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Tech Primer
Cloud Computing
 The
computing requirements of a typical organization are on the rise. Enterprises
are continuously trying to reduce their computing costs by consolidating their
IT operations. To take this consolidation a step further, a new technology is
on the horizon—Cloud Computing, which will further reduce costs through
improved utilization, reduced administration and infrastructure costs.
Definition
By definition, the term cloud computing is used for both the platform and the
type of application. Cloud computing makes use of servers, physical or virtual,
dynamically when the need arises. This type of computing even makes use of other
resources such as SANs, network equipment, and security devices. It can also
support applications that are accessible through the Internet. These applications
make use of large data centers and powerful servers that host Web applications
and Web services.
Cloud computing environments support grid computing, which can quickly provide
physical and virtual servers on which grid applications can run. It is quite
different from grid computing, which involves dividing a large task into many
smaller tasks that run in parallel on separate servers.
Cloud computing can also support non-grid environments such as a three-tier
Web architecture running standard or Web 2.0 applications.
The Architecture
A typical high-level architecture of a cloud computing platform consists of
a data center, provisioning manager, monitoring server, application server,
and virtualization components. These components serve as the back-end of the
cloud computing environment. Apart from this backend architecture, it even has
a couple of user interfaces to provision servers, one fully loaded, and other
for basic provisioning requests. All requests are handled by Web 2.0 components
deployed on the application server.
Usage
Cloud computing can be used in a variety of areas including internal pilots,
hosting virtual worlds, e-business, social networks, and search. It is possible
to launch and scale up Web 2.0 applications quickly with a cloud architecture.
In the future, cloud computing would be able to solve many management related
issues of organizations and help make the best use of resources available within
an organization.
For further information, visit: www.ibm.com
— Kushal Shah
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