CLOUD COMPUTING

What is Cloud Computing? In the most basic sense, Cloud Computing is "Virtualizing to a Provider's Data Center". The Yankee Group defines Cloud Computing as having these 7 basic tenants:

1. Scalability – the cloud service has the ability to add or remove computing resources, including bandwidth, storage, and computing power, as the applications or users need.
2. Virtualized – Information services, including servers, storage and applications, are virtualized. The users are shielded from the details of the underlying architecture and work with virtual resources allocated to their enterprise or application.
3. On Demand – The computing resources and applications can be allocated or removed within seconds of a user request.
4. Internet Powered – The service is delivered over IP and is accessible via the internet or a private IP connection.
5. Multi-Tenant Capable – The resources (e.g.; network, storage, and computing power) can be shared among multiple enterprise clients, thereby lowering overall expense. Resource virtualization is used to enforce isolation and aid in security.
6. Service Level Assured – The cloud service provider ensures a specific guaranteed server uptime, server reboot, network performance, security control and response time.
7. Usage Priced – There is minimal upfront cost to the user. For cloud based infrastructure services, the pricing model is on a per-use basis for bandwidth, storage and CPU. The cloud service provider assumes all capital costs. Some services are billed on a subscription basis per user, per month.

INFRASTRUCTURE AS A SERVICE (or Cloud Server Hosting) IT AS A SERVICE (or Virtual Desktop Integration) COMMUNICATIONS AS A SERVICE (or Cloud Telephony) SOFTWARE AS A SERVICE (or Cloud Applications)