What Are the Benefits of Cloud Computing?

A cloud computing platform, also called a cloud platform, refers to services based on hardware and software resources that provide computing, network, and storage capabilities. Cloud computing platforms can be divided into three categories: storage cloud platforms that focus on data storage, computing cloud platforms that focus on data processing, and comprehensive cloud computing platforms that take into account both computing and data storage processing.

Cloud platforms generally have the following characteristics:

Hardware management is highly abstract for users / purchases: users do not know where or which data is processed by the machine and how they are processed. When the user needs an application, the user sends to the "cloud" Instructed that in a short time, the results were presented on his screen. The distributed resources of cloud computing hide the implementation details from the users, and finally present them to the users as a whole.

User / buyer's investment in infrastructure is converted to OPEX (Operating Expense): companies and institutions no longer need to plan their own data centers, and they don't need to spend energy on things that are not related to their main business IT management. They only need to give instructions to the "cloud" to get different levels and types of information services. The time, energy, and money saved can be invested in the operation of the enterprise. For individual users, there is no longer a need to invest a lot of money to purchase software. The services in the cloud have provided the functions he needs, and any difficulties can be solved. Infrastructure capabilities are highly resilient (increase and decrease): they can be dynamically expanded and configured as needed. Cloud computing platforms can be roughly divided into the following 3 categories:

1. A storage cloud platform focusing on data storage;

2. A computing cloud platform focusing on data processing;

3. A comprehensive cloud computing platform that takes into account both computing and data storage processing.

Software as a service

First, the question of how to implement cross-platform and cross-service providers in cloud services, that is to say, service providers must balance development functions and compatibility. Early cloud computing provided much more restrictive APIs than traditional service systems such as databases. The code between different service providers cannot be universal, which brings a lot of programming burden to cross-platform developers.

Second, how to manage various cloud service platforms is also a challenge for service providers. Compared with traditional systems, large cloud platforms are affected by three factors: limited manual intervention, large workload changes, and a variety of shared devices. Each cloud platform company has its own management solution: for example, Amazon's EC2 The virtual machine at the hardware level is used as the programming interface, and salesforce.corn has implemented a "multi-tenant" virtual machine with multiple independent modes on a database system. Of course, other solutions are also possible. Each solution has different disadvantages and advantages.

In addition, the security issues and privacy protection of cloud platforms are particularly difficult to guarantee. Security issues can no longer be guaranteed by the physical boundaries of computers or networks. In the past, many encryption and decryption algorithms for data protection were extremely expensive. How to adopt some appropriate security strategies for large-scale data is a very big challenge. The challenges of cloud services also include service stability and reliability. In August 2009, Google's cloud computing service suffered serious problems, and services such as Gmail, Blogger, and Spreadsheet were down for a long time. On July 21, 2008, the simple storage service (s3), the main component of Amazon's online computing service, apparently failed on Sunday (July 20). Amazon's Service Health Console reports increased error rates for s3 services in the United States and Europe, with many customers having service downtime greater than 6 hours. The loss of such cloud service accidents to banks or Internet companies is often huge. Therefore, whether cloud service providers can provide long-term and stable services is also one of the main concerns for enterprises to choose cloud services.

Finally, as cloud computing becomes more and more popular, new application scenarios are expected to emerge, which will also bring new challenges. For example, people need to extract useful information from structured, semi-structured or unstructured heterogeneous data. At the same time, it also shows that "cloud" integration services will inevitably appear. Federated cloud architecture does not reduce the difficulty of the problem. In summary, it can be seen that cloud computing and cloud platform services themselves have huge advantages in appropriate scenarios, but at the same time face many technical problems that need to be resolved urgently ^[1]

While cloud computing brings convenience to users, its security issues have also become the focus of industry attention. Gartner predicts that content security services will account for 20% of the security services market in 2008 and is expected to account for 60% by 2013. The security application services provided by cloud computing will triple in 2013. Therefore, its security issue is an unavoidable topic. Let's take a look at the seven risks of cloud computing listed by Gartner.

(1) Access for privileged users. Handling sensitive information outside the company can be risky, as it will bypass the "physical, logical, and manual controls" that corporate IT departments have over this information. Companies need to understand the administrators who handle this information and ask service providers to provide detailed administrator information.

(2) Censorability. Users are ultimately responsible for the integrity and security of their data. Traditional service providers require external audits and security certifications, but some cloud computing providers have refused to undergo such scrutiny.

(3) Data location. When using cloud computing services, users do not know where their data is stored, and users do not even know which country the data is in. Users should ask whether service provider data is stored in a specially regulated location and whether they follow local privacy agreements.

(4) Data isolation. Under the cloud computing system, all user data is located in a shared environment. Encryption works, but it is not enough. Users should understand whether cloud computing providers isolate some data from others and whether encryption services are designed and tested by experts. If there is a problem with the encryption system, all data will no longer be available.

(5) Data recovery. Even if the user does not know where the data is stored, the cloud computing provider should tell the user what the user data and services will be in the event of a disaster. In the event of problems with any data and applications that have not been backed up, users need to ask the service provider if they have the ability to recover the data and how long it will take.

(6) Investigation support. In a cloud computing environment, investigating inappropriate or illegal activities is difficult to achieve because data from multiple users may be stored together and transferred between multiple hosts or data centers. If the service provider does not have this measure in place, it will be difficult for users to investigate when a violation occurs.

(7) Long-term viability. Ideally, cloud computing providers will not go bankrupt or be acquired by large companies. However, users still need to confirm whether their own data will be affected in the case of such problems, how to get back their own data, and whether the retrieved data can be imported into alternative applications.

Cloud computing is a new business computing model, which is gradually developed from distributed computing (Parallel Computing), grid computing (Grid Computing). Cloud computing does not yet have an authoritative definition in the industry, and people's understanding of cloud computing is constantly changing. Chinese cloud computing expert Professor Liu Peng once gave the following definition: "Cloud computing assigns tasks submitted by users to a resource pool formed by a data center server cluster. Or various software services. "

Cloud computing can be divided into narrow and broad dimensions to explain. In the narrow sense, cloud computing usually refers to a data center established by a cloud computing service provider through a series of technologies such as virtualization and distributed computing. Some of these services are provided free of charge for user experience use, and some customized business users can rent them as needed. These services cover various services such as data analysis and data storage. Broadly speaking, cloud computing refers to the use of large-scale server clusters established by cloud computing service providers to customize a set of solutions based on different types of customers. These services include computing analysis, hardware rental and online software. Services, etc. ^[2]

China's first cloud navigation

Cloud computing navigation, also known as "cloud computing web site navigation", is the first navigation network of China's cloud computing. Generally speaking, cloud computing navigation brings together all kinds of domestic cloud computing professional web sites. The detailed classification can help you find the most Wanted cloud URL Daquan, eliminating the need for heavy clicks on search engines.

The world's first cloud platform

On July 22, 2009, IBM held a press conference with an enterprise cloud computing platform together with Sinochem Corporation (hereinafter referred to as Sinochem), a global Fortune 500 company. As the world's first enterprise cloud computing project, Sinochem took advantage of the opportunity of a comprehensive upgrade of the ERP system to successfully apply the solution provided by the IBM Cloud Computing Center (IBM Cloud Labs & HiPODS) to deploy the ERP system across two Data center cloud. Not only does it achieve a smooth transition of ERP system upgrades, but it also enables the company's internal IT infrastructure and various software applications to be more flexible in the future. Cloud computing is mostly used for antivirus in China.

Telecom Nebula Project

In July 2011, China Telecom has officially launched the Nebula plan, conducting cloud computing field experiments in four cities in Guangzhou, Shanghai, Chengdu and Nanchang, specifically involving IDC upgrades, business platforms, capability opening platforms, and internal IT applications. China Telecom strengthens the cooperative development of cloud computing and strives to form a complete industrial chain, including users, platform providers and consumers, and many participating partners.

Before 2013, it had signed a strategic agreement with SAP, the world's largest enterprise management software and solution provider, and the two parties will jointly build an information service platform based on the SaaS model. Through the innovation of cloud computing technology, services and business models, Enterprises provide rich cloud services. In addition, it also actively cooperates with mobile phone terminal manufacturers to launch smart phones with more cloud applications. China Telecom hopes to become a cloud platform operator in the future, together with software and hardware manufacturers, information application and service providers, and platform and terminal providers, to form a cloud platform to provide customers with better services through the entire cloud platform.

Hangzhou's first cloud computing industrial park

In October 2010, Hangzhou was listed as one of the five pilot cities for cloud computing development in the country. In this context, the West Lake District combines its own industrial characteristics, seizes opportunities, and builds on the "combination of government promotion and enterprise leadership" Thinking, focusing on practical results, actively carried out the cultivation of the cloud computing industry. In April 2012, the city's first cloud computing public service platform, the West Lake "Cloud Computing" technology sharing service platform, was launched in Xihu District. At the same time, Xihu District also put forward innovative ideas for the construction of Hangzhou Cloud Computing Industrial Park, and obtained the approval of the former Hangzhou Information Technology Office in June 2012. The first cloud computing industrial park in the city was officially settled in Xihu District.

Shenzhen's first community cloud

The "Shenzhen University City Cloud Computing Public Service Platform" is sponsored by the Shenzhen University City Management Office, Shenzhen Yunjing Technology Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Cloud Computing Key Technologies and Applications, and Shenzhen Supercomputing Center. It is China's first cloud computing service platform established in accordance with the "community cloud" model in China. It was put into operation in September 2011. The service target is universities, research units, service agencies and other units and teachers in the Shenzhen University City Park. , Students, employees of various units and other individuals. The first phase of the "Shenzhen University City Cloud Computing Public Service Platform" provides a total of ten unique services, including computing resource cloud services (IaaS) and featured application cloud services (SaaS).