Cloud computing has been flagged as the new way to address IT challenges.
An emerging method of delivering software and hardware as services via the Internet, cloud computing can be either public or private. Each of these has its own benefits, while both provide high efficiency, high availability and elastic capacity.
According to Andrew Sutherland, senior VP of middleware for Oracle EMEA, there are dozens of definitions of what it actually entails, as well as confusion about public and private clouds and how they relate to security, risk and compliance.
Public clouds ensure a lower upfront investment, no infrastructure setup, and minimal management, but not without its security risks, he points out. “On the other hand, private clouds eventually translate into lower total costs, easier integration and greater control to ensure quality of service and data integrity.”
Sutherland says there are a variety of entries on the path to a private cloud infrastructure. “Companies can firstly consolidate and centralise their IT, automate capability management, and create reusable components, or start by enabling a self-service component to drive the establishment of a private cloud,” he adds.
According to Sutherland, a private cloud is an architecture that is centralised, shared, with self-service resources that are internal to the enterprise, allowing departments to efficiently deploy and run applications.
Clouding paths
“Cloud computing consists of three different kinds of services, including software-as-a-service (SaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS), and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), all making up different aspects of the cloud,” says Sutherland.
SaaS refers to applications delivered as an on-demand service to end-users through a browser, he explains. "Some are commercial SaaS applications delivered by public cloud providers, while others are commercial and custom SaaS applications delivered via an enterprise's private cloud.”
IaaS refers to server, storage, and networking hardware delivered as a service, says Sutherland. “This infrastructure hardware is typically virtualised using a grid computing architecture, so virtualisation, clustering and dynamic provisioning software are also included in IaaS.”
PaaS, according to Sutherland, refers to an application development and deployment platform delivered as a service to developers who use the platform to build, deploy and manage SaaS applications.
The platform typically includes databases, middleware and development tools, all delivered as a service via the Internet. A virtualised and clustered grid computing architecture is often the basis for this infrastructure software.
"PaaS provides the best balance between minimising what users build and maximising their flexibility and control of the platform,” he says.
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