With regard to services, at the present time, the concept of cloud computing involves the provision of the following types of services to its users:

Everything as a Service : This type of service is provided to all users of the software and hardware to control the business processes, including the interaction between users, the user only needs to have access to the Internet.

In my opinion, this kind of service is a general concept with respect to the services. Below mentioned are some of the more special cases.

Infrastructure as a Service : The computing infrastructure is given to the user, typically virtual platforms (PCs) connected to the network. It adjusts itself to suit your purpose.

Platform as a Service : The computing platform is given to the user, with the operating system and required software.

Software as a Service : This type of service is usually positioned as “software on demand“, this software is deployed on remote servers and the user can access it via the Internet, and all updates and licenses for this software is governed by the service provider. Payment in this case is made for actual use of the software.

Hardware as a Service : In this case, the user of the service leases the hardware for his own purposes. This option allows you to save on maintenance of the equipment, but in essence little different from “Infrastructure as a Service” except that you have the bare hardware on which you can deploy your own infrastructure using the most appropriate software.

Workplace as a Service : In this case, the company is using cloud computing for the organization of employment of its employees by setting up and installing the necessary software required to operate personnel.

Data as a Service : The main idea of this type of service lies in the fact that the user is provided with storage space, which may be used to store large amounts of information.

Security as a Service : This type of service enables users to quickly deploy, allowing products to ensure the safe use of Web technologies security of electronic communications, as well as the safety of the local system, which allows users of the service to save on deploying and maintaining their own security system.

To maintain the technology infrastructure at home is a decision being reconsidered by the companies, particularly small and medium-sized. Apparently, the computing power is no longer attached to a box, and has jumped into the clouds. The investment in solutions for the data center is high and pay per use is very attractive. This is an important lever in the model of public cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS).

This year, growth will be even greater. The average expansion year after year is 64%, which has hooked more users so far.

In addition, 41% believe that infrastructure as a service model will be growing more in the coming years. IaaS will reach maturity in the next two years, but must go through a phase of cultural change to take off. There are vendors that point cloud as a form of outsourcing. But it is not. It takes a break from that thought.

The difference lies in customization. Cloud mass is the solution that is equal for all, not outsourcing. That’s why cloud is half of the value of outsourcing. Another point of attention in the industry is in relation to the offer. While security is still pointed out by companies and analysts as a red alert for the adoption of cloud.

Today, we have more than 33,000 customers worldwide, including users of dedicated servers, cloud computing, e-commerce and etc. The offer we have today is focused on large companies and have service level agreements that monitor downtime, response time, etc. However, the use of public cloud is still low, but the trend for the next year should be a combination of private and public cloud.

We believe in the growth of hybrid clouds. It includes mobility products, software, service, and we are increasingly following the path as a service. In November 2011, we launched eNlight Cloud Computing Solution that deliver Cloud Computing Services around the world.

The topic cloud computing, still demands a lot of debate and conflicting opinions, it is already becoming reality. Every day we see the ecosystem built around cloud computing and to consolidate, more and more success stories are published.

I will not quote statistics and forecasts that always come from industry analysts, who provide these stats and estimates agree with each other in numbers.

The three layers of cloud, IaaS, PaaS and SaaS can be viewed as a hierarchy, where the lower layer has IaaS, above it we have the top SaaS and PaaS. The upper layers are built upon the layers below. The benefits obtained are directly related to the layer. That is, the higher the layer, the greater the potential benefits. IaaS can be considered as the commoditized layer, as it basically provides a virtual infrastructure, the users are abstracting the physical equipment. But offers no content. SaaS, in turn, enables a higher level of abstraction, because the User sees only the features of the software without needing to know what technology it uses and need not even bother with version upgrades.

The most emblematic example is the force.com that lets you create applications that extend the functionality of the salesforce. We will see later PaaS is consolidating itself, with its own technologies, separate from SaaS vendors. This will happen with maturity in the use of cloud services, when companies use the SaaS PaaS coupled to identify who will be imprisoned on these platforms.

But it is indisputable that we are still learning to exploit the potential of cloud computing and we will learn much more in the coming years. The first projects have been exploratory, which is natural. What we will see this year? Clouds filled with typical workloads to be outsourced via SaaS and on-premise applications transferred to IaaS clouds. But, although limited in their impact, are paving the way for the full adoption of the model. In fact, the cycles of technological change takes take several years to mature in 2020 and probably cloud computing is commonplace. But if this will happen in 2020, the first steps should be taken now in 2012. Cloud computing is a reality now and should already be on the radar of the IT managers of all firms.

Less well-known technologies like IaaS, PaaS and SaaS, the DaaS or Desktop as a Service, opens the way for a new generation of working environment uncorrelated positions and physical devices.

1. What is behind the acronym DaaS?

Acronym Desktop as a Service (or work environment seen as a service), the DaaS is part of the family of bricks supplied as computer services, alongside the IaaS-Infrastructure as a Service, the PaaS-Platform as a Service, and SaaS-Software as a Service. The DaaS is to deport the management and delivery of work environments (but sometimes applications) in the Cloud Computing.

2. The DaaS is it totally paperless?

Indeed. In this model it comes to providing a work environment (including both the OS, applications, and also the parameters and user preferences) on demand. This is totally uncorrelated from the terminal on which it will be displayed. Thus, a working environment like DaaS will also be distributed on traditional workstations (PCs, laptops), on a smartphone or a tablet.

3. What is the point of DaaS?

It is equivalent to that of the IaaS, PaaS and SaaS. The DaaS avoids the company to acquire assets (servers in the case of IaaS, software in the case of SaaS) recorded in the balance sheet in the form of requiring CAPEX and depreciation. It can instead be accounted for as operating expenses, thus providing flexibility for the accountant (OPEX).

4. What are the differences between the DaaS infrastructure and virtualized desktops (VDI)?

Chronologically, the concept of VDI is before DaaS that appeared over the last three years. As part of an offer to DaaS, the virtualized environment of work is provided by an operator or third party vendor responsible to host, manage and integrate the applications desired by the company. They will be provided in a secure manner from a multi-tenant Cloud, in the form of a subscription to the use of work environments.

For its part, the VDI (for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure ) is a virtualization technology designed to allow the company to virtualize its own working environments, in its own data center for example.

5. The future is in the DaaS?

In the same way that the is software provided on request in the form of services, work environment “as a Service” are required to grow strongly by various research firms, including IDC. If only because they are an opportunity for the company to better control costs and to refocus on business. In addition, unlike the traditional VDI or deployment in workstations, the time of implementation is also very short, which of course will interest companies.

Objectives of any business can be achieved through excellent customer service and different types of services are provided by following Cloud Service Models:

1. SaaS (Software as a Service):

A software release model, SAAS is hosted centrally in the cloud along with its allied data and can be accessible through users by means of web a browser. SaaS is also referred as “on-demand software”. For many business applications such as, accounting, collaboration, customer relationship management, business enterprise resource planning, human resource management, content management and service desk management etc, SaaS becomes a general delivery model.

Usually the term SaaS can be precisely used where most of the initial application service providers focus on managing and hosting third-party independent software vendors who are capable enough to build up and run individual software. Also by means of currently used software architecture, cloud computing service providers make a separate instance of an application mandatory for each business, so, to design an application in view of providing multiple businesses and users with corresponding partitioning of data, a multi-tenant architecture as a service solution has been utilized by existing web-based software.

2. PaaS (Platform as a Service):

Using a Cloud service model called as PAAS, applications can be used effortlessly, exclusive of any complication regarding the cost and management of the required hardware and software. As PaaS supports the complete life cycle of building and delivering web applications and services by facilitating design, development, testing, deployment and hosting itself.
Services like team collaboration, web service integration and marshalling, database integration, security, scalability, storage, persistence, state management, facilitation of developer community, application versioning and instrumentation, etc. might be provisioned as an integrated solution over the web.

All these facilities permit customization of the existing SaaS applications which is comparable to the facility of packaged software applications such as Microsoft Word. But, every time developers and users of PaaS need to subscribe SaaS applications, in view of developing a comprehensive environment, stand-alone PaaS environment has been proposed which is free from any type of technical, licensing or financial dependencies based on specific SaaS applications or web services. Still, some PaaS  applications require improvement in the development, debugging and testing capabilities to provide hosting-level services such as security and on-demand scalability etc.

In PaaS, under the concept of Open platform as a service, developers can use any programming language, database, operating system and server too.

3. IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service):

To release infrastructure as a fully outsourced service, IaaS is a capital investment-sourced model. As by means of IaaS, all the resources like servers, software licenses, data center space and network equipment etc can be purchased by clients as fully outsourced service only. Hence concerning the customer’s significant project, IaaS through a dedicated hosting environment is the most stout, safe and sound policy.

Advantages of IaaS:

1. Dynamic scaling: capability of scaling up and down the various resource aspects in close to real time, according to varying business requirements.

2. Usage-based pricing: This strategy of IAAS helps customers in purchasing the precise infrastructure which may be required at any particular time by ensuring “just pay for what you use”.

3. Reduced capital and personnel costs: Reduced in-house infrastructure considerably eliminates capital expenditures and enduring cost for workforce and enables any organization to concentrate on core competencies in view of developing and filtering market product offerings more willingly than purchasing hardware accessories.

4. Access to superior IT resources: Unaffordable Enterprise-grade IT infrastructure and engineering resources become accessible to IaaS users.

1. Business value:

Flexibility and ability of matching the cost of the service to the consumption, differentiates cloud computing from other internet services and though critical, this feature creates a new value for business services and enables to develop new business models which have never been tried till now, as Cloud is not a kind of resource expense which can be replaced by means of working costs.

2. Service deployment:

The strength of cloud computing is instantaneous output, as customers can get service within a few minutes only.  But, payment has not been done instantly all the way through typical manual itself.

3. Self-service deployment:

Spontaneous and well defined service provided by cloud computing, can be utilized independently by customers.
All these core fundamentals imply a fully automated service provisioning and for the consumer it means, “Service is in your hand take or leave it!”

Cloud computing, as a service in the form of “IAAS (Infrastructure as a Service)” and “PAAS (Platform as a Service)” by means of Infrastructure and Platform, are evolutionary steps to change its deployment model and the business value in very thoughtful ways. As cloud computing is a completely new part of IT portfolio, just washing up the pre-existing services with a cloud doesn’t make any sense. It’s very important to focus on the things that make cloud computing, original and distinctive in every way.

Now a days as a part of a rapid growth, the traditional concept has been replaced by on-demand service, and that’s why, genuine prospective of SaaS (Software as a Service), has been not fulfilled in a proper way. As in fact, existing products are simply rebranded or just repackaged by vendors.

Similarly, to profit from the wave of cloud computing, pre existing features of cloud computing have been rebranded without any proper functionality. To do this all, concept of Cloud washing is implemented by vendors to convince decision-makers of any business or IT industry that how his strategy is useful to maintain swiftness with the latest innovations in the marketplace. Still, due to a few factors that are lacking, strategy of cloud washing has not been fully implemented yet.

For all industrial applications based on Cloud environment its very beneficial to implement the concept of Cloud scalability. For effective functioning, cloud needs to be designed with provision of everlasting abstract scalability which can be controlled by service, if included in an architecture of cloud based application.  Thus, the service itself manipulates a scalable architecture design of an application, this is why Cloud based application essentially requires scalable architecture design.

NOTE: Cloud infrastructure provides an unbounded scalability.

Requirements of a strictly scalable application as follows:

1. Automatic enhancement of resources derived from demand
2. Operationally competent enough while scaling up and down
3. Safe service
4. Fault tolerant.

Types of Cloud Computing Services Models:

As a part of business objectives, customer service can be provided by means of Cloud Service Models. Basically there are three types of Cloud Service Models as follows:

1. SaaS (Software as a Service)
2. PaaS (Platform as a Service)
3. IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)

Software as a service (SaaS):

In this type of model, the cloud application is highly controlled by administrative authority and the service Provider is charged for updates, development, maintenance and security. Thus, the service provider controls the final authority over the whole application and the end user is totally free from any service issues.

Example of SaaS is Gmail, where Google is the provider and we are just end users.

SaaS Component Stack and Scope of Control:

Despite of organizations and enterprises, an individual can be a subscriber or user of SaaS.
In most of the cases, calculation of usage fee depends on the number of users.

For example: Google Apps for business, individually charges fees for more than 10 users,
In SAAS, in spite of concentrating on hardware maintenance, infrastructure management, job hiring and retaining etc, center of attention needs to be the business.

Need of SAAS:

In the cloud applications, SAAS can be implemented by means of productivity and collaboration, to make the task a little bit easier for HR, PayRoll and Sales

Cloud based Storage and sharing services like Dropbox, Windows Live, Amazon S3, Google Docs and Box.net etc.

NOTE: Individual use of more than 30 Google Cloud Services is example of SAAS itself.

PaaS (Platform as a Service):

A policy to develop, test and deploy a software is practically known as platform and entire SDLC is operated on a service model called as PAAS. PaaS is dedicated to application developers, testers and administrators. Everything required to build up a cloud SaaS application, is provided by PAAS.

PaaS Component Stack and Scope of Control:

On an average, development environment, programming languages, compilers, testing tools and deployment mechanism etc are included in PaaS.

For example: In Google Apps Engine (GAE), the developer downloads the development environment, locally in the developer’s infrastructure otherwise accesses tools in the provider’s infrastructure through a browser.

Independent Software Vendors, IT Service providers or even individual developers wishing to develop SAAS, can become subscribers of PaaS.

Need of PAAS:

Developer needs to concentrate on just the application development as the platform itself takes care of everything.

IaaS:

A range of of virtual computers, cloud storage, network infrastructure components like firewalls and configuration services etc, is nothing but IaaS.

The System Administrators are the subscribers of this service and by considering per hour CPU utilization, storing of data, network bandwidth and infrastructure consumed respectively, the cost can be added and services can be used.

For example: monitoring, auto-scaling etc.

Fees structure of IAAS depends on all the above mentioned factors and can be calculated by considering each of them.

IaaS Component Stack and Scope of Control:

In case of a newly established company, IAAS can be very useful in launching any application or website.

The term “cloud computing solutions“ has been widely discussed by market researchers and trends in information technology. For many, it means a new technology or even architecture for the consumption of services over the internet. But its significance is much broader, and is not restricted to the use of technology, software, hardware or platform.

When we speak about “cloud”, we are not discussing about a new technology or architecture, but a new form of delivery of information technology to reduce costs, better utilization of resources through rational use and demand.

The pillars of this new form of delivery are determined by the use of structures already known:

SaaS - Way of delivering software as services based on the rental of software through a service provider, the Internet or dedicated connection. Provides streamlined licensing costs of software and support, can be hired for periods of use;

PaaS - Form of delivery of the software development platform through standards. Can manage the entire development cycle, ensuring the testing, approval and entry into production of the product developed. You can also support the operation execution of administrative routines and coordinate updates of the platform;

IaaS - Form of delivery of the hardware platform such as servers, storage, networking and implementation of various other technologies that can provide high availability, scalability and security.

The set of structures that conceptualize cloud computing can provide opportunities for review of business and management processes for a large number of companies. Especially for those who have no budget to invest in solutions with high maintenance costs – due to specialized professionals, new platforms or adequate infrastructure.

The middle market may be one of the main consumers of this model due to the cost of software, the use of management processes and information technology and well-defined business models that can be implemented with low fitness.

For companies that do not clear processes or integration between their applications “cloud” should both improve their business processes to enable performance improvement and analysis, providing visibility. For them, the adoption of solutions and business processes has great impact on performance and results.

The cloud computing is a new delivery model, which determines the rational use of resources and on-demand infrastructure, hardware platform, software and applications.

It seems that this year’s buzzword in the IT sector is the cloud computing or cloud services. We at ESDS Software Solution Pvt. Ltd.,  are working on adding the various cloud services available in India and worldwide, when we get ready, we will announce it here. Until then I will left some things that can help everyone to better understand the state of development of this technology, several articles are written recently on his blog.

Platform as a Service (PAAS) on the Cloud Services: The main idea of a platform as a service is the number of “layers” that gives the developer when building an application on a third party application: not only solves the problem of hardware infrastructure – machines, bandwidth, scalability, availability – but also several layers of software infrastructure.

Infrastructure as a Service (IAAS) in the Cloud Services: the basic idea is that of outsourcing of servers to disk space, database and / or computing time, instead of having complete control of them in the data center,  the company or opt for a data center and only manage it.

eCloud, middleware in Cloud Services : eCloud is not just a product to make a “new middleware in cloud, the idea is to provide opportunities for “private clouds” (who provides the resources that are within the corporate firewall, optimizing depends on demand) .

The problems of Cloud Computing : With several large software companies with products or software-based projects in the cloud, it’s time for taking a look at the uncertainties, risks and shadows that accompany this “new paradigm” for lockin the provider, control, return on investment and centralization among others.

In meteorology there is a detailed classification of clouds, numbering at least 12 species. IT professionals do not lag behind in this regard- they can conventionally distinguish several categories of “cloud services“.  It should be noted that the conventional classification generates a certain amount of confusion in concepts, so it’s important to give at least a brief description of categories.

There are three major types of cloud-based technologies: SaaS; software as a service, PaaS; Platform as a Service and IaaS: infrastructure as a service.

SaaS Model – A lease of the software, which is developed by the service provider, and the user can access it via the Internet. This model allows us to reduce the cost of implementation and maintenance of software. A striking example – popular with the U.S. system of Customer Relationship Management Salesforce.com. Paying for its services in proportion to consumption, you can use the ready business process for working with clients. This completely eliminates the need for costly implementation of the system in operation.

PaaS Model involves the provision of a platform as a service, for example, to develop or test software. Thus, any organization can get the missing computational resources for the development and subsequent operation of their own applications. Google App Engine is one of the leaders in such services.

Finally, in case IaaS as services are provided by the hardware resources (infrastructure). IaaS feature is that, this model consists of three main elements – a hardware component (servers, networking equipment and other), the operating system and middle-ware software to manage the first two components. Such services are in a cloud of ESDS “Data Center“.

From my experience I can say that, from the three models of the cloud on the market, today, IaaS is in demand. Gradually, the demand will grow for other models, but so far IaaS is closer to potential customers. One reason for this phenomenon lies in the fact that “cloud” infrastructure involve the use of virtualization technology, which allows you to create boundaries between different users of the cloud.

This is especially important when it comes to the use of cloud computing for large customers.

In addition to the above types, it is important to distinguish between the “cloud” type property – public clouds and private clouds. So, if the company rents a “cloud” from a third party provider, it works and stores its data in the public cloud. This option is suitable for companies in the sector of small and medium businesses (SMBs), as well as for projects in the initial stages of development (start-up). If the company creates its own data processing center (DPC) or within an existing data center expands ‘cloud’ for the needs of its employees, affiliates, etc., then it is private cloud. The second option is suitable for large companies who are interested in reducing costs to ensure the manageability of the infrastructure and software. Thus, in this case the “cloud” is an excellent way to centralize all the IT systems of large holding. Using a private cloud, the company receives all the benefits of the cloud and thus has the ability to completely control its software and content.

It is important to note that, it is economically feasible to create a “cloud” that is only based on its own infrastructure. They can also extract some benefits from the use of public cloud, for example, in test mode to get acquainted with the proposed business applications in order to make the final decision on the necessity of their implementation in their own information environment.

When we talk about cloud computing, we also talk about the types of clouds that we consume (utilize). You remember the taxonomy to cloud, we presented some more posts ago, here on the blog right? We talked about IaaS, PaaS, SaaS and its services. We talk about the capabilities present in a cloud platform exemplifying its own resources of the Windows Azure platform.

Now I would like to highlight the types of clouds that can work. At this point, we can think of public cloud, private cloud and dedicated cloud computing.

Public cloud services are the offers we have on the general market through providers like Microsoft, Amazon, Salesforce.com, IBM, Google, ESDS, among others. In this type of supply, access is via the internet and share data centers with various companies in the world.

Thinking about a more customized solution, private cloud services can deliver the benefits of dynamic provisioning and economy of scale, leveraging the infrastructure of data centers already invested by the company. Thus, companies that own their own data centers can evaluate the model of virtualization and provisioning with the creation of a private cloud, which is only available to users and enterprise applications. A limitation of this model is that, beyond the scalability, it is limited to the size of the investment already made in own data center, the company remains responsible for the routine administration of physical hardware resources, as well as software development and upgrades needed.

Finally, dedicated clouds can offer the benefits of abstraction in a data center market with the isolation and customization that a company can imagine. This type of offer usually involves security matters, as like local users (on-premise) with the users and applications placed in the cloud and allows integrated scenarios, highly flexible hardware and provisioning for businesses.

From these three sets of clouds, it is natural to think of the clouds by addressing issues of authentication, authorization and security between users of each room booked.