Three important impacts of cloud computing on the Internet

Currently the hottest topic in the field of information technology is none other than cloud computing. Using cloud computing, outsourced data center functions and resources to third parties through network connections. This is undoubtedly a great help to companies that need to continually change their IT needs by helping them reasonably avoid the problems of overcapacity. The challenge of cloud computing lies in whether the guarantee of network costs will not offset the cost savings of cloud computing.

There is no "universal" computer application on Earth. A company needs IT to handle highly distributed activities, including transaction processing, online sales and customer support, data analysis and mining, and regulatory reporting. If the application through the cloud hosting, then the cloud resources must be connected with the company's own data center, in order to achieve data access. In addition, you must give users access to cloud applications. The above function of the network depends mainly on the following three important aspects.

The first aspect is the source data. Applications in the cloud require data, and the location of data storage is the most important factor that determines the impact of the network on cloud computing costs and performance. Applications need to use a large amount of data (one or more large databases), so data access must be fast and reliable fast or the application can run out of time. This means you do not want to store the data in the cloud (which can be cost and confidentiality issues) or deploy high-speed and high-QoS networks for cloud connectivity.

The second area is data updating and backup. If the application's source data is highly dynamic or has to be backed up or synchronized with other company data, the connection between the cloud data resource and the enterprise data resource must be very efficient. If the data is not dynamic, the network requirements for data maintenance will not be too harsh and may not even affect the corporate network.

The third area is distributed access. If the application is to be accessed from more than one location in more than one country, it is possible that most of the visits are via the Internet or Internet VPN. If you access the in-house facilities that are primarily corporate-owned, you may need to connect cloud computing resources to your own network.

If a cloud application and the company's data center resources closely integrated, then the performance of network connectivity has become crucial. If the connection is disrupted, not only are the applications at risk of disruption, but also the risk of unsynchronized data between the cloud and the enterprise storage resources, leading to complex and expensive rebuilds later. As a result, this cloud application will likely need to connect to cloud computing resources over a dedicated data link. The tight integration of cloud computing information resources and data centers may increase the demand on data center networks and may also increase the demand for trunk connections between data centers and other headquarters locations or regional headquarters.

As long as quality of service and availability meet requirements, cloud resource security can be assured, and the connection between cloud resources and enterprise IT infrastructure is sufficient to support traffic transfer, the Internet and Internet VPNs can be used for cloud computing communications. But if internal employees access cloud resources through an enterprise WAN over an internet port, many companies tend to overlook the traffic generated by such access. Because these portals are often located at or near their headquarters, cloud computing can significantly increase branch network traffic.

In cloud computing outsourcing, one of the most difficult to support applications is an "overflow" or backup application that runs traditional enterprise applications after they are ported to the cloud. Unless the entire enterprise database is hosted in the cloud, such applications can generate huge data access needs, but only a handful of organizations will adopt this approach. If you need to support this cloud computing application, the only effective strategy is to establish a high-speed connection between the cloud computing data center and the enterprise data center so that traffic can quickly enter the normal enterprise network.

The simplest cloud computing applications that are supported in enterprise networks are applications that are accessed over the Internet / VPN, where cloud computing hosts can join the VPN and there is very little data synchronization between the cloud host and the enterprise data center. This situation has minimal impact on the traffic on the corporate network, but there are some security issues with cloud resources as a VPN member. And this must be solved by technical means and by contract with cloud providers.

Finally, do not go to the cloud once and for all, and have to go through a well-planned migration process. Wise enterprises will first try cloud computing applications, its impact on the network to minimize the accumulation of experience and then slowly increase the cloud computing applications. In this way, network costs and computational savings can all be reasonably planned.