computing

1. Compare/contrast cloud computing and distributed computing
.Computer network technologies have witnessed huge improvements and changes in the last 20
years. After the arrival of Internet (the most popular computer network today), the networking of
computers has led to several novel advancements in computing technologies like Distributed
Computing and Cloud Computing. The term distributed systems and cloud computing systems
slightly refer to different things, however the underlying concept between them is same. So, to
understand about cloud computing systems it is necessary to have good knowledge about the
distributed systems and how they differ from the conventional centralized computing systems.
Let’s take a look at the main difference between cloud computing and distributed computing.
Global Industry Analysts predict that the global cloud computing services market is anticipated
to reach $127 billion by the end of 2017. Most organizations today use Cloud computing
services either directly or indirectly. For example when we use the services of Amazon or
Google, we are directly storing into the cloud. Using Twitter is an example of indirectly using
cloud computing services, as Twitter stores all our tweets into the cloud.
Distributed and Cloud computing have emerged as novel computing technologies because
there was a need for better networking of computers to process data faster. Distributed
Computing System Examples - World Wide Web - Social Media Giant Facebook
Hadoop’sDistributed File System (HDFS) - ATM - Cloud Network Systems(Specialized form of
Distributed Computing Systems) - Google Bots, Google Web Server, Indexing Server Benefits
of Distributed Computing 1) Distributed computing systems provide a better price/performance
ratio when compared to a centralized computer because adding microprocessors is more
economic than mainframes. 2) Distributed Computing Systems have more computational power
than centralized (mainframe) computing systems. Distributed Computing Systems provide
incremental growth so that organizations can add software and computation power in
increments as and when business needs. Examples of Cloud computing - YouTube is the best
example of cloud storage which hosts millions of user uploaded video files. - Picasa and Flickr
host millions of digital photographs allowing their users to create photo albums online by
uploading pictures to their service’s servers. - Google Docs is another best example of cloud
computing that allows users to upload presentations, word documents and spreadsheets to their
data servers. Google Docs allows users edit files and publish their documents for other users to
read or make edits.
Benefits of cloud computing
1) A research has found out that 42% of working millennial would compromise with the salary
component if they can telecommute, and they would be happy working at a 6% pay cut on an
average. Cloud computing globalizes your workforce at an economical cost as people across
the globe can access your cloud if they just have internet connectivity.
2) A study found that 73% of knowledge workers work in partnership with each other in varying
locations and time zones. If an organization does not use cloud computing, then the workers
have to share files via email and one single file will have multiple names and formats. With the
innovation of cloud computing services, companies can provide a better document control to
their knowledge workers by placing the file one central location and everybody works on that
single central copy of the file with increased efficiency. Frost & Sullivan conducted a survey and
found that companies using cloud computing services for increased collaboration are generating
400% ROI. Ryan Park, Operations Engineer at Pinterest said "The cloud has enabled us to be

2. more efficient, to try out new experiments at a very low cost, and enabled us to grow the site
very dramatically while maintaining a very small team.
" Cloud Computing vs. Distributed Computing"
1) Goals - The goal of Distributed Computing is to provide collaborative resource sharing by
connecting users and resources. Distributed Computing strives to provide administrative
scalability (number of domains in administration), size scalability (number of processes and
users), and geographical scalability (maximum distance between the nodes in the distributed
system). Cloud Computing is all about delivering services or applications in on demand
environment with targeted goals of achieving increased scalability and transparency, security,
monitoring and management.In cloud computing systems, services are delivered with
transparency not considering the physical implementation within the Cloud.
2) Types Distributed Computing is classified into three types- Distributed Information Systems –
The main goal of these systems is to distribute information across different servers through
various communication models like RMI and RPC.
Distributed Pervasive Systems- These kind of distributed systems consist of embedded
computer devices such as portable ECG monitors, wireless cameras, PDA’s, sensors and
mobile devices. Distributed Pervasive systems are identified by their instability when compared
to more “traditional” distributed systems. Distributed Computing Systems – In this kind of
systems, the computers connected within a network communicate through message passing to
keep a track of their actions.
Cloud Computing is classified into 4 differenttypes of cloud
– Private Cloud – A cloud infrastructure dedicated to a particular IT organization for it to host
applications so that it can have complete control over the data without any fear of security
breach.
Public Cloud- A cloud infrastructure hosted by service providers and made available to the
public. In this kind of cloud, customers have no control or visibility about the infrastructure. For
example, Google and Microsoft own and operate their own their public cloud infrastructure by
providing access to the public through Internet.
Community Cloud- A multi-tenant cloud infrastructure where the cloud is shared by several IT
organizations.
Hybrid Cloud- A combination or 2 or more different types of the above mentioned clouds
(Private, Public and Community) forms the Hybrid cloud infrastructure where each cloud
remains as a single entity but all the clouds are combined to provide the advantage of multiple
deployment models. 3)
Characteristics In Distributed Computing, a task is distributed amongst different computers for
computational functions to be performed at the same time using Remote Method Invocations or
Remote Procedure Calls whereas in Cloud Computing systems an on-demand network model is
used to provide access to shared pool of configurable computing resources. Distributed Cloud
Computing has become the buzz-phrase of IT with vendors and analysts agreeing to the fact

3. that distributed cloud technology is gaining traction in the minds of customers and service
providers. Distributed Cloud Computing services are on the verge of helping companies to be
more responsive to market conditions while restraining IT costs. Cloud has created a story that
is going “To Be Continued”, with 2015 being a momentous year for cloud computing services to
mature.