Cloud Architecture, Services And Storage

1. Cloud Computing (KCS-713):
Unit-3: Cloud Architecture, Services and Storage
Dr. Radhey Shyam
Professor
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
SRMGPC Lucknow
(Affiliated to Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Technical University, Lucknow)
Unit-3 have been compiled/prepared by Dr. Radhey Shyam, with grateful acknowledgment who made their
course contents freely available. Feel free to use this study material for your own academic purposes. For
any query, the communication can be made through my mail shyam0058@gmail.com.
Date: December 07, 2021

2. Cloud Computing (KCS713)
(UNIT – III)
Cloud architecture, services and storage
1. ARCHITECTURE DEFINED
The term architecture originates from building construction where it refers to the art of designing and
constructing buildings. While in ordinary terms it refers to the art form, this term in essence also
conveys how the functionality is achieved using common principles. In the world of information
technology it one of the components is not working properly along the access chain, the cloud
implementation will fail.
 Cloud Architecture refers to the various components in terms of databases, software
capabilities, applications,
etc. engineered to leverage the power of cloud resources to solve business problems. Cloud
architecture defines the components as well as the relationships between them.
The various components of Cloud Architecture are:
 On premise resources
 Cloud resources
 Software components and services
 Middleware
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3. The entire cloud architecture is aimed at providing the users with high bandwidth, allowing users to
have uninterrupted access to data and applications, on-demand agile network with possibility to
move quickly and efficiently between servers or even between clouds and most importantly network
security
The various cloud based services have their own distinct and unique cloud architectures:
Cloud Computing
A cloud computing architecture consists of a front end and a back end. They connect to each other
through a network, usually the Internet. The front end is the side the computer user, or client, sees.
The back end is the “cloud” section of the system.
A. Front end (Cloud Computing Architecture)
The front end of the cloud computing system has client’s devices (or it may be a computer network)
and some applications are needed for accessing the cloud computing system. All the cloud
computing systems do not give the same interface to users. Web services like electronic mail
programs use some existing web browsers such as Firefox, Microsoft’s internet explorer or Apple’s
Safari. Other types of systems have some unique applications which provide
network access to its clients.
B. Back end (Cloud Computing Architecture)
Back end have to some physical peripherals. In cloud computing, the back end is cloud itself which
may various computer machines, data storage systems and servers.
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4. Layers Architecture of Cloud Computing
In the layers architecture of Cloud computing, cloud service providers into three categories:
 Software as a service
 Platform as a service
 Infrastructure as a service
2. Cloud Computing Reference Architecture: An Overview
Figure presents an overview of the NIST cloud computing reference architecture, which identifies
the major actors, their activities and functions in cloud computing. The diagram depicts a generic
high-level architecture and is intended to facilitate the understanding of the requirements, uses,
characteristics and standards of cloud computing.
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5. As shown in Figure , the NIST cloud computing reference architecture defines five major actors:
cloud consumer, cloud provider, cloud carrier, cloud auditor and cloud broker. Each actor is an entity
(a person or an organization) that participates in a transaction or process and/or performs tasks in
cloud computing. Table 1 briefly lists the actors defined in the NIST cloud computing reference
architecture. The general activities of the actors are discussed in the remainder of this section.
Figure 2 illustrates the interactions among the actors. A cloud consumer may request cloud services
from a cloud provider directly or via a cloud broker. A cloud auditor conducts independent audits and
may contact the others to collect necessary information.
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6. Cloud Consumer: The cloud consumer is the principal stakeholder for the cloud computing service.
A cloud consumer represents a person or organization that maintains a business relationship with,
and uses the service from a cloud provider. A cloud consumer browses the service catalog from a
cloud provider, requests the appropriate service, sets up service contracts with the cloud provider,
and uses the service. The cloud consumer may be billed for the service provisioned, and needs to
arrange payments accordingly.
Depending on the services requested, the activities and usage scenarios can be different among
cloud consumers. Figure 6 presents some example cloud services available to a cloud consumer.
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7. 1. There are certain services and models working behind the scene making the cloud computing
feasible and accessible to end users. The following are the working models for cloud
computing:
o Deployment models
o Service models
 Cloud computing deployment models
There are various types of clouds, each of which
is different from the other. It is often divided into
three categories:
o public
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8. o private
o Hybrid,
referring to who has access to the services or infrastructure.
Public-cloud services are made available to anybody that wants to purchase. Public cloud services
are sold on demand, typically by the minute or hour, though long-term commitments are available for
many services. Customers only pay for the CPU cycles, storage or bandwidth they consume. Public
clouds can also typically be deployed much faster and with more scalability and accessibility than
on-premises infrastructure. Leading public cloud service providers include Amazon Web Services
(AWS), Microsoft Azure, IBM and Google Cloud Platform.
Private-cloud services are built by enterprises for use by their employees and partners only. In
other word it is a cloud environment set aside for the exclusive use of one organization.
Top Vendors: HPE, VMware, Dell EMC, IBM, Red Hat, Microsoft, OpenStack.
A hybrid cloud is a combination of both a public and private cloud with some level of integration
between the two. In which some critical data resides in the enterprise’s private cloud while other data
is stored in and accessible from a public cloud. Hybrid clouds seek to deliver the advantages of
scalability, reliability, rapid deployment and potential cost
savings of public clouds with the security and increased control and management of private clouds.
Top Vendors: Combination of both public and private cloud providers
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9.  Types of cloud computing services (Or Common Cloud Service Models or Types of
Cloud Computing) Cloud computing is not a single piece of technology like a
microchip or a cellphone. Rather, it's a system primarily comprised of three services:
o software-as-a-service (SaaS)
o platform-as-a-service (PaaS)
o infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS)
There are many other service models all of which can take Like XaaS, i.e. Anything as a Service.
This can be Network a as Service, Business as a Service, Identity as a Service, Database as a
Service or Strategy as a Service.
The Infrastructure as a Service ( IaaS) is the most basic level of service. Each of the service models
make use of the underlying(fundamental) service model, i.e. each inherits the security and
management mechanism from the underlying model, as shown in the following diagram.
(I) Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS)
Its provide access to fundamental resources such as physical machines, virtual machines, virtual
storage, etc. It involves a method for delivering everything from operating systems to servers and
storage through IP-based connectivity as part of an on-demand service. Clients can avoid the need
to purchase software or servers, and instead procure these resources in an outsourced, on-demand
service. Popular examples of the IaaS system include IBM Cloud and Microsoft Azure.
(II) Platform as a Service (PaaS)
It provide the runtime environment for applications, development & deployment tools etc. PaaS is a
computing platform being delivered as a service. PaaS shares some similarities with SaaS, the
primary difference being that instead of delivering software online, it is actually a platform for creating
software that is delivered via the Internet. Here the platform is outsourced in place of a company or
data center purchasing and managing its own hardware and software layers. Most PaaS are
designed for developers and aim to simplify the process of creating and deploying software. For
example, a Web developer might use a PaaS that includes operating system software, Web server
software, a database and related Web development tools. The leading PaaS vendors include
Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, IBM and Google Cloud Platform,Heroku.
(III) Software as a Service (SaaS)
SaaS is a software delivery method that provides access to software and its functions remotely as a
Web-based service. Instead of paying an upfront fee to purchase and/or license software, SaaS
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10. customers pay a recurring (often monthly or annual) fee to subscribe to the service. In general, they
can access the SaaS from any Internet-connected device, any time day or night. Well-known
examples of SaaS include Salesforce, Microsoft Office 365, Google G Suite, Dropbox, Adobe
Creative Cloud and others.
When it comes to providing services, the big players in the corporate computing sphere include:
o Google Cloud
o Amazon Web Services (AWS)
o Microsoft Azure
o IBM Cloud
o Aliyun
Simple Storage Service (S3)
What is S3?
S3 is short for Amazon Simple Storage Service or Amazon S3. It is a cloud service provided by AWS
for secure, highly-available and redundant data storage. It is used by customers of all sizes and
industries for a number of use cases, including:
Backup and restore
Disaster recovery
Archive
Internet applications
Data lakes
Big data analytics
Hybrid cloud storage
Cloud-native application data storage
A web console, S3 Management Console, provides easy-to-use management features for organizing
data and configuring finely-tuned access controls. Standardized protocols can also be used to
upload and access Amazon S3.
Amazon S3’s storage units are objects that are organized into buckets. Buckets are used to organize
files, like a folder. An infinite amount of data can be stored in buckets. There is no limit on the
number of objects that can be uploaded and each object can contain up to 5 TB of data.
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11. Buckets can be managed with the S3 Management Console, using the AWS SDK or with the
Amazon S3 REST API. The HTTP GET interface and the BitTorrent protocol can be also be used to
download objects. Items in a bucket can also be served as a BitTorrent feed to reduce bandwidth
costs for downloads.
The location of Amazon S3 buckets is specified using the s3 protocol (s3:// Protocol). It also
specifies the prefix to be used for reading or writing files in a bucket.
Permissions, revisions and other settings can be defined on a bucket level. Upload and download
permissions can be granted to up to three kinds of users. Authentication protects data from
unauthorized access.
When logging is enabled, the logs are stored in buckets and can be used for analyzing information,
such as:
Date and time of access to the requested content
The protocol used (e.g., HTTP, FTP)
HTTP status codes
Turnaround time
HTTP request message
These logs can be analyzed and managed with third-party tools.
References:
[1] R Shyam, P Srivastava, DS Kushwaha, “A Taxonomy and Survey of Cloud Computing [Security
Issues and Challenges]”, BL Joshi, 62, 2012.
[2] PK Varshney, P Singh, R Shyam, “Weak Spots of Cloud Computing and Their Revelations”, BL
Joshi, 109, 2012.
[3] Kai Hwang, Geoffrey C. Fox, Jack G. Dongarra, “Distributed and Cloud Computing, From Parallel
Processing to the Internet of Things”, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2012.
[4] Rittinghouse, John W., and James F. Ransome, “Cloud Computing: Implementation,
Management and Security”, CRC Press, 2017.
[5] Rajkumar Buyya, Christian Vecchiola, S. Thamarai Selvi, “Mastering Cloud Computing”, Tata
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12. Mcgraw Hill, 2013.
[6] Toby Velte, Anthony Velte, Robert Elsenpeter, “Cloud Computing – A Practical Approach”, Tata
Mcgraw Hill, 2009.
[7] George Reese, “Cloud Application Architectures: Building Applications and Infrastructure in the
Cloud”: Transactional Systems for EC2 and Beyond (Theory in Practice), O’Reilly, 2009.
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