Cloud Technologies An Overview of Cloud Computing Technologies for Managers

Contains a variety of cloud computing technologies and explores how the cloud can enhance business operations

Cloud Technologies offers an accessible guide to cloud-based systems and clearly explains how these technologies have changed the way organizations approach and implement their computing infrastructure. The author includes an overview of cloud computing and addresses business-related considerations such as service level agreements, elasticity, security, audits, and practical implementation issues. In addition, the book covers important topics such as automation, infrastructure as code, DevOps, orchestration, and edge computing.

Cloud computing fundamentally changes the way organizations think about and implement IT infrastructure. Any manager without a firm grasp of basic cloud concepts is at a huge disadvantage in the modern world. Written for all levels of managers working in IT and other areas, the book explores cost savings and enhanced capabilities, as well as identifies different models for implementing cloud technologies and tackling cloud business concerns. This important book:

• Demonstrates a variety of cloud computing technologies and ways the cloud can enhance business operations
• Addresses data security concerns in cloud computing relevant to corporate data owners
• Shows ways the cloud can save money for a business
• Offers a companion website hosting PowerPoint slides

Written for managers in the fields of business, IT and cloud computing, Cloud Technologies describes cloud computing concepts and related strategies and operations in accessible language.

Preface xiii

Acknowledgments xv

About the Companion Website xvii

1 What Is Cloud Computing? 1

Why Cloud Computing? 1

Cloud Computing’s Focus 2

Cost Reduction 2

Capacity Planning 4

Organizational Agility 5

How Is Cloud Computing Hosted? 6

Private Cloud Deployment 6

Public Cloud Deployment 6

Hybrid Cloud Deployment 7

What Are the Different Types of Cloud Solutions? 7

Software as a Service (SaaS) 8

Platform as a Service (PaaS) 9

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) 10

SaaS versus PaaS versus IaaS: A Review 12

Recovery as a Service (RaaS) 12

What Are General Benefits of Cloud Services? 13

What Are General Disadvantages of Cloud Services? 14

What Is the History Behind Cloud Computing? 14

Historic Perspective of Hardware Related to Cloud Computing 16

Historic Perspective of Software Related to Cloud Computing 17

SOA Explained in Terms of Lego Blocks 18

Summary 20

References 21

Bibliography 21

2 Who Uses the Cloud? 23

Individuals Users 23

Public Cloud Subscription Storage for Individuals 24

Private Cloud Storage (PCS) for Individuals 25

Hosted Personal Cloud Storage Using Third Party Hardware 27

Public Cloud versus Personal Cloud Storage 28

Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Users 28

How Can Cloud Computing Save SMEs Money? 28

What Cloud Computing Features Appeal to SMEs? 32

SME Cloud Software 32

Accounting Software 32

Human Resources (HR) Software 33

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) 36

Project Management/Task Organization 40

Office Software 42

Data Analytics 44

Social Media 45

Purchasing and Procurement 46

Help Desk and Service Software 47

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) 48

Corporate Managers and Users 49

Organizational Users of Cloud Computing 50

PaaS Users 50

IaaS Users 51

File Storage and Backup Users 51

Disaster Recovery Users 51

Big Data Analytics Users 51

Summary 51

References 52

Further Reading 52

Website Resources 52

Accounting Software 52

CRM Software 53

Data Analytics 53

ERP for SMEs 53

Help Desk 53

HR Software 53

Office Software 54

Project Management Tools 54

Purchasing and Procurement 54

Social Media 54

3 What Is Virtualization? 55

Hardware Virtualization 56

Hypervisors 56

Types of Hardware Virtualization 57

Hardware Virtualization Vendors and Products 59

Hardware Virtualization Benefits 60

Operating System Virtualization 62

Operating-System-Level Virtualization (Containerization) 62

Containerization Software 63

Containers versus Virtual Machines 65

Container Cloud Practices 66

Containers as a Service (CaaS) 67

Storage Virtualization 67

DAS (Direct Attached Storage) 67

SAN (Storage Area Networks) 69

NAS (Network Attached Storage) 70

Storage Virtualization Techniques 71

File- Versus Block-Level Virtualization 72

Summary 72

References 72

Further Reading 72

4 Can the Cloud Help Operations? 75

Load Balancing 75

Load Balancing Algorithms 77

Static Load Balancing Algorithms 77

Dynamic Load Balancing Algorithms 78

Cloud Load Balancing Algorithms 79

Hardware Versus Software Load Balancing 81

Cloud-Based Balancing 81

Cloud Load Balancing Versus DNS Load Balancing 82

Scalability and Elasticity 82

Elasticity in Cloud Environments 83

Challenges for Elasticity 84

Learning Curve 84

Response Time 84

Monitoring Elastic Applications 85

Stakeholder Needs 85

Multiple Levels of Cloud Control 85

Security 85

Privacy and Compliance 86

Benefits of Cloud Elasticity 86

Ease of Implementation 86

Failover and Fault Tolerance 86

On-Demand Computing 87

Pay Only for What You Use 87

Standardization of Server Pool 88

Summary 88

References 89

Further Reading 89

5 How Are Clouds Managed? 91

Automation 91

Orchestration 92

Automation Tasks 92

Implementing Orchestration with IaC 93

IaC Example 95

IaC Tools 97

Push Approach 97

Pull Approach 97

Puppet 98

Chef 98

SaltStack 99

Terraform 99

Cloud Provider Resource Management 99

AWS CloudFormation 99

Google Cloud Deployment Manager 100

Azure Resource Manager 101

Access Control for Resource Management Tools 102

Customized Policies 104

APIs and SDKs 105

APIs 105

SaaS APIs 105

PaaS APIs 105

IaaS APIs 105

SDKs 106

SDKs and APIs 106

Cloud Backup and Replication 106

Cloud Backup 107

Cloud Backup Processes 108

Cloud Backup Drawbacks 109

Cloud Backup Vendors 110

Cloud Replication 111

Replication Technologies 112

DRaaS 113

Summary 114

References 115

Further Reading 115

Website Resources 116

Backup Providers 116

DRaaS Providers 116

IaC Providers 117

6 What Are Cloud Business Concerns? 119

Monitoring and Console Tools 119

Resource Consumption Monitoring 120

Planning for Monitoring 121

Cloud Monitoring Tools 121

Monitoring Challenges 123

Cost Monitoring 123

Costs Associated with Zombie Resource Instances 126

Service Level Agreements (SLAs) 128

SLA Sources 129

SLA Components 129

SLA Metrics 130

Other Performance Considerations 133

Performance Failure Penalties 133

SLA Data Ownership Clause 134

Data Ownership 134

Data Location 134

Data Disposition 136

Data Breaches 136

Governmental Access Requests 137

SLA Revisions 138

Transferring SLAs 138

More on SLAs 138

Billing 139

Amazon Billing 140

Third Party Billing Tools 141

Summary 141

References 142

Further Reading 142

Website Resources 143

Cost and Monitoring Software 143

Zombie Instance Management Software 143

7 How Are Business Applications in the Cloud Managed Safely? 145

Cloud Vulnerabilities 145

Cloud Security Architecture 146

IaaS Security Architecture 146

IaaS Resource Misconfiguration 147

IaaS Resource Vulnerabilities 147

IaaS Zombies Vulnerabilities 149

PaaS Security Architecture 149

SaaS Security Architecture 151

Access and Identity Control in the Cloud 152

Identity Governance 153

IAM Considerations for Developers 154

Identity Provisioning 155

Cloud Licenses 156

IAM with Third Party Vendors 156

FIM Benefits 158

FIM Challenges 158

Identity and Access Management Products 159

Identity Management Standards 160

Summary 163

References 164

Bibliography 164

Website Bibliography 165

Identity Management 165

8 What Is Cloud Governance? 167

IT Governance Overview 167

IT Governance Boards 169

IT Governance Frameworks 169

COBIT 2019 170

ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) 171

AS 8015-2015 172

ISO/IEC 38500:2015 174

CMMI 174

FAIR 174

IT Governance in the Cloud 176

Choosing a Governance Framework 177

Cloud Risk Factors Related to Governance 177

IT Audit Committees 178

IT Auditor 179

IT Controls 179

End-User Controls 181

Shadow IT 183

Acceptable Risk 184

SOA Governance 185

Ensuring Secure Cloud Data 185

Cloud Provider Data Safety Measures 187

Cloud Encryption 187

Symmetric Key Encryption 189

Asymmetric Key Encryption 190

Other Encryption Methods 191

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) 191

Key Management 194

Key Management System Products 195

Summary 195

References 196

Further Reading 196

9 What Other Services Run in the Cloud? 199

DevOps 199

DevOps Ingredients 200

Ingredient #1: Communication 200

Ingredient #2: Collaboration 201

Ingredient #3: Flow 201

Ingredient #4: Continuous Improvement 202

Ingredient #5: Lean Computing 202

Ingredient #6: Tool Kit 203

Ingredient #7: Quality 203

Cloud-Based Problem-Solving Approaches 204

DMAIC 204

TRIZ 205

Microservices 206

Cloud Database Applications 209

Cloud Data Models 209

Cloud Database Typical Features 211

DBaaS Product Examples 211

Amazon 211

Microsoft 211

Google 211

Other DBaaS Vendors 212

Cloud Analytics Services 212

Microsoft Power BI Service 214

Domo 215

IBM Analytics 215

Tableau 215

Hadoop 216

Hadoop in the Cloud 216

Apache Spark 217

Apache Storm 217

Open Source Private Cloud Software 218

OpenStack 218

OpenStack Components 219

Other Services 219

Compute Services 220

Application Services 220

Summary 221

References 221

Further Reading 221

Website Resources 222

Data Analytics Tools 222

DBaaS 222

NoSQL 222

SQL 222

DevOps 223

Hadoop Competitors 223

Private Clouds 223

Virtual Databases 223

NoSQL 223

SQL 223

10 What Is the Cloud Future? 225

NoOps 225

Everything as a Service (EaaS) 226

Zero Knowledge Cloud Storage 226

Serverless Architecture 226

Multicloud 227

Small Business Clouds 227

Machine Learning 228

Internet of Things (IoT) 229

Cloud Computing as a Utility 229

Cloud Streaming Services 230

Edge Computing 230

Fog Computing 231

Summary 232

References 233

Further Reading 233

Glossary 235

Chapter 1 List of Terms 235

Chapter 2 List of Terms 237

Chapter 3 List of Terms 240

Chapter 4 List of Terms 243

Chapter 5 List of Terms 245

Chapter 6 List of Terms 248

Chapter 7 List of Terms 250

Chapter 8 List of Terms 252

Chapter 9 List of Terms 256

Chapter 10 List of Terms 258

Index 261

Roger McHaney is a University Distinguished Teaching Scholar and holder of the Daniel D. Burke Chair for Exceptional Faculty in the Department of Management at Kansas State University, USA.