Cloud Computing

Computing in a Virtual World

Cloud computing is an innovative technology platform that has the potential to

transform how IT services are delivered and managed. Offering the promise of
computing as a utility, Cloud computing is a fresh approach that offers significant
cost savings, diminished IT complexity, and increased flexibility in managing IT and
responding to market changes. Unlike many technologies, cloud computing has
evolved in response to customer needs and builds on established trends for driving
the cost out of the delivery of services while increasing the speed and agility with
which services are deployed.
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If we look at it from one perspective, cloud computing The cloud model promotes availability and is
offers nothing new as it uses approaches, concepts, composed of five essential characteristics, three
and best practices that have already been established service models, and four deployment models.
and used in different forms. From another
perspective, the whole concept is new because cloud Cloud Computing - Essential
computing completely changes how organizations Characteristics
invent, develop, deploy, scale, update, maintain, and
Enhanced Flexibility
pay for applications and the infrastructure on which
they run. Cloud computing offers elasticity i.e., ability to scale
resources up and down as needed. The cloud
The adoption rate of cloud computing is soaring.
appears to be infinite to the consumer giving the
Today 30% of respondents to a survey conducted by
flexibility to purchase as much or as little computing
CIO Research said they are already using cloud
power as needed.
computing. By 2012, 80% of Fortune 1000
enterprises will pay for cloud computing service, and Measured Service
30% will pay for a cloud-computing infrastructure,
according to Gartner Research. In a measured service, different parts of the cloud
service are controlled and monitored by the cloud
Defining Cloud Computing provider. This is crucial for billing, access control,
resource optimization, capacity planning, and other
According to The National Institute of Standards and
tasks.
Technology's (NIST) Information Technology
Laboratory - 'Cloud computing is a model for On-Demand Self-Service
enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a
shared pool of configurable computing resources The on-demand and self-service aspects of cloud
(e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and computing mean that a consumer can use cloud
services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released services i.e., network storage, server time as needed
with minimal management effort or service provider without any human interaction with the cloud
interaction.' provider.

Gartner defines Cloud Computing as 'a style of Wide Network Access

computing where massively scalable IT-related
capabilities are provided 'as a service' across the This means that the cloud provider’s capabilities are
Internet to multiple external customers.’ available over the network and can be accessed
through standard mechanisms by both thick and thin
Today, Cloud computing has taken on multifaceted clients.
definitions. For the line-of-business executive, cloud
computing is a buyer-centric view of technology in Resource Pooling
which applications are available through purchase,
Resource pooling allows a cloud provider to serve its
2 rental, or development (Software as a Service). For
the Chief Financial Officer (CFO), the cloud offers an consumers via a multi-tenant model. Physical and
approach to consume technology in a virtual resources are assigned and reassigned
pay-as-you-go model (utility computing) that delivers according to consumer demand. There is a sense of
the cost benefits of variable pricing without a costly location independence in that the customer generally
investment in hardware. And for the CIO, cloud has no control or knowledge over the exact location
computing provides a comprehensive virtualization of the provided resources but may be able to specify
model for technology that stretches from location at a higher level of abstraction (e.g., country,
infrastructure design through application testing and state, or data center).
delivery Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).
Cloud Computing - Deployment Models Public Cloud

Private Cloud The cloud infrastructure is made available to the

general public or a large industry group and is owned
The cloud infrastructure is operated solely for an by an organization selling cloud services (as shown in
organization (as shown in Figure 1 below). It may be Figure 3 below).
managed by the organization or a third party and may
Figure 3
exist on premise or off premise.

Figure 1

Hybrid Cloud

Community Cloud The cloud infrastructure is a composition of two or

more clouds (private, community, or public - as
The cloud infrastructure is shared by several shown in Figure 4 below) that remain unique entities
organizations and supports a specific community that but are bound together by standardized or proprietary
has shared concerns (e.g., mission, security technology that enables data and application
requirements, policy, and compliance considerations). portability (e.g., cloud bursting for load-balancing
It may be managed by the organizations or a third between clouds).
party and may exist on premise or off premise (As
Figure 4
shown in Figure 2 below).

Figure 2

3
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The Three Service Models of Cloud may need to move the application to a more
Computing enterprise-oriented hosting environment.

(Refer Figure 5 and Table 1) Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) The consumer uses ‘fundamental computing

resources’ such as processing power, storage,
The consumer uses an application, but does not networking components or middleware. The
control the operating system, hardware or network consumer can control the operating system, storage,
infrastructure on which it’s running. The provider deployed applications, and possibly networking. The
installs, manages, and maintains the software. The provider maintains the storage, database, message
provider does not necessarily own the physical queue or other middleware, or the hosting
infrastructure in which the software is running. environment for virtual machines. The consumer uses
Regardless, the consumer does not have access to that service as if it were a disk drive, database,
the infrastructure; they can access only the message queue, or machine, but they cannot access
application. the infrastructure that hosts it.

Enterprise potential: Enterprise potential:

Already established. This is the most mature cloud- Growing acceptance. As the demand for computing
based service model. SaaS is targeted at enterprises increases, larger amounts of processing power and
looking to gain efficiencies by standardizing certain data storage are required to support important
functions (customer relationship management [CRM], enterprise applications. Organizations are realizing
payroll, and other accounting functions) on a that an innovative model of computing will be
common software platform that can be delivered necessary to manage this vast information
through the cloud. SaaS is a good option for infrastructure. IaaS offers increasingly widespread
enterprise applications that don’t require a great deal appeal because it creates a shared pool of resources
of customization. that can be allocated on demand to any application
as needed by the enterprise. This approach also
Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)
supports pay-per-use or measured usage billing
model, more closely matching the cost to what a
The consumer uses a hosting environment for their
business may require.
applications. The consumer controls the applications
that run in the environment (and possibly has some
Figure 5
control over the hosting environment), but does not
control the operating system, hardware or network
infrastructure on which they are running. The platform
is typically an application framework. The provider
manages the cloud infrastructure for the platform,
typically a framework for a particular type of
4
application. The consumer’s application cannot
access the infrastructure underneath the platform.

Enterprise potential:

Growing acceptance. PaaS was originally targeted at

independent developers who didn’t have the
resources to build and manage their own data
centers. Enterprise developers are finding these tools
to be useful up to the point of deployment, when they
Table 1

The Pay-as-you-Use Model - Utility a few minutes or hours, or it may exist to provide
Computing services to customers on a long-term basis.

The pay-as-you-use model of cloud computing or The ability to use and pay for only the resources used
utility computing is an extension of established trends. shifts the risk of how much infrastructure to purchase
From an enterprise perspective, utility computing or from the organization developing the application to
the pay-as-you-go model supports the performance the cloud provider.
and capacity aspects of service-level objectives.
Benefits of Utility Computing
Utility computing allows organizations to create
flexible environments that can be expanded and
The benefits go beyond reduced capital costs and
contracted based on the workload and target
operating costs. Utility computing can deliver more
performance factors.
efficient business operations, improve the
responsiveness of IT to changing business needs,
Virtualization is a key feature of this model.
and reduce the complexities of managing IT, from
Virtualization allows organizations to quickly and
sourcing to integration to upgrades and maintenance.
easily create copies of existing environments -
sometimes involving multiple virtual machines - to Short-term Benefits
support test, development, and staging activities. The
cost of these environments is minimal because they For those companies and IT departments that are
can coexist on the same servers as production ready and willing to embrace utility computing, short-
environments because they use few resources. term benefits (in 12 months or less) can be gained.
For example, these are some possible short-term
Cloud computing extends this trend through benefits: 5
automation. Instead of negotiating with an IT
organization for resources on which to deploy an Leveraging next-generation technologies
application, utility computing offers a Spreading IT costs over the lifetime of a project or
self-service proposition where compute cycles can be application
purchased, and a web interface or API is used to Aligning IT infrastructure costs with revenue stream and
create virtual machines and establish network business growth
relationships between them. Instead of requiring a Obtaining tailored solutions delivered via a secure, end-
long-term contract for services with an IT organization to-end architecture
or a service provider, clouds work on a pay-by-use Simplifying IT and operating with greater efficiency
model where an application may exist to run a job for
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Transforming IT from a fixed operating expense to a power gives organizations the freedom to adjust
variable one (probably the greatest benefit of all) capacity up and down with the natural cycles of
business and pay for these as per
Figure 6 their need. Resources can be added,
Pay-as-you-go Services Adoption Leading Utility Computing turned off, or reassigned whenever
necessary. The cloud eliminates the
need for ‘over-provisioning’ and the
unnecessary hardware, software,
maintenance, and electricity costs it
incurs.

Better business support

The advantages of cloud computing

are especially clear when looked at
from a business perspective. By
reducing the time and effort required
to launch new applications, cloud
computing helps IT become more
responsive to the pace and dynamic
nature of business.

For IT, deploying a new business

application is a major undertaking.
Without sufficient time to assemble
the necessary resources (human and
financial), IT becomes a bottleneck
to projects that could benefit the
business. Applications supported by
the cloud don’t require the
deployment of a large infrastructure
at the customer’s location, which
Long term Benefits dramatically reduces the upfront commitment of
resources. New applications can be approved and
Efficiency and cost control
deployed more quickly, making it easier to satisfy the
In the modern world, organizations need to provide needs of business managers throughout the
consistent, reliable access to internal applications, organization.
external websites, and customer portals. In a
Lower cost of entry
traditional computing environment, this creates the
6
need to build and maintain redundant systems, which There are a number of attributes of cloud computing
can be expensive and difficult to manage. In cloud that help to reduce the cost to enter new markets:
computing, this function is moved to the cloud, where
service providers can leverage economies of scale to Since infrastructure is rented, not purchased, the
provide a highly reliable platform with greater cost cost is controlled, and the capital investment can
and management efficiency. be almost nil. In addition to the lower costs of
purchasing compute cycles and storage ‘as per
For most organizations, the most appealing feature of use,’ the massive scale of cloud providers helps to
cloud computing is the flexible capacity it offers. minimize cost, helping to further reduce the cost of
Access to large amounts of scalable computing entry
Applications are developed more by assembly than Immaculate Planning and Vendor
programming. This rapid application development Selection is the key to success
is the norm, helping to reduce the time to market,
potentially giving organizations deploying A successful cloud implementation will ride on
applications in a cloud environment a head start matching the company’s needs with the service
against the competition provider’s capabilities. There is no
one-size-fits-all implementation strategy; the
Stronger IT focus installation will be unique to each individual business.
Before choosing a service provider, an organization
Cloud computing creates an opportunity for IT must consider how long the service provider has
departments to change their focus from deploying been in business, review available financials to
and supporting applications to managing the services assess health and viability, and carefully examine the
that those applications provide. By transferring the provider’s record of service offerings.
responsibility for monitoring and maintenance
activities to a third party, the IT department can focus Cloud computing will be the driving force behind the
more on high-value activities that align with and next wave of technology innovation. However, it’s
support the business goals of the enterprise. Instead also a sound business strategy that enables
of being primarily reactive and operations-focused, organizations to adopt better financial management
the Chief Information Officer (CIO) can function more practices and creates a more sustainable, cost-
as a technology strategist, working with business efficient model for supporting IT services. While valid
units to understand their business needs and advising concerns exist, they can be managed with proper
them on how best to use technology to accomplish planning. Detailed planning can help determine when
their objectives. and how an organization should move its IT
infrastructure to the cloud. Careful evaluation of
Competitive advantage leads to business
vendors can help an organization select a service
agility
provider whose solution is enterprise ready in key
Cloud computing allows organizations to deliver areas such as security, availability, and control.
highly-scalable and reliable applications more quickly
Conclusion
and cost effectively. This yields tremendous
advantage for organizations that depend on or benefit With its convenient, on-demand model for network
from large-scale applications. With cloud-based access to a shared pool of configurable computing
applications in place, these enterprises are freed to resources, cloud computing is rapidly emerging as a
deliver new products to their customers more rapidly. viable alternative to traditional approaches. Costs are
Because they are able to ‘think big,’ unencumbered being significantly reduced, along with personnel time
by the constraints of scale, they are also able to spent on computing issues. Storage availability
make better business decisions by applying increases, high automation eliminates worries about
sophisticated analyses to the wealth of data available keeping applications up to date, and flexibility and
within them. mobility are heightened, allowing organizations to
access information anytime, anywhere. 7
At the same time, the dramatic reduction in the
complexity of the IT environment, the reduced Cloud computing can be rapidly provisioned and
provisioning times, and the ability to shift the released with minimal management effort or service
allocation of cloud resources in response to changing provider interaction. Ultimately, with its offering of
market conditions creates a more flexible IT scalable, real-time, internet-based information
organization and a more agile enterprise. And technology services and resources, the cloud can
because the enterprise is empowered to align IT satisfy the computing needs of a universe of users,
infrastructure investments with project benefits, without the users incurring the costs of maintaining
overall risk is reduced and the enterprise is able to the underlying infrastructure.
invest in more strategic initiatives.
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The Netmagic Cloud 2.0 - How can we instances by the hour if that’s what suits your
help you get started? requirements, thus enabling TRUE on-demand or
utility computing. Currently Netmagic’s Cloud 2.0 is
Netmagic Solutions is India’s leading Managed IT only available for the Microsoft Windows platform.
Service Provider, specializing in Internet Data Linux compatibility will be added shortly.
Centers, Managed Hosting, IT Infrastructure &
Security Management, Cloud Computing, Application Unlike other providers, Netmagic’s Cloud 2.0 allows
Hosting, Messaging & Collaboration and Availability you to scale your instances up and down by adding
Services. extra CPU and Memory, and then removing those
elements when you don’t need them. You can also
Netmagic’s Cloud 2.0 is a world-class ‘Compute- expand your Disk capacity and upgrade operating
within-the-Cloud’ offering. With Netmagic Cloud 2.0, systems when you are creating your instances.
we enable online provisioning, management and pay-
as-you-use model for IT Infrastructure via the web, Our customers can choose from a fixed monthly
anytime, anyplace. billing plan with virtually no variable cost component
or an elastic plan where they can pay per hour based
Netmagic Cloud 2.0 enables you to login via a secure on their usage.
web interface and Register yourself as a customer,
create your virtual instances, and manage them on The Billing Plans
the fly. Cloud 2.0 allows you complete online control
Netmagic’s Cloud 2.0 services are split into ‘Fixed’
of your virtual instances in real-time-you can now
plans and ‘Elastic’ plans. You can configure your VMs
create, start, stop, edit, and shutdown your Virtual
as either Fixed or Elastic plans, or have a combination
Servers (or ‘Instances’) using a simple and secure
of them if you need multiple instances.
web interface. You can also pay for your virtual

Netmagic’s Cloud Offerings For customers who opt for Enterprise

Cloud from Netmagic, we provide the
complete hardware and managed
virtualization platform. Our virtualized IT
infrastructure can be configured and re-
configured ‘on-demand’ depending on
our customer’s needs.

Netmagic Solutions can also enable a

Hybrid Cloud offering for its customers
where they can use public cloud as “flex
capacity” to support their private cloud
infrastructure. This is especially useful
when large projects come online, shift
8 locations, or undergo other transitions.
Our Public Cloud offerings - Netmagic Public Public cloud services may supplement an
Cloud 2.0 enables our customers to make use of organization’s internal capacity to ensure that IT
our hardware and infrastructure for hosting their services are not a bottleneck to completing a
mission critical applications without having to revenue-generating project on schedule.
invest a huge amount in buying the same. Our Our Cloud offerings have many upgraded features
defined and stringent SLA’s ensure that our including the unique option for making offline
customers can depend upon our cloud IT payments for usage. Our postpaid offline payment
infrastructure with the same confidence and options for enterprises enable them to make offline
assurance that they would have on any physical IT payment in Indian Rupees with the added benefit
infrastructure at their end. of tax deducted at source (TDS).
Fixed Plans Figure 8

Fixed plans are recommended for customers who’s

requirements are more stable than elastic. Fixed Plans
provide stable monthly billing at a flat fee (As shown
in Figure 7 below). Customers can choose a base
plan, modify it (in terms of CPU, RAM, or Disk) if
needed, and pay a flat fee for this ‘always-on’
Instance. Once activated, the plan is metered at a flat
fee. Upgrades are activated at the next billing cycle.

Figure 7

The Grid is also protected by carrier-grade firewalls.

Service Level Agreement with Netmagic

Cloud 2.0

Netmagic offers an industry leading committed

uptime of 99.95%, but unlike other providers who
base this on a trailing yearly period, Netmagic’s
commitment of 99.95% is based on a trailing monthly
period. With Netmagic’s 99.95% commitment on a
monthly trailing period, however, if our service is
unavailable for more than only twenty-two minutes at
Elastic Plans
a stretch, service credits will apply.

Elastic Plans are usage-based plans that are

References:
recommended for customers who may not need
continuous 24x7, ‘always-on’ instances. The Elastic Cloud Computing Use Cases by Cloud Computing
Plans offer flexibility through an hourly charge for the Use Case Discussion Group
duration that Instances are ‘On’ (As shown in Envisioning the Cloud: The Next Computing Paradigm
Figure 8). Customers can control their Instances using by Jeffrey F. Rayport and Andrew Heyward
the Web Interface- billing will only occur when your Security Among The Cloud - Pricewaterhouse
instances are ‘On’. Additional CPUs and RAM can Coopers
9
also be contracted on an hourly basis.

Security in Netmagic Cloud 2.0

Netmagic’s entire Cloud Grid is protected with the

most stringent levels of security and redundancy. Our
infrastructure is hosted in our state-of-the-art Internet
Data Centres with N+N Redundancy on Power,
Cooling, and Servers. Grid nodes are also protected
down to a modular level with maximum redundancy.