Detailed understanding of cloud computing and the classification of three clouds

Cloud computing is arguably the most exciting and disruptive new technology created by the IT industry in the last two decades, and even more disruptive than a mainframe migration to a client or server architecture. Both the delivery model of IT services and the form of these IT services consumed by enterprises have changed because of the birth of cloud computing. Chinese users are also rapidly responding to changes brought about by the new architecture, where I will share with you some thoughts on cloud computing and how Citrix defines various types of cloud computing models.

What is cloud computing and what is not?

Let's start with Gartner's definition of cloud computing: "Gartner believes cloud computing is a form of computing that allows for the delivery of flexible, scalable IT capabilities to external users as 'services' over the Internet."

There are three key words in this definition: scalability, service, and the Internet, so cloud computing is the deployment and delivery of applications over the Internet and can scale as needed. This article extends this definition as many corporate users in China are deploying private clouds, while others deploy hybrid (they use both public and private cloud services in their own data centers).

In short, cloud computing is not what end users buy. In fact, end users should ignore and should not care whether the application is delivered using the cloud. Cloud computing is a new type of application architecture adopted by enterprises for the purpose of lowering infrastructure costs, improving efficiency, and solving capacity / scalability problems.

Here's a small test that can help determine if your business has deployed true cloud computing:

Can end users set up their own infrastructure services or applications without the help of IT staff?

Server, storage and network resources as a resource pool or isolated entity to consider?

Is service and application flexible? Can I automatically expand and order on demand?

Can I automatically track infrastructure or application usage, how much computing power is consumed, and whether I can track individual users or departments one by one?

After knowing what cloud computing is, it's important to emphasize that cloud computing is not what it is.

Cloud computing is not server virtualization. There is an essential difference between the two architectures, technically speaking, running or supporting cloud computing may not require server virtualization (which, of course, is helpful, but not necessary).

Cloud computing will not lock suppliers. Cloud computing should be open, and it should work with any type of infrastructure based on customer needs, such as not being aware of the virtualization layer and supporting different virtual machines such as vSphere, XenServer, ORACLE VM, HyperV, and KVM.

Cloud computing is not a place either. The cloud is a new architecture that is a new way of delivering IT services in a more flexible, efficient and cost-effective way.

Citrix three clouds

Citrix has focused on three cloud-based, or "business-critical," 3-PC domains that we call "mobile" and cloud computing. Let's take a look at the differences between the three clouds and why they are so important to most of China today.

Personal Cloud - For the mobile workforce, people connect their desktops, applications, and data to enable people to collaborate from anywhere on any endpoint. In China, the explosive growth in the number of mobile devices, strong growth from smartphones to tablets, coupled with the increasingly obvious IT consumerization trend, has redefined the traditional "office" concept.

Private Cloud - is a collective term for your organization's internal infrastructure, desktops, applications, and data delivered on-demand by IT staff behind your corporate firewall. Private clouds have many advantages, delivering services flexibly, providing self-service, and fine-grained tracking of usage while allowing organizations greater control over their infrastructure and greater security. Zynga, a Citrix user, is a social gaming company that currently has the world's largest private cloud and hundreds of millions of users.

Public cloud - is the generic name for off-site multi-tenant infrastructure, storage and computing resources, and SaaS applications and data, and is often provided on-demand by external service providers. Many corporate users in the Asia Pacific region, such as KT, Tata, IDC Frontier and others, use Citrix technology to support their public cloud.

In addition, there is a fourth concept - "hybrid cloud", which refers to "cloud convergence", which is more and more popular among enterprise users. Tightly integrated with the public cloud, private clouds form a hybrid cloud that gives IT more flexibility to choose where it will run and how to balance costs and security. One reason for this convergence is that as the cost of private clouds is gradually reduced and more flexible, public clouds are becoming more secure and transparent. Citrix focuses on and is committed to providing the best fit for both, without being tied to a virtual infrastructure or cloud computing service provider.

Citrix's vision is to put Cloud Gateway as a single point of control on the front end of a private cloud that brings together the configuration, security management and control of Windows applications, Web applications, SaaS applications and mobile applications, Imagine being the face of all your business apps; Transparently connect with public cloud service providers through the Cloud Bridge (Cloud Bridge) at the back end of your private cloud, giving your data center unlimited capacity; Citrix's third cloud computing concern The key element is to help users build an Amazonian cloud platform - from bare metal to advanced software services such as Cloud Orchestration (CloudStack, CloudPortal and XenServer) that ultimately help enterprise customers address their key business issues and meet their needs for different applications.

Cloud computing scenarios

Cloud computing applications everywhere, here to talk about the private cloud.

Academic Private Cloud - Provides computing resources to university researchers, professors, and students to make it easier and faster for them and their outside researchers / developers to access the required resource clusters for their research efforts. More economical and efficient than Supercomputer. Such private clouds are deployed by academic institutions as well as by research-based businesses.

Developing / Testing Cloud - We have encountered the first scenario where server virtualization migrated to cloud computing. Development / Test Cloud Enables developers to build, upgrade, and test applications with unprecedented ease, lower cost, and shorter cycles. Organizations want to give developers and testers access to available and easily configurable resources to reduce the time associated with sourcing and building infrastructure (servers, storage and networking) and installing software, which historically required 6 Around the week.

Online Games, Social Media, and Web 2.0 Private Cloud - build an Amazon cloud behind your firewall, giving you greater control and security while enjoying flexibility and scale. Many businesses choose a "hybrid cloud," which allows them to connect to public clouds when needed, with unlimited flexibility, as the aforementioned Zynga cloud platform is a case in point.

DaaS (WaaS) Dedicated Cloud - Enterprise users deliver cloud desktops to deliver Windows desktops as a service for greater efficiency and control.

BYO Mobile Services - Cloud computing is a very good architecture for both bank and employee portals, enabling applications to be delivered internally or externally to customers (allowing for expansion based on demand or growth).

Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Services - Today's world environment is increasingly unpredictable, with frequent political and environmental events. Cloud computing has become an important disaster recovery model that not only sets up failover points but also maintains the "pay as you grow" service advantage so that businesses can respond faster to business opportunities while guaranteeing high returns.

In addition, the cloud computing infrastructure can help respond to changes in different industries. Some changes are due to industry characteristics, such as retail sales in the holiday season there will be sales by leaps and bounds. Of course, there are many changes in the industry, some of them are cyclical and predictable, such as the World Cup or the Olympics, while others are unpredictable, such as important news events or blog sites. In this case, the infrastructure needs to be built for the expected peak conditions. And in peacetime, most of these capacities are idle and cloud computing can make these deployed infrastructure more profitable.