Cloud Computing Basic Learning Path - Fly me to the Cloud…
“There is no cloud. It is just someone else’s computer” This may sound like a joke, but it is just how things are technically happening. Cloud is no magic place where data and tasks are run. It is a concrete technical infrastructure, made available through the network, namely Internet, and usually via a browser, that can offer a wide range of services to a potentially very large audience.
The Cloud phenomena can be seen as the result of decades of technical evolution… It was made possible through the development of communication and virtualization technologies, the rise and expansion of Application Service Provider delivery model, the incremental automatization of management process allowing self-service procedures… This evolution gave birth to models like IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service), SaaS (Software as a Service) and even XaaS (anything as a Service).
The Cloud requires specific types of technologies, architectures and processes; it surely brings benefits, but also implies some drawbacks or risks that it is very important to cope with, not the least of which being the security of data and systems.
In this learning path, we will go through the description of cloud environments, their types and models, their pros and cons; we will also provide a list of criteria to keep in mind when thinking of moving to a cloud platform.
Cloud Computing In 6 Minutes
First, let’s start by understanding what hides behind the terms ‘Cloud Computing’. This short video compares the traditional on-premises approach, where the owner of the information system manages it entirely, with the cloud-based approach, where the owner of the information system shares a variable amount of the management tasks with the cloud service provider. You will hear about the scalability, storage, security, resilience, maintenance aspects. The deployment and service models will also be briefly introduced. For a longer introduction to the topic, you may also watch this video or this one.
Cloud Computing vs Traditional Computing
This article explains the cloud approach in the light of the evolution from traditional computing. It starts by explaining how IT systems management was handled back in the 90’, and how it evolved through managed services to completely outsourced services and finally cloud-based services. Is one better than the other? It all depends on a set of criteria that are specific to each situation. There is thus a need to carefully analyse the requirements and the context before moving to the cloud. The article will provide you with some elements of reflection.
Understand and compare the three most popular cloud computing service models
Let us take some time to analyse more deeply the difference cloud service models, to better understand which one is more suitable for which situation. In this paper by IBM, you will find a description of each of the traditional ‘as a Service’ models (IaaS, PaaS and SaaS). Benefits of each approach are presented, along with a set of use cases to which they best apply. All in all, it all boils down to a ease of management vs control tradeoff.
Cloud computing - statistics on the use by enterprises
How popular is the cloud? Do businesses really make use of those services? For what purpose? In this report, you will find interesting statistics collected by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. It illustrates the use of cloud services by enterprises, by activity domain or by size. The service models or the level of dependency are also measured and discussed.
Virtualization Explained
Let’s dive a bit into the technical foundation of cloud computing. As you may imagine, when you order a new server from your cloud provider, Amazon, OVH, Google or whoever, you imagine they do not run to their hardware merchant and buy a new computer for you. Rather, they will allocate ‘virtual’ resources, that is, resources that lie at a level of abstraction higher than the physical resources we can think of when it comes to hardware. Thus we are dealing with virtual machines, virtual CPU, virtual memory, virtual storage, virtual network, that all rely on a physical counterpart, but that can be allocated, provisioned or deallocated in a snap, making the cloud so flexible and reactive. In this video, you will learn about THE technology that makes this abstraction layer: virtualization and hypervisor.
The legal aspects of Cloud computing
Delegating the management of your services or data to a third party, that you may know or not, which might be located in a different place than yours, where different legislation apply, may raise some important questions and issues regarding contractual aspects, data security and privacy. Legal implications of adopting cloud services should definitely not be underestimated. This 1 hour video has been produced by the Belgian CyberSecurity Coalition, and presents in-depth the legal aspects of Cloud Computing, from the definition of what constitutes a cloud computing service from a legal perspective to how to contractually frame your relationship with your Cloud Service Provider.
XaaS – Anything as a Service
Why would we limit ourselves to deliver Infrastructure, Platform or Software as Services? Why couldn’t other kinds of functionalities be delivered following the same models? In this blog post, you will read about the “Anything as a Service” approach, where any function can be made available to customers and users following a cloud model. From Authentication as a Service to Blockchain as a Service or Container as a Service, you will see that it is possible to build your own information system by combining building blocks, services, from different providers, according to your own requirements.
ENISA - Fog and Edge Computing in 5G
We have been talking a lot about cloud computing, and how it allows to move to a completely outsourced service delivery model. But between the two extremes (internal vs outsourced), couldn’t there be room for a more hybrid approach, where some components of the information system would be distributed and their responsibility shared by different actors? The rise of mobile devices and the Internet of Things has led to new architectures where some part of the computation can be handled by the end-devices (aka edge devices, sensors, mobile phones…), while other more heavy processes can be handled by centralized cloud services. This report by the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) presents those new models and discussed them in the context of 5G networks.
Cloud Computing Statistics That Will Blow Your Mind
Nowadays, Cloud services support an increasingly wide variety of services: Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Business Intelligence, Storage… But these come at a cost and have impacts in various domains. This very detailed report presents and discusses facts and statistics about cloud computing. How big is the cloud computing market? How much can a cloud bill represent? How much can you save by moving to the cloud? These are a few of the questions covered by these stats.
Design a Cloud Migration Strategy
Moving from an internally managed IT to a cloud-based approach, whether IaaS, PaaS or SaaS has to be a carefully planned journey, because it will impact the core of your business and many of your processes. Although each cloud service provider will have his specificities, there are common rules to follow for migrating to cloud. This 2 hours course takes you through a vendor-neutral approach to identify the considerations that need to be part of any migration strategy. Another interesting resource is this one.