Presented by: Prof Mark Baker

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An overview of Cloud Computing and its Services

• Presented by Prof Mark Baker
• ACET, University of Reading Tel [phone]
  8615 E-mail Mark.Baker_at_computer.org
• Web http//acet.rdg.ac.uk/mab

OpenCirrus
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Outline

• Origins of Clouds,
• Cloud definition and characteristics,
• Service and deployment models,
• Architecture,
• Taxonomy and Characteristics,
• Cloud Hyperbola,
• Issues that need to be Understood!,
• Cloud Security Risks,
• Virtualization,
• Green IT,
• Advantages/disadvantages/issues/problems,
• The Future.

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Origins of Clouds

• The idea of an "intergalactic computer network"
  was introduced in the sixties by J.C.R.
  Licklider, who was responsible for enabling the
  development of ARPANET (Advanced Research
  Projects Agency Network) in 1969
• His vision was for everyone on the globe to be
  inter-connected and accessing programs and data
  at any site, from anywhere.
• Other experts attribute the cloud concept to the
  computer scientist John McCarthy, who proposed
  the idea of computation being delivered as a
  public utility, similar to the service bureaus
  that date back to the sixties.

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Origins of Clouds

• Since the sixties, cloud computing has developed
  along a number of lines, with Web 2.0 being the
  most recent evolution!
• Since the Internet started to offer significant
  bandwidth in the 1990s, cloud computing for the
  masses has been something of a late developer.
• The firm Salesforce.com in 1999, which pioneered
  the concept of delivering enterprise applications
  via a simple web site
• The services provided paved the way for both
  specialist and mainstream software firms to
  deliver applications over the Internet.

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Origins of Clouds

• The next development was Amazon Web Services in
  2002that provided cloud-based services including
  storage, computation and even human intelligence
  through the Amazon Mechanical Turk
• https//www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome
• In 2006, Amazon launched its Elastic Compute
  cloud (EC2) as a commercial web service that
  allowed companies and individuals to rent
  computers on which to run their own computer
  applications.
• Amazon EC2/S3 was the first widely accessible
  cloud computing infrastructure service.

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Cloud-based Systems

• Users purchase an entire solution
• salesforce.com
• Users interface with resources through
  programming interface
• Google AppEngine, and AppScale
• Users access resources through service interface
  
• Microsoft Azure
• Users provision entire infrastructure
• Amazon EC2, OpenNebula, Nimbus, Enomalism,
  Eucalyptus, Open Cirrus, GoGrid

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A Definition of Cloud Computing

• Cloud computing is a model for enabling
  convenient, on-demand network access to a shared
  pool of configurable resources
• e.g. networks, servers, storage, applications,
  and services.
• These resources can be provisioned and released
  with minimal management effort or service
  provider interaction.
• A cloud model promotes availability and is
  composed of five essential characteristics, three
  service models, and deployment models.

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Everything has been outsourced, whats left for
me to do?
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Cloud Characteristics

• On-demand self-service
• A consumer can unilaterally provision computing
  capabilities, such as server time and network
  storage, as needed automatically without
  requiring human interaction with each services
  provider.
• Ubiquitous network access
• Services are available over the network and
  accessed through standard mechanisms that promote
  the use of heterogeneous platforms, such as
  mobile phones, laptops, and PDAs.

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Cloud Characteristics

• Resource pooling
• The computing resources are pooled using a
  homogenous infrastructure to serve consumers
  using a multi-functional model, with different
  physical/virtual resources dynamically assigned
  and reassigned according to consumer demand.
• There is a sense of location independence as the
  customer generally has no control or knowledge
  over the exact location of the provided resources
  but may be able to specify a location at a higher
  level of abstraction (e.g., country, state, or
  datacenter).
• Examples of resources include storage,
  processing, memory, network bandwidth, and
  virtual machines.

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Cloud Characteristics

• Elasticity
• Capabilities can be quickly and elastically
  provisioned, and in some cases automatically.
• This allows a scale up /down for resource use.
• To the consumer, the capabilities available for
  provisioning often appear to be infinite and can
  be purchased in any quantity at any time.
• Measured service
• Cloud systems automatically control and optimise
  the resources used, by leveraging a metering
  capability at some level of abstraction for the
  type of service, e.g., storage, processing,
  bandwidth, and active user accounts.
• Resources use can be monitored, controlled, and
  reported providing transparency for both the
  provider and consumer of the utilised service.

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Cloud Service Models

• Cloud Software as a Service (SaaS)
• The capability provided to the consumer is to use
  the providers applications running on a cloud
  infrastructure, which is accessible from various
  client devices, such as a Web browser.
• The consumer does not manage or control the
  underlying cloud infrastructure, or even
  individual application capabilities, with the
  possible exception of initial user-specific
  application configuration settings.

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Cloud Service Models

• Cloud Platform as a Service (PaaS)
• The consumer deploys their the applications onto
  the cloud using programming languages and tools
  supported by the provider, such as Java, python,
  .Net.
• The consumer does not manage/control the
  underlying cloud infrastructure, but has control
  over the deployed applications and possibly
  application hosting environment configurations.

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Cloud Service Models

• Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
• The capability is provided to the consumer, who
  can use processing, storage, networks, and
  resources.
• The consumer is able to deploy and run arbitrary
  software, which can include an operating systems
  and applications.
• The consumer does not manage or control the
  underlying cloud infrastructure they have
  control over operating systems, storage, deployed
  applications, and possibly select networking
  components, e.g., firewalls, load balancers.

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Different Cloud Computing Layers?
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Cloud Service Layers
Service Users
Service Providers
Cloud End-User Services (SaaS)
Cloud Platform Services (PaaS)
Cloud Providers
Cloud Infrastructure Services (IaaS)
Physical Infrastructure
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Cloud Computing Service Layers
Description
Services
Services Complete business services such as
PayPal, OpenID, OAuth, Google Maps, Alexa
Application Focused
Application Cloud based software that
eliminates the need for local installation such
as Google Apps, Microsoft Online
Development Software development platforms used
to build custom cloud based applications (PAAS
SAAS) such as SalesForce
Platform Cloud based platforms, typically
provided using virtualization, such as Amazon
ECC, Sun Grid
Storage Data storage or cloud based NAS such
as CTERA, iDisk, CloudNAS
Infrastructure Focused
Hosting Physical data centers such as those run
by IBM, HP, NaviSite, etc.
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Deployment Models

• Private cloud
• The cloud infrastructure is operated solely by an
  organisation.
• Community cloud
• The cloud infrastructure is shared by several
  organisations and it supports a specific
  community that has shared concerns
• Public cloud
• The cloud infrastructure is made available to the
  general public or a large industry group and is
  owned, potentially, by an organisation selling
  cloud services.
• Hybrid cloud
• The cloud infrastructure is a composition of two
  or more clouds (e.g. private, community, or
  public) that remain unique entities but are bound
  together by standardised or proprietary
  technologies that enables data and application
  portability.

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Cloud Architecture
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Cloud Taxonomy
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Cloud Characteristics

• Large scale,
• Virtualization,
• Non-stop computing,
• Free software,
• Geographic distribution,
• Service oriented architecture,
• Autonomic computing,
• Security technologies.

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Cloud Characteristics

• Large Scale
• Cloud implementations, regardless of the
  deployment model, tend to be as large in order to
  take advantage of economies of scale
• Large deployments can often be located next to
  cheap power and real estate to lower costs!
• They often take advantage of bulk commodity
  hardware purchases and streamlined data-centre.
• To improve effectiveness, large cloud deployments
  may be located near a high speed Internet hubs..
• Virtualization
• This is critical, it provides the essential
  characteristics of location independent resource
  pooling and rapid elasticity.
• Virtualization enables data centres to increase
  their server utilisation from a typical 10 to an
  ideal 80 that can produce significant cost
  savings.

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Cloud Characteristics

• Non-stop computing
• Clouds enables the characteristics of non-stop
  computing.
• This means that applications can take advantage
  of the cloud-based distributed software.
• The hardware enables an application to remain
  active at all times even through upgrades.
• Free Software
• The scale of many clouds combined with the need
  for many software licenses encourages the use of
  free software in the development of clouds.
• By free software we refer to Open source products
  that are potentially free to the cloud developer,
  otherwise the software is cheaply licensed.

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Cloud Characteristics

• Geographic Distribution
• Cloud systems that are built on the concept of
  resource pooling may not have separate backup
  sites!
• Cloud providers rely on unused cloud capacity to
  provide disaster recovery capabilities.
• The providers not only need significant unused
  capacity, but must have their resource pool
  geographically distributed so that a single data
  centre disaster will not cause an outage or
  overcapacity situation.

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Cloud Characteristics

• Service Oriented Architecture
• Cloud software takes full advantage of this
  paradigm with a focus on statelessness, low
  coupling, modularity, and semantic
  interoperability.
• An important characteristic for cloud
  applications so that they use the location
  independent resource pool and provide elasticity
  capabilities.
• Clouds can run applications that do not have this
  characteristic, but such applications will be
  isolated workloads so the provider gives
  reliability and scalability.

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Cloud Characteristics

• Autonomic Computing
• Cloud implementations often have automated
  systems to enable their management and security.
• This enables them to be large, sophisticated, and
  be cost effective.
• IBM definition - autonomic computing has four
  properties self-healing, self-configuration,
  self-optimization, and self-protection.
• Clouds may exhibit all of these properties.
• These properties do not commonly exist in
  advanced forms that are not always available
  using traditional computing models.

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Cloud Characteristics

• Security Technologies.
• Cloud implementations should contain advanced
  security technologies.
• The resource pooled nature, enables providers to
  focus all their security resources on potentially
  securing the cloud architecture.
• At the same time, the automation capabilities
  within a cloud combined with the large focused
  security resources should result in advanced
  security capabilities.
• These capabilities are necessary because the
  multi-functional nature of clouds increases the
  threat exposure compared to traditional computing
  models.

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Increasing use of Clouds

• Cloud computing is increasingly being used for
  what was known as on-demand and utility
  computing.
• The services provided, the APIs and the
  applications that can be hosted by these Cloud
  providers have superseded the use of the Grid,
  and are increasingly becoming popular with users.
  
• There are obviously two sides to the services
  that are provided by Cloud providers those that
  are supplied by commercial entities, such as
  Amazon and Google, as well as those that are
  open-source systems, such as provided by
  OpenCirrus and Eucalyptus.

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Cloud Hyperbola!

• Unfortunately, much of the information and news
  about Cloud-based systems are related to
  publicity and hyperbola.
• What is needed is a fair and unbiased review of
  these systems so that people who want to use
  Cloud-based systems know what they get!
• The consumers needs to understand the
  architecture, the services provided, the
  protocols used, security implications, and
  applications that can be executed, as well as
  factors such inter-operability, performance and
  scalability.

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Cloud Security Risks

• Trusting the service providers security model
• The data owner bears ultimate responsibility
  regardless!
• Inability to respond to audit findings
• Cloud customers cannot force security remediation
  on service providers without contractual
  guarantees.
• Obtaining support for investigations
• Airing dirty laundry and notifications for
  security events.
• Loss of physical control
• In a virtual world, do you know where your data
  is processed and stored?

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Potential Security Issues

• Privileged user access
• Sensitive data provides an inherent level of
  risk, because out sourced services by pass the
  "physical, logical and personnel controls exert
  over in-house resources.
• You need as much information as you can about the
  people who remotely manage your data.
• Regulatory compliance
• Consumers are responsible for the security and
  integrity of their own data, even when it is held
  by a service provider.
• Service providers should be subject to external
  audits and security certifications.
• Providers who refuse to undergo this scrutiny
  level are "signaling that customers can only use
  them for the most trivial functions.

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Potential Security Issues

• Data location
• When using a cloud, you will not know exactly
  where your data is hosted - it could be in stored
  in many countries
• Need to know if the providers will commit to
  storing and processing data in specific
  jurisdictions, and whether they will make a
  contractual commitment to obey local privacy
  requirements on behalf of their customers.
• Data segregation
• Data in the cloud is typically in a shared
  environment alongside data from other customers.
• The cloud provider should provide evidence that
  encryption schemes were designed and tested by
  specialists.

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Potential Security Issues

• Recovery
• Even if you do not know where your data is, a
  provider should tell you what will happen to your
  data in case of a failure!
• Any provider that does not replicate the data and
  application infrastructure across multiple sites
  is vulnerable to a total disaster.
• Investigative support
• Need to investigate illegal activities may be
  impossible in clouds,
• The services are difficult to investigate,
  because logging and data for multiple customers
  may be co-located and may also be spread across
  an ever-changing set of hosts and data centres.
• Need a contractual commitment to support specific
  information.

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Potential Security Issues

• Long-term viability.
• Ideally, your cloud provider will never go broke
  or get acquired and swallowed up by a larger
  company.
• You need to be sure your data will remain
  available even after such an event.

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Virtualization in General

• Virtual machines run in software that emulates
  computer hardware
• Host machine hardware running the virtual
  machine software,
• Host operating system operating system running
  the virtual machine software,
• Hypervisor slimmed down host operating system
  that virtualises the physical hardware,
• Guest system operating system.
• Examples of Virtual Machines
• VMware,
• Microsoft Virtual PC and Microsoft Virtual
  Server,
• Parallels Workstation,
• Sun xVM,
• Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM),
• Xen (Opensource),

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Virtualization

• Virtualization disconnects software from a
  specific piece of dedicated hardware.
• Physical resources such as servers and storage
  devices appear as single logical resources, and
  virtualization software determines how many of
  these physical devices to employ.
• This can result in increased utilisation of
  computing assets, lowered power and cooling
  costs, easier lifecycle management, and less
  sophisticated backup/disaster recovery.
• Although many associate the word "virtualization"
  with just server virtualization, there are in
  fact many opportunities within the software stack
  to beneficially introduce virtualization
  concepts.

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Virtualization

• Various system currently offer solutions to
  address various areas server, storage, and
  application/desktop virtualization.
• Permits a guest operating system to be executed
  as a process on a host operating system.
• Achievable through several mechanisms
• Operating system containers,
• Traditional virtual machine monitors,
• Para-virtualization systems,
• Hardware-assisted virtualization.

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Virtualization

• Virtual workspaces
• An abstraction of an execution environment that
  can be made dynamically available to authorised
  clients by using well-defined protocols,
• Resource quota (e.g. CPU, memory share),
• Software configuration (e.g. O/S, provided
  services).
• Implement on Virtual Machines (VMs)
• Abstraction of a physical host machine,
• Hypervisor intercepts and emulates instructions
  from VMs, and allows management of VMs,
• VMWare, Xen, etc.
• Provide infrastructure API
• Plug-ins to hardware/support structures

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Virtual Machines

• VM technology allows multiple virtual machines to
  run on a single physical machine.

App
App
App
App
App
Xen
Guest OS (Linux)
Guest OS (NetBSD)
Guest OS (Windows)
VMWare
UML
Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM) / Hypervisor
Denali
Hardware
etc.
Performance Para-virtualization (e.g. Xen) is
very close to raw physical performance!
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Virtualization in General

• Advantages of virtual machines
• Easier to create new machines, backup machines,
  and so on,
• Software testing using clean installs of
  operating systems and software,
• Emulate more machines than are physically
  available,
• Load up a VM with a range of software services,
• Timeshare lightly loaded systems on one host,
• Debug problems (suspend and resume the problem
  machine),
• Easy migration of virtual machines.
• Run legacy systems some Met folk are still
  using F77/F90!

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Green IT
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Green Computing

• Why?
• Computer energy is often wasteful
• Leaving the computer on when not in use (CPU and
  fan consume power, screen savers consume power).
• Pollution
• Manufacturing techniques,
• Packaging,
• Disposal of computers and components.
• Toxicity
• Toxic chemicals used in the manufacturing of
  computers and components which can enter the food
  chain and water!

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Energy Use of PCs

• CPU uses 120 Watts.
• Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) uses 150 Watts
• 8 hours of usage, 5 days a week 562 Kwatts
• If the computer is left on all the time without
  proper power saver modes, this can lead to 1,600
  Kwatts.
• For a large institution, say a university of
  40,000 students and faculty, the power bill for
  just computers can come to 1.5 million / year
• Energy use comes from
• Electrical current to run the CPU, motherboard,
  and memory,
• Running the fan and spinning the disk(s),
• Monitors - CRTs consume more power than any
  other computer component.

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Reducing Energy Consumption

• Turn off the computer when not in use, even if
  just for an hour.
• Turn off the monitor when not in use (as opposed
  to running a screen saver).
• Use power saver mode
• In power saver mode, the top item is not
  necessary, but screen savers use as much
  electricity as any normal processing, and the
  screen saver is not necessary on a flat panel
  display.
• Use hardware/software with the Energy Star label
• Energy Star is a seal of approval by the Energy
  Star organization of the government (the EPA)
• Use LCDs instead of CRTs as they are more power
  efficient.

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Green IT and Virtualization

• Energy saving benefits
• VM allows the possibility to control the
  applications.
• Lower management costs,
• Significantly lower replacement costs,
• More flexible and responsive to requests,
• Additional Disaster Recovery Capabilities.
• Reduce the number of systems consuming power!
• Improve average utilisation, potentially more
  efficient than on bare-metal!
• Many HPC applications are only 15 20
  efficient, VM provide the opportunity to be
  around 75 80.
• Need further evidence and proof still.
• Improved management capabilities across the board.

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Cloud Use

• Popular cloud apps
• Facebook 64K UW users now big in classes,
• Google Gmail, Docs, Calendar,
• Windows Live (esp. Messenger),
• Doodle (meeting scheduler),
• Blackboard online used by Biz School
  UW-Bothell.
• Platform services
• Amazon EC2/S3,
• Slicehost.

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Basic Cloud Characteristics

• The no-need-to-know in terms of the underlying
  details of infrastructure, applications interface
  with the infrastructure via the APIs.
• The flexibility and elasticity allows these
  systems to scale up and down at will utilising
  the resources of all kinds (CPU, storage, server
  capacity, load balancing, and 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.

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What is the purpose and 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.

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Opportunities and 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.

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Cloud-Sourcing

• Why is it becoming a Big Deal
• Using high-scale/low-cost providers,
• Any time/place access via Web browser,
• Rapid scalability incremental cost and load
  sharing,
• Can forget need to focus on local IT.
• Concerns
• Performance, reliability, and SLAs,
• Control of data, and service parameters,
• Application features and choices,
• Interaction between Cloud providers,
• No standard API mix of SOAP and REST!
• Privacy, security, compliance, trust

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Some Commercial Cloud Offerings

• Problem Commercial offerings are proprietary and
  usually not open for cloud systems research and
  development

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Advantages of Cloud Computing

• Lower computer costs
• You do not need a high-powered and high-priced
  computer to run cloud computing's web-based
  applications.
• When you are using web-based applications, your
  PC can be less expensive,
• Reduced software costs
• Instead of purchasing expensive software
  applications, you can get most of what you need
  for free-ish!
• Most cloud computing applications today, such as
  the Google Docs suite, are totally free.
• That is a lot better than paying 200 for
  similar Microsoft Office software - which alone
  may be justification for switching to cloud
  applications.

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Advantages of Cloud Computing

• Instant software updates
• Another advantage is that cloud computing is that
  you are no longer faced with choosing between
  obsolete software and high cost upgrades.
• When you access a web-based application, you get
  the latest version - without needing to pay for
  or download an upgrade.
• Unlimited storage capacity
• Cloud computing offers virtually limitless
  storage.
• Your computer's current 200 Gbyte hard drive is
  small compared to the hundreds of Pbytes
  available in the cloud.
• Whatever you need to store, you can.

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Disadvantages of Cloud Computing

• Requires a constant Internet connection
• You need a decent Internet connection!
• A dead Internet connection means no work and in
  areas where Internet connections are few or
  inherently unreliable, this could be a
  deal-breaker.
• When you are offline, cloud computing simply does
  not work.
• 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.
• In other words, cloud computing is not for the
  broadband-impaired!

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Disadvantages of Cloud Computing

• Stored data might not be secure
• With cloud computing, all your data is stored
  remotely.
• Can un-authorised users gain access to your
  confidential data?
• Cloud providers say that data is secure, but it
  is too early to be completely sure of that.
• Data can be lost
• Theoretically, data stored in the cloud is safe,
  but it should be replicated across multiple
  systems.
• 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.

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Disadvantages of Cloud Computing

• HPC Systems
• Not clear that you can run compute-intensive HPC
  applications that use MPI/OpenMP!
• Scheduling is important with this type of
  application as you want all the VM to be
  co-located to minimise communication latency!
• General Concerns
• Each cloud systems uses different protocols and
  different APIs so it may not be possible to run
  applications between cloud based systems.
• Amazon has created its own DB system (not SQL
  92), and workflow system (many popular workflow
  systems out there) so your normal applications
  will have to be adapted to execute on these
  platforms.

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Issues that need to be Understood!

• An architectural view of the systems and a good
  understanding of the services that are provided,
  as well as the protocols that are used.
• Knowledge about capacity planning and resource
  allocation mechanisms.
• Security including the technologies, policies and
  mechanisms used, and issues related to the
  possession and ownership of data.
• The use of virtualization and the abilities to
  use legacy and new applications on these VMs.
• Potential use of fault-tolerance mechanisms to
  provide reliable applications failure could be
  a disaster for ones applications!

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Issues that need to be Understood!

• Knowledge about the distributed programming
  abstractions that can be used, plus information
  about the types of applications executed, ranging
  from simple client/server through to
  sophisticated HPC applications
• Can these systems efficiently run MPI, OpenMP and
  threads?
• Information about application development and the
  potential for debugging and profiling on these
  systems.
• Scheduling is an important feature
• It is essential to ensure that applications are
  co-located together to reduce latency and
  increase bandwidth.
• Monitoring and logging capabilities to help
  understand application performance, resource use,
  failures, faults bottlenecks and other potential
  problems low overheads too!

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Issues that need to be Understood!

• Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and Quality of
  Service (QoS) agreements, are needed so that the
  resources reserved, provided and the services are
  assured.
• Need to create a range of benchmarks that can be
  used to help assess the performance and potential
  scalability of Cloud-based systems.
• Inter-operability needs to be assessed and
  addressed because it will be clear that users may
  want to execute their applications on or across
  multiple cloud systems.
• Green IT on clouds where applications and the
  infrastructure can be optimised to minimise
  energy consumption.
• Information about storage, information
  preservation and back-ups.

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The Future

• Many of the activities grouped together under
  clouds have already been happening and
  centralised computing activity is an increasing
  phenomena.
• Grid Computing is dying off fast applications
  are more important than middleware!
• However, there are concerns that the mainstream
  adoption of using cloud-based system can
  potentially cause problems for users.
• Need in-depth reviews about the capabilities,
  components, security and implications of clouds.
• Many new open source systems appearing that you
  can install and run on your local cluster
  should be able to run a variety of applications
  on these systems not clear HPC applications are
  appropriate yet!

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Questions?