Some of essential characteristics of Cloud Computing

• Common man point to view for characteristics of Cloud Computing:-

1. On demand self services: Computer services such as email, applications, network or

server service can be provided without requiring human interaction with each service

provider. Cloud service providers providing on demand self services include AmazonWeb

Services (AWS), Microsoft, Google, IBM and Salesforce.com. New York Times and

NASDAQ are examples of companies using AWS (NIST). Gartner describes this

characteristic as service based.

 In layman language:- This means that you will get only those services that you have demanded for and will have to pay for those services only.One doesn`t have to pay for the service which he hasn`t used.Moreover there are no hidden charges.

2.Broad network access: Cloud Capabilities are available over the network and   accessed
through standard mechanisms that promote use by heterogeneous thin or thick client

platforms such as mobile phones, laptops and PDAs.

 In layman language:- This means that the services can be accessed from anywhere ,anytime and from any electronic device which supports internet.

3.Resource pooling: The provider’s computing resources are pooled together to serve
multiple consumers using multiple-tenant model, with different physical and virtual
resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according to consumer demand. The
resources include among others storage, processing, memory, network bandwidth, virtual
machines and email services. The pooling together of the resource builds economies of
scale (Gartner).
In layman language:-As the work implies resource pooling means pooling of services, in cloud computing this means pooling of server mainly.Due to the cost is reduced,electricity requirement is reduced and the performance is increased.

4. Rapid elasticity and scalability: Cloud services can be rapidly and elastically provisioned, in some cases automatically, to quickly scale out and rapidly released to quickly scale in. To the consumer, the capabilities available for provisioning often appear to be unlimited and can
be purchased in any quantity at any time.The cloud is elastic, meaning that resource allocation can get bigger or smaller depending on demand. Elasticity enables scalability, which means that the cloud can scale upward for peak demand and downward for lighter demand. Scalability also means that an application can scale when adding users and when application requirements change.
 In layman language:- elasticity and scalability means that we can scale the services according to our need like sometime we require 10 TB of storage but in the high worload time we need 30 TB of storage so cloud has a good scalable characteristic through which we can resize our service and pay for those services only.

5. Measured service: Cloud computing resource usage can be measured, controlled, and
reported providing transparency for both the provider and consumer of the utilized service.
Cloud computing services use a metering capability which enables to control and optimize
resource use. This implies that just like air time, electricity or municipality water IT
services are charged per usage metrics – pay per use. The more you utilize the higher the
bill. Just as utility companies sell power to subscribers, and telephone companies sell
voice and data services, IT services such as network security management, data center
hosting or even departmental billing can now be easily delivered as a contractual service.
In layman language:-This means that you have to pay just for the service you have used.

6. Multi Tenacity: is the characteristics of cloud computing advocated by the Cloud
Security Alliance. It refers to the need for policy-driven enforcement, segmentation,
isolation, governance, service levels, and charge-back/billing models for different
consumer constituencies. Consumers might utilize a public cloud provider’s service
offerings or actually be from the same organization, such as different business units rather
than distinct organizational entities, but would still share infrastructure
 In layman language:-This is related to security alliance in which there is a contract between the user and the provider that his data will be secured and will not be leaked or hacked.

6. Standardized interfaces. Cloud services should have standardized APIs, which provide instructions on how two application or data sources can communicate with each other. A standardized interface lets the customer more easily link cloud services together.
 In layman language:-It has a standardized API which makes a user to easily work on different cloud service environment and even more easily link cloud services together.

• Technical point to view for characteristics of Cloud Computing:-

Characteristic 1: Dynamic computing infrastructure
Cloud computing requires a dynamic computing infrastructure. The foundation for the dynamic infrastructure is a standardized, scalable, and secure physical infrastructure. There should be levels of redundancy to ensure high levels of availability, but mostly it must be easy to extend as usage growth demands it, without requiring architecture rework. Next, it must be virtualized.

Today, virtualized environments leverage server virtualization (typically from VMware, Microsoft, or Xen) as the basis for running services. These services need to be easily provisioned and de-provisioned via software automation. These service workloads need to be moved from one physical server to another as capacity demands increase or decrease. Finally, this infrastructure should be highly utilized, whether provided by an external cloud provider or an internal IT department. The infrastructure must deliver business value over and above the investment.

A dynamic computing infrastructure is critical to effectively supporting the elastic nature of service provisioning and de-provisioning as requested by users while maintaining high levels of reliability and security. The consolidation provided by virtualization, coupled with provisioning automation, creates a high level of utilization and reuse, ultimately yielding a very effective use of capital equipment.

Characteristic 2: IT service-centric approach
Cloud computing is IT (or business) service-centric. This is in stark contrast to more traditional system- or server- centric models. In most cases, users of the cloud generally want to run some business service or application for a specific, timely purpose; they don’t want to get bogged down in the system and network administration of the environment. They would prefer to quickly and easily access a dedicated instance of an application or service. By abstracting away the server-centric view of the infrastructure, system users can easily access powerful pre-defined computing environments designed specifically around their service.

An IT Service Centric approach enables user adoption and business agility – the easier and faster a user can perform an administrative task the more expedient the business moves, reducing costs or driving revenue.

Characteristic 3: Self-service based usage model
Interacting with the cloud requires some level of user self-service. Best of breed self-service provides users the ability to upload, build, deploy, schedule, manage, and report on their business services on demand. Self-service cloud offerings must provide easy-to-use, intuitive user interfaces that equip users to productively manage the service delivery lifecycle.

The benefit of self service from the users’ perspective is a level of empowerment and independence that yields significant business agility. One benefit often overlooked from the service provider’s or IT team’s perspective is that the more self service that can be delegated to users, the less administrative involvement is necessary. This saves time and money and allows administrative staff to focus on more strategic, high-valued responsibilities.

Characteristic 4: Minimally or self-managed platform
In order for an IT team or a service provider to efficiently provide a cloud for its constituents, they must leverage a technology platform that is self managed. Best-of-breed clouds enable self-management via software automation, leveraging the following capabilities:

• A provisioning engine for deploying services and tearing them down recovering resources for high levels of reuse
• Mechanisms for scheduling and reserving resource capacity
• Capabilities for configuring, managing, and reporting to ensure resources can be allocated and reallocated to multiple groups of users
• Tools for controlling access to resources and policies for how resources can be used or operations can be performed

All of these capabilities enable business agility while simultaneously enacting critical and necessary administrative control. This balance of control and delegation maintains security and uptime, minimizes the level of IT administrative effort, and keeps operating expenses low, freeing up resources to focus on higher value projects.

Characteristic 5: Consumption-based billing
Finally, cloud computing is usage-driven. Consumers pay for only what resources they use and therefore are charged or billed on a consumption-based model. Cloud computing platforms must provide mechanisms to capture usage information that enables chargeback reporting and/or integration with billing systems.

The value here from a user’s perspective is the ability for them to pay only for the resources they use, ultimately helping them keep their costs down. From a provider’s perspective, it allows them to track usage for charge back and billing purposes.

In summary, all of these defining characteristics are necessary in producing an enterprise private cloud capable of achieving compelling business value which includes savings on capital equipment and operating costs, reduced support costs, and significantly increased business agility. All of these enable corporations to improve their profit margins and competitiveness in the markets they serve.

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