The Internet and Cloud Computing
Author: Peter Hartman
Today we are hearing a lot about cloud computing and what a wonderful revelation it is supposed to be. Let us clear up the doubts and inconsistencies and see whether or not it is for us.
The Cloud
In short; “the cloud” is a metaphor for the Internet derived from how the Internet has been long depicted in network diagrams such as Figure 1 below. The basic idea of the cloud is that users are able to connect to service providers and through them other users in a transparent manner without the knowledge of or even the need to know about the complexities of the underlying architecture and technologies that make the information technology services accessed and used by users possible.
Cloud Computing Services
Cloud style computing delivers IT-related capabilities “as a service”. Thus users are able to access information technology enabled services by way of the Internet (“the cloud”) without any expertise or knowledge needed on the user's part.
Generally all control over; or administrative interaction with, the technologies and infrastructure required to deliver and support the “cloud services” on offer for end-user accessibility and the functionalities provided to the end-user by the said information technologies and infrastructure as “services in the cloud” are managed by “the cloud services” provider rather than by “the cloud services” clients. This is a double-edged sword with an upside and a downside that I will detail shortly but for now remember that not every “cloud” has a silver lining.
The Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers (IEEE) state that “Cloud computing is a paradigm in which information is permanently stored in servers on the Internet and cached temporarily on clients that include desktops, entertainment centers, table computers, notebooks, wall computers, handhelds, etc.".
Cloud Computing Components
Think of cloud computing as a generally abstract concept incorporating such technologies as Software-as-a-Service (S-a-a-S), the whole plethora of technologies referred to under the umbrella of Web 2.0 functionalities and other mature and emerging technology trends that all rely heavily upon the Internet to deliver the communications channels between users and processing facilities and data centers in order to satisfy the computing needs of end-users.
A well known example of the “cloud computing” philosophy is Google Apps, which provides common business applications online that are accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on Internet connected servers. You could say that in the strictest sense the Google search facility is a “cloud computing service”.
Cloud Computing and Google Search
Google uses automated bots called “spiders” to crawl the Internet. These spiders transmit information; back to Google's data center, about the web pages that they have crawled. This information is then processed, classified and indexed by Google using a weighted relevance algorithm so that whenever a user requests information regarding any particular topic Google can look up their cached index database and return hopefully relevant links to the inquiring user.
Pre-Indexing - The reason that it all works so fast is that the scanning (crawling) and indexing of the Internet has already been done and all Google's software need do is look up a referential database for associated links to the specified query parameters.
Performance - A big part of the Google speed magic is delivered by knowing that all they are required to deliver to the searcher is the first page of related topic headers, summaries and links. If the searcher requires more than they will be compiled and delivered to the user's browser as and when requested.
The Laws of Processing - Using the basic processing law that “the information that you are most likely to need to process next is that which you have just processed” Google builds lists based on what they call page-rank.
The Cloud Factor - Where does cloud computing come into all of this you may well ask? The answer is that; as depicted in Figure 2 the Internet is used as the communications channel by a user to request a service (search) from a transparently Internet connected search service provider (Google) in real time.
- User sends search query request via the Internet to the transparently Internet connected search service provider (Alta Vista, Craig's List, Yahoo or Google as in this case)
- The search service provider (Google in this case) performs some processing on the users behalf (searches their database index)
- Additional processing of the retrieved query results is performed by the search service provider to ensure that that the results are presented in a format that the user can use (browser and application specific)
- The results (the first page of relevant links) are then transmitted via the Internet (the cloud) to the user and the search results are stored in cache by the search service provider ready for additional access should that be required
- The user receives the results from the cloud and they are displayed in the format requested by the user (on-screen or printed etc). The user; if satisfied with the results returned may end the service at this point or if not yet satisfied request additional search query processing from the search service provider (Google once again) via the Internet.
