CLOUD COMPUTING: UNLEASHING THE POWER OF THE CLOUD
Compiled by:
WHAT IS CLOUD COMPUTING?
Delivery of computing services over the internet, allowing users to access and utilize a range of resources and applications on demand.
Cloud computing utilizes a network of remote servers hosted on the internet to store, manage and process data.
Services provided by cloud computing involve storage, computation power, databases, networking software and analytics.
HOW DOES CLOUD COMPUTING WORK?
Cloud computing is a revolutionary technology that allows users to access and utilize computing resources over the Internet. It leverages fundamental concepts from computer science to provide on-demand access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources, such as servers, storage, databases, and software applications.
It leverages virtualization, client-server architecture, and various service models to provide users with flexible and scalable access to computing resources via the Internet. This paradigm shift has revolutionized how businesses and individuals leverage technology, offering cost-effectiveness, efficiency, and scalability for their computing needs.
At its core, cloud computing relies on virtualization, which enables the creation of virtual machines (VMs) or containers that mimic physical hardware. These virtual instances can be dynamically provisioned and managed by cloud service providers (CSPs) to meet the varying demands of users at hand.
Cloud computing follows a client-server model. Users access the cloud services through client devices, such as laptops or smartphones, and internet connectivity. Requests transmit to the cloud infrastructure, consisting of data centers equipped with high-performance servers and storage systems.
The cloud infrastructure is responsible for processing and storing the user’s data or running their applications. CSPs ensure reliability, scalability, and security by implementing redundant hardware, load-balancing mechanisms, and data backup strategies.
Additionally, cloud computing offers different service models: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). These models provide varying levels of control and management for users, ranging from managing the entire infrastructure to only focusing on developing and deploying applications.
THE EVOLUTION OF CLOUD COMPUTING
1960’s
One of the renowned names in Computer Science, John McCarthy, enabled enterprises to use expensive mainframes and introduced the whole concept of time-sharing. This turned out to be a huge contribution to the pioneering of the Cloud computing concept and establishment of the Internet.
1969
With the vision to interconnect the global space, J.C.R. Licklider introduced the concepts of “Galactic Network” and “Intergalactic Computer Network” and also developed the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network- ARPANET.
1970
By this era, it was possible to run multiple Operating Systems in isolated environments.
1997
Prof. Ramnath Chellappa introduced the concept of “Cloud Computing” in Dallas.
1999
Salesforce.com started the whole concept of enterprise applications through the medium of simple websites. Along with that, the services firm also covered the way to help experts deliver applications via the Internet.
2003
The Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM), that allows running of multiple virtual guest operating systems on a single device, paved way ahead for other huge inventions.
2006
Amazon also started expanding in cloud services. From EC2 to Simple Storage Service S3, they introduced a pay-as-you-go model, which has become a standard practice even today.
2013
With IaaS, (Infrastructure-as-a-Service), the Worldwide Public Cloud Services Market was totaled at £78bn, which turned out to be the fastest growing market services of that year.
INTERESTING EVENTS THAT HAVE OCCURED IN THE HISTORY OF CLOUD COMPUTING
Facebook was breached sometime before August 2019 with personal data of over 530 million people stolen and posted to a public database. The data included phone numbers, full names, locations, some email addresses, and other details from user profiles. They had to answer to federal regulators to settle a privacy case with the Federal Trade Commission that included a $5 billion penalty paid by the company.
Alibaba
In November of 2019, an attack hit Alibaba’s Chinese shopping website Taobao that impacted more than 1.1 billion pieces of user data. The attack happened over eight months as a Chinese software developer trawled the site, secretly scraping user information until Alibaba noticed what was happening. The stolen data included user IDs, mobile phone numbers, and customer comments. While the hacker didn’t get ahold of encrypted information like passwords, the breach was severe enough that the company notified the police.
Like Alibaba, in 2021, LinkedIn also fell victim to a data scraping breach. Affecting 700 million LinkedIn profiles, the information was primarily public. But the data from the hack was posted on a dark web forum in June of 2021. LinkedIn explained that no sensitive, private data was exposed. The company also made the argument that the incident only violated the company’s terms of service. But a scraped data sample in the dark web post included email addresses, phone numbers, geolocation records, genders, and other social media details.
Marriott International
More than half a million Marriott division Starwood’s guests had sensitive personal information exposed after a September 2018 attack. Following a forensics investigation, the company found that the Starwood network had been compromised sometime in 2014, before Starwood’s acquisition by Marriott. Marriott continued to use the IT infrastructure it had inherited from Starwood, and the consequence of using the outdated technologies most likely resulted in the breach.
WHAT IS BEING DONE TO DEAL WITH THE DOWNSIDES?
Hybrid Cloud Computing has been adopted recently, the combination of private (which is the organization’s own servers and databases) and public cloud computing to simultaneously have the security of sensitive data being in circulation only in private clouds and the more cost-efficient, less sensitive data in the public cloud.
Multiload Computing is another popular strategy, this is where an organization splits its cloud service needs into multiple cloud providers. One cloud service provider use will result in an ecosystem around the provider and the threat of the service providers changing their support requirements or security breaches is a serious concern. Multiload allows the portability of applications in case of problems.
PROBLEMS THAT CLOUD COMPUTING HAS HELPED SOLVE
Reduction in cost
Cloud-based services are available on subscription-basis, which is affordable for businesses who have limited capital. They don’t have to buy physical equipment which reduces the cost of infrastructure.
Increase in Transparency
Users may instantly access the most recent updates and enterprise-class technology and they don’t have to worry about updating manually, which they can use to offer cutting-edge solutions to their own clients.
Benefit for disaster recovery
A wise safety measure in case of emergency is to host systems and store documents in the cloud. Both man-made and natural disasters have the potential to destroy equipment, cut off power, and disable vital IT operations. So, the business can recover data from the cloud.
DANGERS ASSOCIATED WITH CLOUD COMPUTING
Account hacking
Cybercriminals can get login credentials to access sensitive data kept in the cloud and are known to exploit vulnerabilities in network architecture. So, it’s best to frequently change passwords and add passwords which are strong.
CLOUD COMPUTING AND THE FUTURE
With the rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), businesses and individuals are increasingly turning to the cloud to store and manage their data. One of the main reasons for this is that AI-powered data analytics can help to identify patterns and trends that would otherwise be undetectable. In addition, cloud-based AI systems can learn and evolve over time, becoming more effective at processing data.
The future of cloud computing is also closely linked to the Internet of Things. As more and more devices are connected to the internet, the need for reliable, scalable cloud infrastructure will only grow. The IoT will create a huge amount of data that needs to be stored and processed, and the cloud is the perfect platform for this.
MORE TRENDS IN CLOUD COMPUTING
Edge-to-cloud computing. This is where the organization processes, analyses and makes decisions on data that has been generated at the source right after it is generated and sends the processed data to the cloud for further analysis or storage. This is efficient as operations that need real time responses obtain their objective and still have connection to larger data storage/processing in the cloud. This reduces the latency between data generation and data being sent to the cloud.
REFERENCES
Cloud Computing Future: 12 Trends & Predictions About Cloud (knowledgehut.com
Five Business Problems that Cloud Computing can solve (orchestrate.com)
Cloud computing security risks and the common pitfalls (cloudcomputing-news.net)
History & Evolution of Cloud Computing: What to Expect in 2025 (seasiainfotech.com)
https://www.arcserve.com/blog/7-most-infamous-cloud-security-breaches