UNIT I CLOUD ARCHITECTURE MODELS AND INFRASTRUCTURE 6

Cloud Architecture: System Models for Distributed and Cloud Computing –

NIST Cloud Computing Reference Architecture – Cloud deployment models –
Cloud service models; Cloud Infrastructure: Architectural Design of Compute
and Storage Clouds – Design Challenges

Cloud Architecture

cloud computing technology is used by both small and large organizations

to store the information in cloud and access it from anywhere at anytime using the
internet connection.Cloud computing architecture is a combination of service-
oriented architecture and event-driven architecture.

Cloud computing architecture is divided into the following two parts -

o Front End
o Back End

The below diagram shows the architecture of cloud computing -

Front End

The front end is used by the client. It contains client-side interfaces and applications
that are required to access the cloud computing platforms. The front end includes web
servers (including Chrome, Firefox, internet explorer, etc.), thin & fat clients, tablets,
and mobile devices.

Back End

The back end is used by the service provider. It manages all the resources that are
required to provide cloud computing services. It includes a huge amount of data
storage, security mechanism, virtual machines, deploying models, servers, traffic
control mechanisms, etc.

Components of Cloud Computing Architecture

There are the following components of cloud computing architecture -

1. Client Infrastructure

Client Infrastructure is a Front end component. It provides GUI (Graphical User

Interface) to interact with the cloud.

2. Application

The application may be any software or platform that a client wants to access.

3. Service

A Cloud Services manages that which type of service you access according to the
client’s requirement.

Cloud computing offers the following three type of services:

i. Software as a Service (SaaS) – It is also known as cloud application services.

Mostly, SaaS applications run directly through the web browser means we do not
require to download and install these applications. Some important example of SaaS
is given below –

Example: Google Apps, Salesforce Dropbox, Slack, Hubspot, Cisco WebEx.

ii. Platform as a Service (PaaS) – It is also known as cloud platform services. It is

quite similar to SaaS, but the difference is that PaaS provides a platform for software
creation, but using SaaS, we can access software over the internet without the need of
any platform.

Example: Windows Azure, Force.com, Magento Commerce Cloud, OpenShift.

iii. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) – It is also known as cloud infrastructure

services. It is responsible for managing applications data, middleware, and runtime
environments.

Example: Amazon Web Services (AWS) EC2, Google Compute Engine (GCE),
Cisco Metapod.
4. Runtime Cloud

Runtime Cloud provides the execution and runtime environment to the virtual
machines.

5. Storage

Storage is one of the most important components of cloud computing. It provides a

huge amount of storage capacity in the cloud to store and manage data.

6. Infrastructure

It provides services on the host level, application level, and network level. Cloud
infrastructure includes hardware and software components such as servers, storage,
network devices, virtualization software, and other storage resources that are needed
to support the cloud computing model.

7. Management

Management is used to manage components such as application, service, runtime

cloud, storage, infrastructure, and other security issues in the backend and establish
coordination between them.

8. Security

Security is an in-built back end component of cloud computing. It implements a

security mechanism in the back end.

9. Internet

The Internet is medium through which front end and back end can interact and
communicate with each other.

System Models for Distributed and Cloud Computing

Distributed and cloud computing systems are built over a large number of
autonomous computer nodes. These node machines are interconnected by SANs,
LANs, or WANs in a hierarchical manner. With today's networking technology, a few
LAN switches can easily connect hundreds of machines as a working cluster.
Distributed and cloud computing systems are built over a large number of autonomous

computer nodes. These node machines are interconnected by SANs, LANs, or WANs

in a hierarchical manner.

With today’s networking technology, a few LAN switches can easily connect hundreds

of machines as a working cluster. A WAN can connect many local clusters to form a
very large cluster of clusters. Massive systems are considered highly scalable, and can

reach web-scale connectivity, either physically or logically.

Massive systems are classified into four groups:

1. Clusters : A distributed systems cluster is a group of machines that are

virtually or geographically separated and that work together to provide the

same service or application to clients. It is possible that many of the services

you run in your network today are part of a distributed systems Cluster
Distributed Services:
  Domain Naming System

 Windows Internet Naming Service

 Active Directory

2. P2P Networks : In a P2P system, every node acts as both a client and a server,

providing part of the system resources. Peer machines are simply client computers

connected to the Internet. All client machines act autonomously to join or leave the

system freely. This implies that no master-slave relationship exists among the peers.

No central coordination or central database is needed. The system is self-organizing

with distributed control.

3. Computing Grids :This is the use of widely distributed computer resources to reach

a common goal. A computing grid can be thought of as a distributed system with non-

interactive workloads that involve many files. Grid computing is distinguished from

conventional high-performance computing systems such as cluster computing in that

grid computers have each node set to perform a different task/application. Grid

computers also tend to be more heterogeneous and geographically dispersed than

cluster computers.

4. Internet clouds :The idea is to move desktop computing to a service-oriented

platform using server clusters and huge databases at data centers. Cloud computing

leverages its low cost and simplicity to benefit both users and providers. Machine

virtualization has enabled such cost-effectiveness. Cloud computing intends to satisfy

many user Virtualized resources from data centers to form an Internet cloud,

provisioned with hardware, software, storage, network, and services for paid users to

run their applications.

NIST Cloud Computing Reference Architecture
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.

Cloud Service Providers: A group or object that delivers cloud services to cloud
consumers or end-users. It offers various components of cloud computing. Cloud
computing consumers purchase a growing variety of cloud services from cloud
service providers. There are various categories of cloud-based services mentioned
below:
IaaS Providers: In this model, the cloud service providers offer
infrastructure components that would exist in an on-premises data center. These
components consist of servers, networking, and storage as well as the virtualization
layer.
 SaaS Providers: In Software as a Service (SaaS), vendors provide a wide
sequence of business technologies, such as Human resources management
(HRM) software, customer relationship management (CRM) software, all of
which the SaaS vendor hosts and provides services through the internet.
 PaaS Providers: In Platform as a Service (PaaS), vendors offer cloud
infrastructure and services that can access to perform many functions. In PaaS,
services and products are mostly utilized in software development. PaaS
providers offer more services than IaaS providers. PaaS providers provide
operating system and middleware along with application stack, to the underlying
infrastructure.

2. Cloud Carrier: The mediator who provides offers connectivity and

transport of cloud services within cloud service providers and cloud
consumers. It allows access to the services of the cloud through Internet
networks, telecommunication, and other access devices. Network and
 telecom carriers or a transport agent can provide distribution. A consistent
level of services is provided when cloud providers set up Service Level
Agreements (SLA) with a cloud carrier. In general, Carrier may be required
to offer dedicated and encrypted connections.

3. Cloud Broker: An organization or a unit that manages the performance, use, and
delivery of cloud services by enhancing specific capability and offers value-added
services to cloud consumers. It combines and integrates various services into one or
more new services. They provide service arbitrage which allows flexibility and
opportunistic choices. There are major three services offered by a cloud broker:
 Service Intermediation.
 Service Aggregation.
 Service Arbitrage.
4. Cloud Auditor: An entity that can conduct independent assessment of cloud
services, security, performance, and information system operations of the cloud
implementations. The services that are provided by Cloud Service Providers (CSP)
can be evaluated by service auditors in terms of privacy impact, security control,
and performance, etc. Cloud Auditor can make an assessment of the security
controls in the information system to determine the extent to which the controls are
implemented correctly, operating as planned and constructing the desired outcome
with respect to meeting the security necessities for the system. There are three major
roles of Cloud Auditor which are mentioned below:
 Security Audit.
 Privacy Impact Audit.
 Performance Audit.
5. Cloud Consumer: A cloud consumer is the end-user who browses or utilizes the
services provided by Cloud Service Providers (CSP), sets up service contracts with
the cloud provider. The cloud consumer pays per use of the service provisioned.
Measured services utilized by the consumer. In this, a set of organizations having
mutual regulatory constraints performs a security and risk assessment for each use
case of Cloud migrations and deployments.
Cloud consumers use Service-Level Agreement (SLAs) to specify the technical
performance requirements to be fulfilled by a cloud provider. SLAs can cover terms
concerning the quality of service, security, and remedies for performance failures. A
cloud provider may also list in the SLAs a set of limitations or boundaries, and
obligations that cloud consumers must accept. In a mature market environment, a
cloud consumer can freely pick a cloud provider with better pricing and more
favourable terms. Typically, a cloud provider’s public pricing policy and SLAs are
non-negotiable, although a cloud consumer who assumes to have substantial usage
might be able to negotiate for better contracts.

Cloud deployment models

IT is the process of deploying an application through one or more hosting
models-SaaS,PaaS,IaaS.It includes implementing,Architecting,planning,operating
workloads in cloud is called as cloud deployment.
Cloud Deployment Model functions as a virtual computing environment with
a deployment architecture that varies depending on the amount of data you want to
store and who has access to the infrastructure.

Different Types Of Cloud Computing Deployment Models

Most cloud hubs have tens of thousands of servers and storage devices to enable fast
loading. It is often possible to choose a geographic area to put the data "closer" to
users. Thus, deployment models for cloud computing are categorized based on their
location. To know which model would best fit the requirements of your organization,
let us first learn about the various types.

Public Cloud

The name says it all. It is accessible to the public. Public deployment models in the
cloud are perfect for organizations with growing and fluctuating demands. It also
makes a great choice for companies with low-security concerns. Thus, you pay a
cloud service provider for networking services, compute virtualization & storage
available on the public internet. It is also a great delivery model for the teams with
development and testing. Its configuration and deployment are quick and easy,
making it an ideal choice for test environments.
There are many benefits of deploying cloud as public cloud model. The following
diagram shows some of those benefits:
Cost Effective

Since public cloud shares same resources with large number of customers it turns out
inexpensive.

Reliability

The public cloud employs large number of resources from different locations. If any
of the resources fails, public cloud can employ another one.

Flexibility

The public cloud can smoothly integrate with private cloud, which gives customers a
flexible approach.

Location Independence

Public cloud services are delivered through Internet, ensuring location independence.

Utility Style Costing

Public cloud is also based on pay-per-use model and resources are accessible
whenever customer needs them.

High Scalability

Cloud resources are made available on demand from a pool of resources, i.e., they can
be scaled up or down according the requirement.

Disadvantages

Here are some disadvantages of public cloud model:

Low Security

In public cloud model, data is hosted off-site and resources are shared publicly,
therefore does not ensure higher level of security.

Less Customizable

It is comparatively less customizable than private cloud.

Limitation of Public Cloud:

1. Low visibility and control - Public cloud infrastructure is owned by the cloud
service provider. You don't have much visibility and control over it.
 2. Compliance and legal risks - Since you don't have much visibility and
control over public cloud infrastructure, you are relying on the cloud service
provider to protect data and adhere to local and international regulations. Your
company may still be liable, if the cloud service provider, fails to live up to the
task and if there is a data breach. So a public cloud, may not be the most
viable solution for security sensitive or mission-critical applications.
3. Cost concerns - Cloud in general, reduces upfront infrastructure costs and it's
pay-as-you-go model provides more flexibility. Depending on the traffic, the
amount of cloud resources you consume, the plan you have chosen, the way
you scale resources up and down, determines the overall price you pay.
Sometimes this overall price tag may be higher than what you anticipated.

Private Cloud

Private Cloud allows systems and services to be accessible within an

organization. The Private Cloud is operated only within a single organization.
However, it may be managed internally by the organization itself or by third-party.
The private cloud model is shown in the diagram below.

Benefits

There are many benefits of deploying cloud as private cloud model. The following
diagram shows some of those benefits:
High Security and Privacy

Private cloud operations are not available to general public and resources are shared
from distinct pool of resources. Therefore, it ensures high security and privacy.

More Control

The private cloud has more control on its resources and hardware than public cloud
because it is accessed only within an organization.

Cost and Energy Efficiency

The private cloud resources are not as cost effective as resources in public clouds but
they offer more efficiency than public cloud resources.

Disadvantages

Here are the disadvantages of using private cloud model:

Restricted Area of Operation

The private cloud is only accessible locally and is very difficult to deploy globally.

High Priced

Purchasing new hardware in order to fulfill the demand is a costly transaction.

Limited Scalability

The private cloud can be scaled only within capacity of internal hosted resources.

Additional Skills
In order to maintain cloud deployment, organization requires skilled expertise.

Limitations of Private Cloud

o Higher Cost - With the benefits you get, the investment will also be larger than
the public cloud. Here, you will pay for software, hardware, and resources for
staff and training.
o Fixed Scalability - The hardware you choose will accordingly help you scale
in a certain direction
o High Maintenance - Since it is managed in-house, the maintenance costs also
increase.

Community Cloud

Community Cloud allows system and services to be accessible by group of

organizations. It shares the infrastructure between several organizations from a
specific community. It may be managed internally by organizations or by the third-
party. The Community Cloud Model is shown in the diagram below.
Benefits

There are many benefits of deploying cloud as community cloud model.

Cost Effective

Community cloud offers same advantages as that of private cloud at low cost.

Sharing Among Organizations

Community cloud provides an infrastructure to share cloud resources and capabilities

among several organizations.

Security

The community cloud is comparatively more secure than the public cloud but less
secured than the private cloud.

Limitations of Community Cloud

o Shared Resources - Due to restricted bandwidth and storage capacity,

community resources often pose challenges.
o Not as Popular - Since this is a recently introduced model, it is not that popular
or available across industries

Hybrid Cloud

o Hybrid cloud is a combination of public and private clouds.

Hybrid cloud = public cloud + private cloud
 o The main aim to combine these cloud (Public and Private) is to create a
unified, automated, and well-managed computing environment.
o In the Hybrid cloud, non-critical activities are performed by the public
cloud and critical activities are performed by the private cloud.
o Mainly, a hybrid cloud is used in finance, healthcare, and Universities.
o The best hybrid cloud provider companies are Amazon, Microsoft, Google,
Cisco, and NetApp.

Benefits

There are many benefits of deploying cloud as hybrid cloud model. The following
diagram shows some of those benefits:

Scalability

It offers features of both, the public cloud scalability and the private cloud scalability.
 Flexibility

It offers secure resources and scalable public resources.

Cost Efficiency

Public clouds are more cost effective than private ones. Therefore, hybrid clouds can
be cost saving.

Security

The private cloud in hybrid cloud ensures higher degree of security.

Disadvantages

Networking Issues

Networking becomes complex due to presence of private and public cloud.

Security Compliance

It is necessary to ensure that cloud services are compliant with security policies of the
organization.

Infrastructure Dependency

The hybrid cloud model is dependent on internal IT infrastructure, therefore it is

necessary to ensure redundancy across data centers.

Limitations of Hybrid Cloud

o Complexity - It is complex setting up a hybrid cloud since it needs to integrate

two or more cloud architectures
o Specific Use Case - This model makes more sense for organizations that have
multiple use cases or need to separate critical and sensitive data

A Comparative Analysis of Cloud Deployment Models

With the below table, we have attempted to analyze the key models with an overview
of what each one can do for you:

Important Factors Public Private Community Hybrid

to Consider
Setup and ease of Easy Requires Requires professional Requires professional IT
use professional IT IT Team Team
Team

Data Security and Low High Very High High

Privacy

Scalability and High High Fixed requirements High

flexibility

Cost-Effectiveness Most Most expensive Cost is distributed Cheaper than private but
affordable among members more expensive than public

Reliability Low High Higher High

Making the Right Choice for Cloud Deployment Models

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to picking a cloud deployment model. Instead,

organizations must select a model based on workload-by-workload. Start with
assessing your needs and consider what type of support your application requires.
Here are a few factors you can consider before making the call:

o Ease of Use - How savvy and trained are your resources? Do you have the
time and the money to put them through training?
o Cost - How much are you willing to spend on a deployment model? How
much can you pay upfront on subscription, maintenance, updates, and more?
o Scalability - What is your current activity status? Does your system run into
high demand?
o Compliance - Are there any specific laws or regulations in your country that
can impact the implementation? What are the industry standards that you must
adhere to?
o Privacy - Have you set strict privacy rules for the data you gather?

Each cloud deployment model has a unique offering and can immensely add value to
your business. For small to medium-sized businesses, a public cloud is an ideal model
to start with. And as your requirements change, you can switch over to a different
deployment model. An effective strategy can be designed depending on your needs
using the cloud mentioned above deployment models.

3 Service Models of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing makes it possible to render several services, defined according to

the roles, service providers, and user companies. Cloud computing models and
services are broadly classified as below:

IAAS: Changing Its Hardware Infrastructure on Demand

The Infrastructure as a Service (IAAS) means the hiring & utilizing of the Physical
Infrastructure of IT (network, storage, and servers) from a third-party provider. The
IT resources are hosted on external servers, and users can access them via an internet
connection.

The Benefits

o Time and cost savings: No installation and maintenance of IT hardware in-

house,
o Better flexibility: On-demand hardware resources that can be tailored to your
needs,
o Remote access and resource management.

PAAS: Providing a Flexible Environment for Your Software Applications

Platform as a Service (PAAS) allows outsourcing of hardware infrastructure and

software environment, including databases, integration layers, runtimes, and more.

The Benefits

o Focus on development: Mastering the installation and development of

software applications.
o Time saving and flexibility: no need to manage the implementation of the
platform, instant production.
o Data security: You control the distribution, protection, and backup of your
business data.

SAAS: Releasing the User Experience of Management Constraints

Software as a Service (SaaS) is provided over the internet and requires no prior
installation. The services can be availed from any part of the world at a minimal per-
month fee.

The Benefits

o You are entirely free from the infrastructure management and aligning
software environment: no installation or software maintenance.
o You benefit from automatic updates with the guarantee that all users have the
same software version.
o It enables easy and quicker testing of new software solutions.

Cloud Infrastructure

Cloud infrastructure consists of servers, storage devices, network, cloud

management software, deployment software, and platform virtualization.

Hypervisor

Hypervisor is a firmware or low-level program that acts as a Virtual Machine

Manager. It allows to share the single physical instance of cloud resources between
several tenants.

Management Software

It helps to maintain and configure the infrastructure.

Deployment Software

It helps to deploy and integrate the application on the cloud.

Network

It is the key component of cloud infrastructure. It allows to connect cloud services

over the Internet. It is also possible to deliver network as a utility over the Internet,
which means, the customer can customize the network route and protocol.
Server

The server helps to compute the resource sharing and offers other services such as
resource allocation and de-allocation, monitoring the resources, providing security
etc.

Storage

Cloud keeps multiple replicas of storage. If one of the storage resources fails, then it
can be extracted from another one, which makes cloud computing more reliable.

Infrastructural Constraints

Fundamental constraints that cloud infrastructure should implement are shown in the
following diagram:

Transparency

Virtualization is the key to share resources in cloud environment. But it is not possible
to satisfy the demand with single resource or server. Therefore, there must be
transparency in resources, load balancing and application, so that we can scale them
on demand.

Scalability

Scaling up an application delivery solution is not that easy as scaling up an

application because it involves configuration overhead or even re-architecting the
network. So, application delivery solution is need to be scalable which will require the
virtual infrastructure such that resource can be provisioned and de-provisioned easily.

Intelligent Monitoring

To achieve transparency and scalability, application solution delivery will need to be

capable of intelligent monitoring.
Security

The mega data center in the cloud should be securely architected. Also the control
node, an entry point in mega data center, also needs to be secure.

Design Challenges in Cloud Computing

Cloud computing, an emergent technology, has placed many challenges in different

aspects of data and information handling. Some of these are shown in the following
diagram:

Security and Privacy

Security and Privacy of information is the biggest challenge to cloud computing.

Security and privacy issues can be overcome by employing encryption, security
hardware and security applications.

Portability

This is another challenge to cloud computing that applications should easily be

migrated from one cloud provider to another. There must not be vendor lock-in.
However, it is not yet made possible because each of the cloud provider uses different
standard languages for their platforms.

Interoperability

It means the application on one platform should be able to incorporate services from
the other platforms. It is made possible via web services, but developing such web
services is very complex.

Computing Performance
Data intensive applications on cloud requires high network bandwidth, which results
in high cost. Low bandwidth does not meet the desired computing performance of
cloud application.

Reliability and Availability

It is necessary for cloud systems to be reliable and robust because most of the
businesses are now becoming dependent on services provided by third-party.