Cloud computing in the past and present life and dispel

"The cloud is about all the need for and use of existing processing capabilities and resources." ”

Moore's Law, published by Moore, founder of Intel Partnership, in 1965, predicts that the number of transistors used in a processor will double every two years. The past 40 years have proved the correctness of this law, and the law is likely to remain valid at least 2020 years ago.

If you compare today's typical handheld devices such as IPAD2, its A9 dual-core processor is twice times the Intel Pentium III processor's computing power, which was widely used in the Wintel server in 2000. Today, the new Wintel server is about 40 times times more capable. So what does that mean?

Back to 2000, the case of running a set of Windows server operating systems on each server is typical, and there is one or more applications and services on top of the server. As a result, a company may eventually need multiple servers to provide a full range of IT services, such as AD services, Dhcp/dns services, Microsoft Exchange Mail Services, Microsoft SQL database services, file archiving services, and so on. However, over time and with the rapid increase in processor power, the software industry has not developed at the same speed to give full play to processor power: there is no significant innovative application service software that requires 10 times-or 20 times-fold processor computing power. Therefore, the use of powerful hardware to run a few applications is becoming more and more wasteful, but running multiple applications on a single operating system will create conflicts, virtualization also emerged.

What is virtualization?

Virtualization is simply the ability to have multiple servers on one hardware. By running virtual machine management software on hardware, virtual machines (VMS) provide virtual, independent space for each application and service. Furthermore, the crash of a virtual machine does not cause a chain reaction of other virtual machines. Top virtual platform providers are: Core (VMWare), Jie (Citrix) and Microsoft (Microsoft). Although there are other virtual machine platforms, they are designed for specific operating systems, such as Linux operating systems only, rather than virtual hardware that can run any operating system. The benefits of virtualization are the ability to leverage existing processor resources more fully, reduce the number of hardware enclosures, and reduce footprint, power, and heat.

From virtualization to cloud computing

However, virtualization quickly encounters a design flaw in multiple (virtual machine) to one (hardware). Multiple virtual machines share a single piece of hardware and often require tedious steps to transfer a virtual machine from one piece of hardware to another. A famous saying is that the traditional "one-to-one" is like living in a big house, while the virtualization of "Many-to-many" is like living in an apartment. While living space is more effectively used, you must manage the many tenants living in the apartment to ensure they don't fight each other. As a result, people naturally begin to turn to "Many-to-many", or cloud computing.

In simple terms, multiple virtual machines share the resources of multiple hardware, and these hardware links form a "cloud". There are many different interpretations of the term "cloud computing", such as:

"Internet Computing"-which also includes the private Cloud, because it also uses Internet protocols and technologies.

"Utility computing"--each service is charged according to utility, i.e. the actual resource used. There is also the use of service-oriented architecture (SOA), where customers pay for services rather than for hardware.

Grid computing--the cloud technology here is in the form of an operational distribution of the available resources.

Not "rain" Preparation and Dial "cloud" See Day

The advantages of the cloud

As this interesting schematic shows, "cloud" is the platform, storage, application, desktop, cell phone, and the kitchen sink (Orz ...). A cloud is a service that can contain any or all of these things. You do not need to consider back-end hardware and software when purchasing a service. In other words, it completely eliminates the choice, compare price, purchase, logistics, installation, commissioning, operation, Aging, and upgrade/move steps.

As a user of cloud computing, what you have to ask and ultimately buy is simple: "The services you need, availability, and deliverables." ”

Take the Apple App Store for example:

Customer: Application Provider

Services: Display applications that can be searched, evaluated and purchased by the public

Availability: 24 hours a day, available via the Internet to customers in certain countries

Deliverables: Search and sales data, sales revenue, and customer feedback

Customer: Apple product Owner (IPhone, ipad, etc.)

Service: Use the Apple App Store to find the applications you need, evaluate and feedback

Availability: 24 hours a day, using services over the Internet

Deliverables: Buy, pay after download application, feedback.

So cloud computing can be viewed as the ultimate form of any kind of service (XaaS), including software applications, storage, platforms, infrastructure, desktops, and many it-related products.

Disadvantages of the Cloud

The cloud trend and technology itself have no drawbacks, the problem is that we are in the early stages of cloud computing. This industry needs to be more mature in terms of integration, process, contractual commitment and accountability. In addition, a large number of skilled and experienced personnel (architects, consultants, engineers, operators).

Not only is cloud computing providers at an early stage, but cloud users are at a young stage. I believe that more CIOs (and purchasing departments) in China will be able to fully comprehend the concepts of "service, availability, deliverables" in the future. Cloud computing was just born yesterday (a metaphor), compared to the notion that customers have fully embraced the concept of "service, availability, deliverables".

I would like to point out specifically that cloud computing can be successfully applied only when the terms and responsibilities of the contract are mature. This is important because cloud computing services will not be trustworthy without a viable commitment and legal responsibility in the event of a failure. The customer must obtain the service, availability, delivery commitments under the contract terms recognized by law, and shall be expressly entitled to claim refund, compensation or termination of the contract.

Ready for rain.

Since it's a cloud, you should be prepared for the rain. We saw Amazon Network service failure in April 2011. Amazon Internet service is seen as an early cloud service provided by very famous companies. As a consequence of the disruption of the network, Amazon's customers experienced varying degrees of service disruption. Some are unable to connect for hours on the first day of the failure, or even 24 hours after the failure occurs.

The incident raised concerns about customer control of the cloud (or lack of control) and the need to design a business continuity plan for cloud services.

Some Amazon customers, despite being annoyed by the accident, realize that they may not be able to manage systems and services in their own home without cloud services.

Amazon later announced that an improperly executed change management (changing Management) resulted in network errors and subsequent data processing errors.

I will summarize the need to prepare for preventing cloud service failures as follows:

Have a plan for varying degrees of failure, that is, risk management.

Have a clear business requirement for availability and assess the impact of service disruption on the business (loss of productivity, loss of revenue, loss of reputation).

Has a recovery scenario and a regular Dr failure drill to ensure that the scenario is well executed when the failure occurs. Assess the time required for Dr Activation and whether the DR system is capable of shrinking relative to normal operation.

What can you expect?

Cloud computing is coming and you will be using cloud services in the future. It doesn't matter whether you're already using virtualization technology, although if your system is already virtualized, you'll be more comfortable with the cloud.

Private cloud has higher security and control over resources, but because it serves only a single enterprise, it does not have the benefit of "sharing", thus resulting in higher cost of ownership and operation.

The public cloud has all the benefits, such as "Many-to-many", low-cost and service-oriented. We can expect cloud security to become more mature for big business customers.

When it comes to cloud computing, think of the concepts of "service, availability, deliverables".

The cloud is a platform, storage, application, desktop, cell phone, anything--except the kitchen sink. (Author: Gamutsoft company chief Technical Officer Wei)

(Responsible editor: Liu Fen)