Basic concepts of cloud computing
The term "cloud computing" may be borrowed from the "Electron Cloud" in quantum physics, emphasizing the diffuse, ubiquitous distribution and social characteristics of computing. "Cloud" is some virtual computing resources that can be self-maintained and managed, usually some large server clusters, including computing servers, storage servers, broadband resources and so on. "Cloud computing" centralizes all computing resources and is automatically managed by software without human involvement.
Make an image metaphor: Qianzhuang. At first, people just put money under the pillow, and later they had a money bank, which was very safe, but it was more troublesome to cash out. Now it has developed that banks can withdraw money from any outlet, even through ATM or foreign channels. To make another analogy, this is like switching from the ancient single generator model to the centralized power supply model of the power plant. Electricity is purchased directly from the power company without the need to equip generators. "Cloud computing" means that computing power can also be circulated as a commodity, just like gas, water, and electricity, with easy access and low cost. The biggest difference is that it is transmitted via the Internet. "Cloud computing" has brought about such a change-a professional network company such as Google and IBM will build a computer storage and computing center. Users can easily access the "cloud" through a network cable with a browser. As a center for data storage and application services.
Cloud computing is the development of parallel computing (Parallel Computing), distributed computing (Distributed Computing) and grid computing (Grid Computing), or the commercial realization of these computer science concepts. At the same time, cloud computing is the result of a hybrid evolution of concepts such as virtualization, utility computing, IaaS (infrastructure as a service), PaaS (platform as a service), and SaaS (software as a service).
The basic principle of cloud computing is that by distributing computing on a large number of distributed computers instead of local computers or remote servers, the operation of enterprise data centers will be more similar to the Internet. This allows companies to switch resources to the applications they need and access computers and storage systems as needed.
The blueprint for cloud computing is ready: in the future, only a laptop or a mobile phone is needed to achieve everything we need through network services, even tasks such as super computing. From this perspective, the end user is the true owner of cloud computing. The application of cloud computing contains such an idea, unite the power and use it for each member.
Cloud computing is becoming popular. The problem is that everyone seems to understand cloud computing differently. As a metaphor for the Internet, "cloud" is easy to understand. But once connected with "computing", its meaning expands and begins to blur. Some people define cloud computing as just an upgraded version of computing—basically the many virtual servers available on the Internet. Others define cloud computing more broadly. They think that anything that users consume outside the firewall is in the "cloud."
The basic characteristics of cloud computing:
(1) Very large scale. "Cloud" has a considerable scale, Google cloud computing already has more than 1 million servers, and "cloud" such as Amazon, IBM, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc. have hundreds of thousands of servers. Enterprise private clouds generally have hundreds or thousands of servers. "Cloud" can give users unprecedented computing power.
(2) Virtualization. Cloud computing allows users to obtain application services at any location and using various terminals. The requested resources come from the "cloud" rather than a fixed physical entity. The application runs somewhere in the "cloud", but in fact users do not need to know or worry about the specific location of the application. Only a laptop or a mobile phone is needed to achieve everything we need through network services, even tasks such as super computing.
(3) High reliability. "Cloud" uses measures such as multi-copy data fault tolerance and interchangeable computing nodes to ensure high reliability of services. Using cloud computing is more reliable than using local computers.
(4) Universality. Cloud computing is not aimed at specific applications. With the support of "cloud", it can construct ever-changing applications, and the same "cloud" can support different applications at the same time.
(5) High scalability. The scale of the "cloud" can be dynamically scaled to meet the needs of increasing application and user scale.
(6) On-demand service. "Cloud" is a huge resource pool that you can purchase on demand; the cloud can be billed like running water, electricity, or gas.
Several major forms of cloud computing
1. SAAS (Software as a Service) This type of cloud computing transmits programs to thousands of users through a browser. In the eyes of users, this will save the expenditure on server and software licensing; from the supplier's perspective, only one program needs to be maintained, which can reduce costs. SAAS is commonly used in human resource management procedures and ERP.
2. Utility Computing
This kind of cloud computing creates a virtual data center for the IT industry so that it can centralize memory, I / O devices, storage, and computing power into a virtual resource pool to provide services for the entire network.
3. Network Service
Closely related to SAAS, network service providers can provide APIs to enable developers to develop more Internet-based applications instead of providing stand-alone programs.
4. Platform as a service
Another type of SAAS, this form of cloud computing provides the development environment as a service. You can use middlemen's equipment to develop your own programs and pass them to users through the Internet and its servers.
5. MSP (Management Service Provider)
One of the oldest cloud computing applications. This application is more for the IT industry than for end users, and is often used for email virus scanning, program monitoring, and so on.
6. Commercial service platform
A hybrid application of SAAS and MSP, this type of cloud computing provides a platform for interaction between users and providers. For example, the user's personal expense management system can manage his expenses and coordinate various services ordered by him according to the user's settings.
7. Internet integration
Integrate companies that provide similar services on the Internet so that users can more easily compare and choose their own service providers.
Development status of cloud computing
The term cloud computing is hot. Because it is the result of the mixed evolution of multiple technologies, its maturity is relatively high, and it is promoted by large companies, and its development is extremely rapid. Big companies such as Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft and Yahoo are pioneers in cloud computing. There are also many successful companies in the field of cloud computing.
Amazon uses elastic computing cloud and simple storage services to provide computing and storage services for enterprises. Charged service items include storage servers, bandwidth, CPU resources, and monthly rental fees. The monthly fee is similar to the monthly fee for a phone. Storage servers and bandwidth are charged according to capacity, and the CPU charges based on the amount of time (hours) calculation. It didn't take Amazon too long to make cloud computing a big business: in less than two years, there were 440,000 registered developers on Amazon and a large number of enterprise users. According to data provided by third-party statistical agencies, Amazon's cloud computing-related business revenue has reached 100 million US dollars. Cloud computing is one of Amazon's fastest growing businesses.
Google is the largest user of cloud computing. The Google search engine is built on the support of more than 1 million servers distributed in more than 200 locations, and the number of these facilities is growing rapidly. Google Earth, Maps, Gmail, Docs, etc. also use these infrastructures. With applications such as Google Docs, user data is stored somewhere on the Internet, and can be easily accessed through any system connected to the Internet. Currently, Google has allowed third parties to run large parallel applications through Google App Engine in Google ’s cloud computing. In the United States, China and other universities, courses on how to program cloud computing are offered.
IBM is launching a "blue game" computing platform that "changes the rules of the game" to bring customers a cloud computing platform that is ready to use. It includes a series of automated, self-managing and self-healing virtualized cloud computing software that enables applications from all over the world to access a large distributed server pool. Make the data center run computing in an environment similar to the Internet. With the slogan "Virtualization of resources and services accessible", IBM is working with several European organizations on cloud computing projects. IBM invested approximately US $ 400 million in the reconstruction of its cloud computing data centers in North Carolina and Tokyo, Japan. And plans to invest 300 million US dollars to build 13 cloud computing centers around the world.
Microsoft followed the pace of cloud computing and launched the Windows Azure operating system. Azure (translated as "blue sky") is another subversive transformation of Microsoft after Windows replaces DOS-by building a new cloud computing platform on the Internet architecture, let Windows truly extend from PC to "blue sky". Microsoft has hundreds of millions of Windows user desktops and browsers around the world, and now it connects them to the "blue sky." The bottom layer of Azure is Microsoft's global basic service system, which is composed of fourth-generation data centers all over the world.
In China, the development of cloud computing is also very rapid. In 2008, IBM opened a cloud computing center in China in the Wuxi Taihu New City Science and Education Industrial Park. In the same year, the second China cloud computing center, the IBM Greater China Cloud Computing Center, was established at the IBM China Innovation Center in Beijing; in November 2008, Guangdong announced that it would invest 200 million yuan in Dongguan Songshan Lake to establish a cloud computing platform; The software established the first "e-commerce cloud computing center" in Nanjing, with an initial investment of hundreds of millions of yuan; 21Vianet launched the CloudEx product line, including the complete Internet hosting service "CloudEx Computing Service", based on online storage virtualization "CloudEx Storage Service", a series of Internet cloud computing services for individuals and enterprises to perform Internet cloud backup data protection services; China Mobile Research Institute recognizes cloud computing and Internet mobility as the future development direction, and has completed the cloud computing center test.
The concept of "cloud security" created by Chinese enterprises is unique in the field of international cloud computing. Cloud Security monitors the abnormal behavior of software in the network through a large number of clients on the network, obtains the latest information of Trojans and malicious programs on the Internet, pushes them to the server for automatic analysis and processing, and then distributes the solutions of viruses and Trojans to each A client. The strategic concept of cloud security is: the more users, the safer each user, because such a large user base is enough to cover every corner of the Internet, as long as a website is hung or a new Trojan virus appears, Will be intercepted immediately. The development of cloud security is like a gust of wind. Rising, Trend, Kaspersky, MCAFEE, SYMANTEC, Jiangmin Technology, PANDA, Kingsoft, 360 Security Guard, Kaka Internet Security Assistant, etc. have all launched cloud security solutions. Rising's 2009 new product based on cloud security strategy intercepts millions of Trojan attacks every day, including more than 7.65 million attacks on January 8. Trend Micro Cloud Security has established five major data centers and tens of thousands of online servers worldwide. It is reported that cloud security can support an average of 5.5 billion click queries per day, collect and analyze 250 million samples per day, and the database's first hit rate can reach 99%. With cloud security, Trend Micro now blocks up to 10 million virus infections every day.
Seeing the magic of "cloud computing" from Google's dream
Plugging in, everyone can easily get electrical energy, but behind the plug is supporting an extremely complex power industry. Google ’s dream is to “integrate global information”. All information that can be digitized in different languages, different formats, different types, and different versions will be distributed to all parts of the world. After analysis and processing, it will be provided to you through a simple “plug” user. Realizing the magic of Google's "cloud computing": building a global information power plant.
Enter a keyword and you can find any information you want. As for the complicated things behind the keyword, Google will do it. The future of Google, like the power industry behind the plug, uses extremely complex technology to provide users with extremely convenient services. To move the data and computing power of all PCs and other terminal devices to the Internet, Google needs a new data center that is extremely cheap and has 10 million times more powerful computing power than the current data center. The emergence of a new type of data center model such as "cloud computing" has brought Google to its dreams infinitely: all terminal devices have become plugs, and data storage and computing capabilities have been left to Google to do. Cloud computing may affect the economic development and business model changes of an era.
Commercial "cloud computing" landing to promote the pace of green IT
With the development of the Internet, many companies around the world have new requirements for Internet-based computing, and cloud computing is such a new solution. With the help of Wuxi Municipal Government, IBM established the world's first commercial cloud computing center. This cloud computing center is a powerful computing platform based on open hardware platforms, open source code, and Web2.0 technology. Such a cloud computing virtual environment will replace the traditional data center model that was originally owned and managed by companies in the software park alone, and will help use the allocated resources to design, develop and test your own software products. Providing Chinese emerging software companies with the ability to access a virtual computing environment will help China shift from a manufacturing economy to a service-oriented economy, thereby reducing energy consumption per unit of GDP. The introduction of cloud computing will also help economic transformation, through the development of software and service outsourcing cloud computing centers will create a first-class development environment for software outsourcing enterprises. The technologies provided by the center include: Rational software development tools running on IBM System x, System p and BladeCenter blade servers, WebSphere application server software and DB2 database software. IBM Tivoli system management software will manage the cloud computing environment. Companies in the software park can share the cloud computing infrastructure like application software and other shared services. Many IBM services can form a shareable virtual pool. The software layer above can use these resources using SOA technology, and then through Rational , Direct and other tools can establish these applications more safely and conveniently, and use the general services provided by the center at any time. It will help China shift from a manufacturing economy to a service-oriented economy, thereby reducing energy consumption per unit of GDP.
As a service that can rely on Internet processing, cloud computing is in the center of the industry's attention, not only IBM, SUN, Google, and Amazon have tried or are promoting their own cloud computing technology, and also "walk in the cloud." Dell established its new business unit, Data Center Solutions, in 2007, and the first service it launched was cloud computing solutions. So many vendors seize the cloud computing beachhead also marks the future of the IT field into the "cloud" weather, the charm of cloud computing is that the computing business will no longer be limited to personal desktops and enterprise computing centers, but can become a kind of relying on Internet processing services. Cloud computing is a method of sharing IT infrastructure. It can connect huge system pools to provide IT services. Cloud computing makes the operation of enterprise data centers more similar to the Internet, and allows computing resources to be accessed and shared like virtual resources in a secure and scalable manner. It belongs to the next-generation green computing platform.
