07-02-2013, 11:33 AM
A Technical Paper Presentation on ARCHITECTURAL STRATEGIES ON CLOUD COMPUTING
A Technical Paper .doc (Size: 722 KB / Downloads: 30)
Abstract:
The term cloud computing refers to the delivery of scalable IT resources over the Internet, as opposed to hosting and operating those resources locally, such as on a college or university network. Those resources can include applications and services, as well as the infrastructure on which they operate. By deploying IT infrastructure and services over the network, an organization can purchase these resources on an as-needed basis and avoid the capital costs of software and hardware. With cloud computing, IT capacity can be adjusted quickly and easily to ac¬commodate changes in demand. While remotely hosted, managed services have long been a part of the IT landscape, a heightened interest in cloud computing is being fueled by ubiquitous networks, maturing standards, the rise of hardware and software virtualiza¬tion, and the push to make IT costs variable and transparent.
Introduction:
Cloud and cloud-like solutions appear to be widespread and growing in higher education, though in relatively focused ar¬eas, such as student e-mail. E-mail notwithstanding, higher educa¬tion institutions are more likely to obtain new services from the cloud than to transition established services that have long been operated by the campus. Many colleges and universities see pock¬ets of cloud service usage in other areas, often led by individual faculty or students looking for the added flexibility and conve¬nience that the cloud can provide. Among the drivers that are encouraging more institutions to contemplate cloud services are budget pressures, calls for increased reliability of and access to IT systems, and the need for institutions to provide timely access to the latest IT functionality.
Organizational Considerations
The successful deployment of clouds within organizations depends on a number of factors--some technical and others organizational. These include:
• The extent of infrastructure standardization among the existing application silos of the current state architecture
• The complexity and degree of customization and integration of the current state architecture.
• The willingness of lines-of-business to share infrastructure instead of “owning their own”
• The extent to which the current state architecture must accommodate legacy systems
• Past experience of the IT department in deploying technologies and concepts critical for clouds, such as standardization, consolidation, virtualization, clustering, and more
• An effective governance structure is required to guide the cloud implementation to meet the business objectives of the organization.
Implementing CloudComputing
All of the architectural and organizational considerations mentioned thus far generally apply to all implementations of a cloud infrastructure. As we focus on building the cloud, a number of models have been developed for deploying a cloud infrastructure.
Private Clouds
In a private cloud, the infrastructure for implementing the cloud is controlled completely by the enterprise. Typically, private clouds are implemented in the enterprise’s data center and managed by internal resources.
A private cloud maintains all corporate data in resources under the control of the legal and contractual umbrella of the organization. This eliminates the regulatory, legal and security concerns associated with information being processed on third party computing resources. Currently, private clouds require Capital Expenditure and Operational xpenditure as well as highly skilled labor to ensure that business services can be met.
Conclusion :
Cloud computing offers real alternatives to IT
departments for improved flexibility and lower cost. Markets are developing for the delivery of software applications, platforms, and infrastructure as a service to IT departments over the “cloud”. These services are readily accessible on a pay-per-use basis and offer great alternatives to businesses that need the flexibility to rent infrastructure on a temporary basis or to reduce capital costs. Architects in larger enterprises find that it may still be more cost effective to provide the desired services in-house in the form of “private clouds” to minimize cost and maximize compatibility with internal standards and regulations. If so, there are several options for future-state systems and technical architectures that architects should consider to find the right trade-off between cost and flexibility. Using an architectural framework will help architects evaluate these trade-offs within the context of the business architecture and design a system that accomplishes the business goal.