Learning about Cloud Computing

Of all the latest technologies that are filling the news pages of the technological press – perhaps the most common is ‘cloud computing’. In effect this is a technology that is already playing a great part in most of our lives but what exactly is it?

Cloud computing identifies the programs provided as services on the web and the hardware and systems applications in the information centres that provide these solutions. The data centre hardware and software is that which we can call a Cloud. Cloud computing is comparatively new idea and it’s become popular lately.

Cloud adopts virtualization technology and also at the gist of Cloud computing there’s a logical gap between distinct nodes, every node appears as a unique physical system to the consumer. Unlike grid computing systems, it creates many dispersed computers linked together to make a large logical computer that can handle large number of information and computation. In the event of Cloud calculating the virtualization technology makes it feasible to get each node seem as different physical machine enabling user to load custom applications and operating system on every node and configure customized rules for every node.

The notion of computing is developed from parallel processing, distributed computing and grid computing systems. There’s a little gap between them but they operate differently. Although computing is an emerging area of computer engineering, the idea’s existed for a couple of decades. It’s named Cloud computing because the data and applications exist on a “cloud” of Web servers. To simplify the concept, Cloud computing can be defined as simply the sharing and application of applications and resources of a network environment to get work done without concern about ownership and management of the network’s resources and applications. According to Scale, with Cloud computing, computer resources for getting work done and their data are no longer stored on one’s personal computer, but are hosted elsewhere to be made accessible in any location and at any moment.

Related Technology Comparison

Grid computing a Type of distributed computing and parallel computing, whereby a ‘super and Digital computer’ is composed of a cluster of networked, loosely coupled computers acting in concert to perform Huge tasks

Utility computing The packaging of computing resources, such as computation and storage, as a metered service very similar to a standard public utility, such as electricity.

Autonomic computing

Computer systems capable of self administration.

General mechanism

Cloud computing utilizing information technology as a services over the network. The idea generally encompasses of Infrastructure for a service (IaaS), Platform for a service (PaaS) Hardware for a Service (HaaS) and Software as a service (SaaS). It may be the ability to lease a server or servers and run a geophysical modeling application available anywhere. It may be the ability to (S Rupley, 2009) rent a digital server, load software on it, turn it on and off at will, or clone it to fulfill a sudden workload demand. It can be storing and securing considerable quantities of information that is accessible only by authorized applications and users. It can be supported by means of a cloud provider that sets up a platform with the capacity to scale automatically in response to changing workloads. It can use a storage cloud to hold application, company, and individual data. And it may be the ability to use a small number of internet services to integrate photos, maps, and GPS information to create a front page in customer Web browsers.

In a cloud computing system, there’s a substantial workload shift. The network of computers which comprise the cloud handles them instead. Allow the cloud take care of it. Today’s, a Web Browser such as Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer 8 is widely use as an interface software in cloud computing system. It’s increasingly being used as an alternative to privacy applications too, see the article here about BBC iPlayer blocking VPNs.

The truth is, internet users already utilized some kind of cloud computing. If they have an email account with a Webbased email service like Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail or Gmail, then they had some experience with cloud computing. Rather than running an email program on a local computer, user will log in to a internet email account remotely. The software and storage for the account doesn’t exist in the neighborhood computer it’s on the service’s computer cloud.

Key characteristic of Cloud Computing

Currently, there’s absolutely no standard definition or specification for Cloud Computing. It Might Take some time to define the key characteristics of Cloud Computing based on practices in the field.Based on practices in the areas of service provisioning and solution design, the next two key enabling technologies could play a Very Important role in this revolutionary phase of cloud computing:

Virtualization technology

Virtualization technology works to handle on the way the image of the operating system, middleware, and application procreated and allocated to a physical machine or part of the server stack away. The virtualization technology may also help reuse licenses of operating systems, middleware, or software applications, once a subscriber releases their service from the Cloud Computing platform.

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA).

A service oriented architecture is basically a collection of services. These services communicate with one another. The communication can involve either simple data passing or it could involve two or more services coordinating some activity. Some means of connecting services to each other is needed. The growth of a system or software architecture is presently moving towards services oriented, unlike several decades ago the majority of the application is stand alone and purposely for single use. Even if it was possible to buy UK proxy specifically for use with a residential IP address these are strictly commercial organisations.

Lately, the gigantic development of the online user and internet technology availability the usage of applications can now be leased. Giant company like google, Microsoft, Sun or even Amazon have this capability provide software services rather than selling the software directly to user. The SOA is system or software design that addressing componentization, reusability, extensibility, and flexibility. These whole characteristic is a fundamentals need for company that are searching for reducing cost and choose to rent instead of purchase.

Computing Power’s New Leap Forward?

When you look back at the computers we had our disposal at the beginning of the 1990s it’s almost unbelievable to see the change.  Most smartphones contain more raw computing power than my University Computing Department did in that time.

Moore’s Law is a computing term coined by co-founder of Intel Gordon Moore, who predicted that the speed of the modern electronic world would radically increase biannually. This forecast rapid development of computers has stayed steady over the past many decades, but it’s slowing as a result of the constraints imposed by the elements of contemporary computer Pentium processors. Each notebook computer includes a Pentium processor with layers of a atoms round it.

Since these layers become more and more modest to increase processing capacity, the huge heat generated will finally bring about leakage, according to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. Therefore, hitting a wall in pc technological advancement is inevitable and brand new applications will not have the ability to compensate. Quantum theory has made computer transistors potential, but they also foreshadow the doom of this era of silicon. Researchers and scientists are focusing on a replacement for silicon to maintain pc technology’s rapid expansion.

In IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center at Yorktown Heights, N.Y., the Business homes a quantum computer. Though their pc is composed just of 16 quantum pieces that enable easy computations and a huge cooling system which keeps the computer capable to operate, scientists expect that quantum computers could be scaled up to replace transistor computers. This would fix the computation limits that modern silicon based computer chips pose.

Science News reports, “Teams from industry and academia are working on expanding their own versions of quantum computers to 50 or 100 qubits, enough to carry out certain calculations that the most effective supercomputers can’t pull off.” Scientists predict this goal will be reached within the upcoming few decades.

Quantum computers could tackle problems and computations beyond what modern computers are capable of doing. Small molecular and chemical reactions could be simulated. The search for new drugs or new catalysts would be revolutionized. More precise algorithms could be developed. Artificial intelligence could be developed to outperform human capabilities. Searches using quantum computers would be more efficient; data that would take modern computers years to figure out would take a quantum computer seconds.

Modern computers make calculations based on computer bits of zeros and ones, but quantum bits or qubit can be 0, 1 or anything in between. This exponentially increases their computational and processing abilities, but in addition, it makes developing and programming difficult.   Take for example the algorithms which are controlling the latest VPN services.  Even allowing for 256 bit encryption you can stream video from the BBC iPlayer to Ireland with minimal buffering.

However, quantum computers need vast cooling systems, which will likely confine these computers to laboratories in the near future. This past year, IBM made a five qubit quantum computer accessible to anybody online. Though limited in its abilities, it provides users with an overall idea about what quantum computers could have the ability to offer. At this time, scientists want to develop a demonstration that quantum computers can outperform modern computers. An algorithm to demonstrate this was proposed by Google researchers in 2016.

Scientists are also working to develop error correcting infrastructure within quantum computers, since they are vulnerable to interference and miscalculations. Information spread out can be corrected within the system, but weeding out the errors calls for greater qubits, which are still a ways off as IBM and Google are currently working on developing 50 qubit quantum computers within the next couple of years. The possible uses for these kinds of computers are still being theorized as physicists attempt to coordinate with other scientists in making this technology a reality.

John Williams

Commentator from France TV Direct.