Business Information Management Lecture PDF

Business Information Management Dr. Michael P. O’Brien Module: MI4007 (Lecture 2 of 2) 1 What is Cloud Computing? What is the cloud? Where is the cloud? Are we in the cloud now? The term ”cloud computing” is everywhere. In the simpl...

Business Information Management Dr. Michael P. O’Brien Module: MI4007 (Lecture 2 of 2) 1 What is Cloud Computing? What is the cloud? Where is the cloud? Are we in the cloud now? The term ”cloud computing” is everywhere. In the simplest terms, cloud computing means storing and accessing data and programs over the internet instead of your computer’s hard drive. Cloud Computing is a general term used to describe a ‘new’ class of network-based computing that takes place over the Internet. Cloud computing is an umbrella term used to refer to Internet-based development and services. 2  What is Cloud Computing? A number of characteristics define cloud data, applications, services and infrastructure: – Remotely hosted: Services or data are hosted on remote infrastructure. – Ubiquitous: Services or data available from anywhere and are always ‘on’. – Commodified: The result is a utility computing model similar to that of traditional utilities, like gas and electricity - you pay for what you would want! The hardware and software services are available to – general public, enterprises, corporations and businesses markets. 3 What is Cloud Computing? Cloud Computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. Cloud computing customers do not own the physical infrastructure. Cloud computing users avoid capital expenditure on hardware, software, and services when they pay a provider only for what they use. – Resulting in low shared infrastructure and costs, low management overhead, and immediate access to a broad range of applications. 4  Cloud Computing Infrastructure For a user, the network elements representing the provider-rendered services are invisible, as if obscured by a cloud. 5 Basic Cloud Characteristics The “no-need-to-know” in terms of the underlying details of infrastructure. The “flexibility and elasticity” allows these systems to scale up and down at will – utilising resources of all kinds CPU, storage, server capacity, databases. The “pay as much as used and needed” type of utility computing and the “always on!, anywhere and any place” type of network-based computing. 6  Cloud Computing Services Three service models of cloud computing: 1. Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) Offers remotely accessible servers, networks, and storage capacity Also called Hardware-as-a-service. 2. Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) Customers rent servers, operating systems, storage, a database, software development technologies, and network capacity over the Internet. Allows the customer to run existing applications or develop and test new applications. 3. Software-as-a-service (SaaS) Provides software that is specific to customers’ requirements. 7 Cloud Computing Services Video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=36zducUX16w 8  Purpose & Benefits Cloud computing enables companies and applications, which are system infrastructure dependent, to be infrastructure-less. By using the cloud infrastructure on “pay as used and on demand”, all of us can save in capital and operational investment! Clients can: – Put their data on the platform instead of on their own desktop PCs and/or on their own servers. – They can put their applications on the cloud and use the servers within the cloud to do processing and data manipulations, etc. 9 Opportunities & Challenges The use of the cloud provides a number of opportunities: – It enables services to be used without any understanding of their infrastructure. – Cloud computing works using economies of scale: It potentially lowers the outlay expense for start up companies, as they would no longer need to buy their own software or servers. Cost would be by on-demand pricing. Vendors and Service providers claim costs by establishing an ongoing revenue stream. – Data and services are stored remotely but accessible from “anywhere”. 10  Opportunities & Challenges In parallel there has been backlash against cloud computing: – Use of cloud computing means dependence on others and that could possibly limit flexibility and innovation: The others are likely become the bigger Internet companies like Google and IBM, who may monopolise the market. – Security could prove to be a big issue: It is still unclear how safe out-sourced data is and when using these services ownership of data is not always clear. – There are also issues relating to policy and access: If your data is stored abroad whose policy do you adhere to? What happens if the remote server goes down? How will you then access files? There have been cases of users being locked out of accounts and losing access to data. 11 Advantages of Cloud Computing Improved performance: – With few large programs hogging your computer's memory, you will see better performance from your PC. – Computers in a cloud computing system boot and run faster because they have fewer programs and processes loaded into memory. Reduced software costs: – Instead of purchasing expensive software applications, you can get most of what you need for free-ish! …such as the google docs suite, dropbox, icloud. – better than paying for similar commercial software which alone may be justification for switching to cloud applications. 12  Advantages of Cloud Computing Instant software updates: – Another advantage to cloud computing is that you are no longer faced with choosing between obsolete software and high upgrade costs. – When the application is web-based, updates happen automatically available the next time you log into the cloud. – When you access a web-based application, you get the latest version without needing to pay for or download an upgrade. Improved document format compatibility. – You do not have to worry about the documents you create on your machine being compatible with other users' applications or OS – There are potentially no format incompatibilities when everyone is sharing documents and applications in the cloud. 13 Advantages of Cloud Computing Unlimited storage capacity: – Cloud computing offers virtually limitless storage. – Your computer's current 1Tb hard drive is small compared to the hundreds of Pbytes available in the cloud. Increased data reliability: – Unlike desktop computing, in which if a hard disk crashes and destroy all your valuable data, a computer crashing in the cloud should not affect the storage of your data. if your personal computer crashes, all your data is still out there in the cloud, still accessible. – In a world where few individual desktop PC users back up their data on a regular basis, cloud computing is a data-safe computing platform! 14  Advantages of Cloud Computing Universal document access: – That is not a problem with cloud computing, because you do not take your documents with you. – Instead, they stay in the cloud, and you can access them whenever you have a computer and an Internet connection – Documents are instantly available from wherever you are Latest version availability: – When you edit a document at home, that edited version is what you see when you access the document at work. – The cloud always hosts the latest version of your documents as long as you are connected, you are not in danger of having an outdated version 15 Advantages of Cloud Computing Easier group collaboration: – Sharing documents leads directly to better collaboration. – Many users do this as it is an important advantages of cloud computing multiple users can collaborate easily on documents and projects Device independence: – You are no longer tethered to a single computer or network. – Changes to computers, applications and documents follow you through the cloud. – Move to a portable device, and your applications and documents are still available. 16  Disadvantages of Cloud Computing Requires a constant Internet connection: – Cloud computing is impossible if you cannot connect to the Internet. – Since you use the Internet to connect to both your applications and documents, if you do not have an Internet connection you cannot access anything, even your own documents. - A dead Internet connection means no work and in areas where Internet connections are few or inherently unreliable, this could be a deal-breaker. 17 Disadvantages of Cloud Computing Does not work well with low-speed connections: – Similarly, a low-speed Internet connection, such as that found with dial-up services, makes cloud computing painful at best and often impossible. – Web-based applications require a lot of bandwidth to download, as do large documents. Features might be limited: – This situation is bound to change, but today many web- based applications simply are not as full-featured as their desktop-based applications. For example, you can do a lot more with Microsoft PowerPoint than with Google Presentation's web-based offering. 18  Disadvantages of Cloud Computing Can be slow: – Even with a fast connection, web-based software applications can sometimes be slower than accessing a similar software program on your desktop PC. – Everything about the program, from the interface to the current document, has to be sent back and forth from your computer to the computers in the cloud. – If the cloud servers happen to be backed up at that moment, or if the Internet is having a slow day, you would not get the instantaneous access you might expect from desktop applications. 19 Disadvantages of Cloud Computing Stored data might not be secure: – With cloud computing, all your data is stored on the cloud. The questions is - How secure is the cloud? – Can unauthorised users gain access to your confidential data? Stored data can be lost: – Theoretically, data stored in the cloud is very safe, replicated across multiple machines. – But on the off chance that your data goes missing, you have no physical or local backup. Put simply, relying on the cloud puts you at risk if the cloud lets you down. 20  Summary of Cloud Computing 21 22