivered to your users via the Internet from the providers servers. Like Legos, these services are constrained by the vendors design and capabilities, so you dont get complete freedom, but you do get predictability and pre-integration.Prime examples include Salesforce. coms  Force. com,Coghead  and the new  Google App Engine. For extremely lightweight development, cloud-basedmashup platforms  abound, such as  Yahoo Pipes  or Dapper. net. 5. MSP (managed service providers) One of the oldest forms of cloud computing, a managed service is basically an application exposed to IT rather than to end-users, such as a virus scanning service for e-mail or an application monitoring service (which Mercury, among others, provides).Managed security services delivered by SecureWorks, IBM, and Verizon fall into this category, as do such cloud-based anti-spam services as Postini, recently acquired by Google. Other offerings include desktop management services, such as those offered by CenterBeam or Everdream. 6. Service commerce platforms A  hybrid  of SaaS and MSP, this cloud computing service offers a service hub that users interact with. Theyre most common in trading environments, such as expense management systems that allow users to order travel or secretarial services from a common platform that then coordinates the ervice delivery and pricing within the specifications set by the user. Think of it as an automated service bureau. Well-known examples include Rearden Commerce and Ariba. 7. Internet integration The integration of cloud-based services is in its early days. OpSource, which mainly concerns itself with serving SaaS providers, recently introduced the OpSource Services Bus, which employs in-the-cloud integration technology from a little startup called Boomi.SaaS provider Workday recently acquired another player in this space, CapeClear, an ESB (enterprise service bus) provider that was edging toward b-to-b integration. Way ahead of its time, Grand Central which wanted to be a universal bus in the cloud to connect SaaS providers and provide integrated solutions to customers flamed out in 2005. Today, with such cloud-based interconnection seldom in evidence, cloud computing might be more accurately described as sky computing, with many isolated clouds of services which IT customers must plug into individually.On the other hand, as virtualization and SOA permeate the enterprise, the idea of loosely coupled services running on a n agile, scalable infrastructure should eventually make every enterprise a node in the cloud. Its a long-running trend with a far-out horizon. But among big metatrends, cloud computing is the hardest one to argue with in the long term. aristanetworks. com/en/solutions http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Cloud_computing infoworld. com/d/cloud-computing/what-cloud-computing-really-means-031? page=0,1

Federalism and the United States Constitution

Federalism and the United States Constitution Federalism is a compound system of government in which a single, central or â€Å"federal† government is combined with regional government units such as states or provinces in a single political confederation. In this context, federalism can be defined as a system of government in which powers are divided among two levels of government of equal status. In the United States, for example, the system of federalism - as created by the U.S. Constitution - divides powers between the national government and the various state and territorial governments. How Federalism Came to the Constitution While Americans take federalism for granted today, its inclusion in the Constitution did not come without considerable controversy. The so-called Great Debate over federalism took the spotlight on May 25, 1787, when 55 delegates representing 12 of the original 13 U.S. states gathered in Philadelphia for the Constitutional Convention. New Jersey was the lone state that chose not to send a delegation. The main goal of the Convention was to revise the Articles of Confederation, adopted by the Continental Congress on November 15, 1777, shortly after the end of the Revolutionary War. As the nation’s first written constitution, the Articles of Confederation provided for a decidedly weak federal government with more significant powers granted to the states. Among the most glaring of these weaknesses were: Each state - regardless of its population - got only one vote in Congress.There was only one chamber of Congress rather than a House and Senate.All laws required a 9/13 supermajority vote to pass in Congress.Members of Congress were appointed by the state legislatures rather than elected by the people.Congress had no power to levy taxes or regulate foreign and interstate commerce.There was no executive branch provided to enforce laws passed by Congress.There was no Supreme Court or a  lower national court system.Amendments to the Articles of Confederation required a unanimous vote of the states. The weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation had been the caused a seemingly endless series of conflicts between the states, especially in the areas of interstate trade and tariffs. The delegates to the Constitutional Convention hoped the new covenant they were crafting would prevent such disputes. However, the new Constitution finally signed by the Founding Fathers in 1787 needed to be ratified by at least nine of the 13 states in order to take effect. This would prove to be far harder than the document’s supporters had expected. A Great Debate Over Power Erupts As one of the most impactful aspects of the Constitution, the concept of federalism was considered extremely innovative - and controversial - in 1787.   Federalism’s sharing of powers by both the national and state governments was viewed to be in stark contrast to the â€Å"unitary† system of government practiced for centuries in Great Britain. Under such unitary systems, the national government allows local governments very limited powers to govern themselves or their residents. Thus, it is not surprising that Articles of Confederation, coming so soon after the end of Britain’s often tyrannical unitary control of colonial America, would provide for an extremely weak national government. Many newly-independent Americans, including some tasked with drafting the new Constitution, simply did not trust a strong national government - a lack of trust that resulted in a Great Debate. Taking place both during the Constitutional Convention and later during the state ratification process, The Great Debate over federalism pitted the Federalists against the Anti-Federalists. Headed by James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, the Federalists favored a strong national government, while the Anti-Federalists, led by Patrick Henry of Virginia, favored a weaker U.S. government leaving more power to the states. Opposed to the new Constitution, the Anti-Federalists argued that the document’s provision of federalism promoted a corrupt government, with the three separate branches constantly battling each other for control. In addition, the Anti-Federalists stirred fear among the people that a strong national government might allow the President of the United States to act as a virtual king. In defending the new Constitution, Federalist leader James Madison wrote in the â€Å"Federalist Papers† that the system of government created by the document would be â€Å"neither wholly national nor wholly federal.† Madison argued that federalism’s system of shared powers would prevent each state from acting as its own sovereign nation with the power to override the laws of the Confederation. Indeed, the Articles of Confederation had unequivocally stated, â€Å"Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.† Federalism Wins the Day On September 17, 1787, the proposed Constitution - including its provision for federalism - was signed by 39 of the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention and sent to the states for ratification. Under Article VII, the new Constitution would not become binding until it had been approved by the legislatures of at least nine of the 13 states.    In a purely tactical move, the Federalist supporters of the Constitution began the ratification process in those states where they had encountered little or no opposition, postponing the more difficult states until later. On June 21, 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the Constitution. Effective March 4, 1789, the United States officially became governed by the provisions of the U.S. Constitution. Rhode Island became the thirteenth and final state to ratify the Constitution on May 29, 1790. The Debate Over the Bill of Rights Along with the Great Debate over federalism, a controversy arose during the ratification process over the Constitution’s perceived failure to protect the basic rights of American citizens. Led by Massachusetts, several states argued that the new Constitution failed to protect the basic individual rights and freedoms that the British Crown had denied the American colonists -   the freedoms of speech, religion, assembly, petition, and the press. In addition, these states also objected to the lack of powers granted to the states. In order to ensure ratification, supporters of the Constitution agreed to create and include the Bill of Rights, which at the time, included twelve rather than 10 amendments. Mainly to appease Anti-Federalists who feared that the U.S. Constitution would give the federal government total control over the states, Federalist leaders agreed to add the Tenth Amendment, which specifies that, â€Å"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.†Ã‚   Updated by Robert Longley