Cloud Computin

Cloud computing has become a heated topic in recent years. Some asserted that it may reshape the whole IT industry. By definition, Cloud computing refers applications and services shared over internet. There are mainly three types of services, Software as a Service (SaaS), Infrastructure as Service (IaaS) and Platform form as a Service (PaaS). But the SaaS is more individual customers-oriented while IaaS and PaaS mainly target corporate users.

The prospect of Cloud computing is appealing, which is illustrated in the paper “ A view of Cloud Computing”. From a hardware provider’s perspective, three virtues could be capitalized with cloud computing: 1. Providers don’t need to plan beforehand for provisioning since there are infinite computing resources available 2. Providers can save significant start-up costs 3. Providers could pay in a more elastic manner (pay-as-you-go). To match the workload during peak hours, it is common that providers overprovision hardware resources. This lead to a startling low level of average server utilization rate in data centers between 5% and 20%. The huge variation between peak and trough underlies a significant resources waste. Fortunately, this could be resolved with cloud computing. With cloud computing providers’ ability to add or remove resources within a few minutes, companies could simply make a request for more servers when spikes hit instead of purchasing more hardware up-front. This is critical to entrepreneurs because user load is unpredictable. An example is Animoto who made its service available via Facebook, the amount of servers required tripled within 3 days. Failure to scale up with users demand could result in company going out of business.

There are also critical challenges and opportunities being face with Cloud computing. Potential users are concerned with the reliability and availability in the event of company failure or outages. One plausible solution would be price premium and more reliable service at...