Cloud Computing: Models, Misconceptions and Services by Oracle and Nectar Cloud

This report discusses the concept of cloud computing, its three service-oriented architecture models, and misconceptions about it. It also covers the cloud services provided by Oracle and Nectar Cloud. The report concludes with the benefits of cloud computing. COIT20259 Enterprise Computing Architecture (Term 1-2018) assignment by Jay Atulbhai Mehta.

Assignment-1
Course name: Enterprise Computing Architecture (Term 1-2018)
Course code: COIT20259
Lecturer: Naveed Ali
Tutor: Naveed Ali
Due Date: Friday of week-5 (6/04/2018)
Prepared By-
Name: Jay Atulbhai Mehta
Student Id: 12045043

Table of Contents
Part 1: Introduction 3
Part 2: Cloud Computing Model 4
Cloud Services by Oracle Cloud: 7
Cloud Services by Nectar Cloud: 7
Part 3: Misconceptions on Cloud Computing: 8
Part 4: Conclusion 10
References 12

Part 1: Introduction
1. Cloud Computing:-
Cloud computing can be defined as the paradigm of information technology, which helps to
enable ubiquitous accessing to all types of system resources that are configurable on the
Internet (Dinh et al. 2013). Moreover, the services that are of higher level could be easily and
frequently provisioned with minimum managerial effort. Cloud computing solely relies on
the sharing of various resources for properly achieving the economies of scale and coherence.
The third-party clouds enable all the companies for focusing on the core businesses and not
spending resources on the computer maintenance and infrastructure (Arora, Parashar and
Transforming 2013). Cloud computing helps the organizations to reduce the costs related to
IT infrastructure.
2. Difference between cloud computing and traditional IT servicing:-
Cloud computing is completely different from the traditional IT servicing. The main
difference is that cloud computing is extremely elastic and resilient, whereas both advantages
are absent in traditional IT systems. The second important difference is that cloud is flexible
as well as scalable; however, no such feature is present in traditional IT systems. The other
differences include cost effectiveness, high security and office automation; all these features
are not available in traditional IT systems.
3. Report structure:-
The following report outlines a brief discussion regarding the entire concept of cloud
computing. This report clearly depicts the description on the various cloud service models.
Infrastructure as a Service or IaaS, Platform as a Service or PaaS and Software as a Service or
SaaS. The two important issues related to Nectar Cloud and Oracle Cloud is also provided in

report. The misconceptions related to cloud computing are discussed here. The final part of
the assignment concludes with a description on the several benefits and challenges of cloud
computing.
Part 2: Cloud Computing Model
Cloud computing mainly comprises of three distinct service-oriented architecture models.
They are as follows:
1. Infrastructure as a Service or IaaS:
Infrastructure as a Service or IaaS mainly refers to any type of online service, which gives the
higher-level APIs that are, utilized to deference several lower level details of the
infrastructure of underlying network (Garg, Versteeg and Buyya 2013). These details mainly
include the location, data security, physical computing resources, data backup, data scaling,
data partitioning and many more.
Iaas is a virtualized infrastructure that helps all its users for executing any type of operation
on that infrastructure. The hypervisors like the Oracle VM, VMware ESX and Oracle
VirtualBox run this virtual machine as guest. Infrastructure as a Service can also be defined
as the capability given to a client for provisioning processing, networks, storage and all other
significant computing resources (Rittinghouse and Ransome 2016). Here the client could
easily deploy as well as run any arbitrary software that could involve all applications and
operating systems. The providers of the IaaS cloud properly supply all the resources on the
demand from the larger equipment pools that are installed in the data centres.
In the wide area connectivity, the clients of cloud computing can either utilize the Internet
connection or the carrier clouds that are the dedicated VPNS or virtual private networks. For
the successful deployment of these applications, the clients of cloud install images of

operating system and the application software over the infrastructure of cloud. Within the
cloud service model of infrastructure as a service, the client of cloud patches as well as
maintains the application software and the operating systems (Hashizume et al. 2013). The
main advantages of the infrastructure as a service or IaaS include flexibility, scalability,
high security and easy maintenance.
The only important disadvantage of this particular model is that it is extremely expensive
and thus all organizations or enterprises could not afford this virtualized infrastructure. The
best examples of infrastructure as a service or IaaS are the Amazon Web Services or AWS,
Microsoft Azure, Rackspace, Google Compute Engine or GCE and Digital Ocean.
2. Platform as a Service or PaaS:
The second type of cloud service model is the Platform as a Service or PaaS. It is the specific
platform-based service that gives a platform to its users for the purpose of developing,
running and managing various applications without any type of complexity of maintaining
infrastructure that is associated with the development and launching of an application.
The cloud service model could be delivered in three distinct methods. The first method is as
the service of public cloud from any provider, where the client could control the software
deployment with less configuration options (Yang and Jia 2013). The cloud provider gives
various servers, networks, operating system, storage, database, middleware or any other
service for hosting the application of a client. The second method is as the service of private
cloud within the firewall. This private service can either be an application or software. The
third or the final method is as the hybrid Cloud that is to be deployed on any public IaaS or
private Iaas as a service.

The main objective of this platform as a service is that it provides the typical environment for
its users and developers for creating, hosting and deploying applications (Herbst, Kounev and
Reussner 2013). This eventually saves the developers or the users from extra infrastructure
costs and complexities.
The most significant advantages of this model of platform as a service or PaaS mainly
include cost effectiveness, flexibility, scalability, easy accessibility and easy implementation.
The only important disadvantage of this model is that it does not provide any type of
security. Due to this lack of security, many organizations could not think of implementing
this model (Wei et al. 2014). The best examples of this cloud model of platform as a service
or PaaS are AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Windows Azure, Force.com, Heroku, Google App
Engine and Apache Stratos.
3. Software as a Service or SaaS:
Software as a Service or SaaS is the software licensing model or software delivery model
where the software is usually licensed on the basis of subscription and is also centrally hosted
(Rong, Nguyen and Jaatun 2013). The other name of the software as a service is on demand
software and was also referred by Microsoft as software plus services.
This cloud service model is usually accessed by the clients by utilizing a web browser or a
thin client. It has become the most common model of delivery for all the business
applications like messaging software, office software, DBMS software, CAD software,
payroll processing software, management information system or MIS, customer relationship
management or CRM, development software, accounting collaboration, enterprise resource
planning or ERP, CAD software, talent acquisition, human resource management or HRM,
virtualization and many more.

The main advantage of SaaS is that it is cost effective and thus could be afforded by all
organizations. The utilization of this service model is extremely broad. While all the initial
ASP are focused on the management and hosting of third party independent software vendor,
the SaaS vendors development as well as the management of the software. The traditional
client server applications majorly require the software installation on the personal computers
of the client which are not required here.
The most significant advantages or benefits of this software as a service or SaaS are cost
effectiveness, elasticity, flexibility, scalability and easy implementation. The only issue with
this service model is that security is absent. Thus, data is insecure in SaaS (Almorsy, Grundy
and Müller 2016). The examples of software as a service or SaaS are the Google Apps,
Cisco WebEx, Salesforce, Concur, Workday and Citrix GoToMeeting.
Cloud Services by Oracle Cloud:
Oracle Cloud is the typical cloud computing service that is being offered by the Oracle
Corporation by providing storage, networks, servers, services and applications via a series of
global networked data centres that are managed by Oracle Corporation (Cloud.oracle.com.
2018). This organization enables all of these services that are to be provisioned on the
Internet.
Four types of services are provided by the organization of Oracle Cloud. They are the
Infrastructure as a Service or IaaS, Platform as a Service or PaaS, Software as a Service or
SaaS and Data as a Service or DaaS. These four types of cloud services are utilized for
building, deploying, integrating as well as extending various applications on the cloud. The
platform is supposed to support several open standards like SQL, REST and HTML5, open
source solutions like Hadoop and Kafka and a vast series of databases, frameworks, tools and
programming languages.

Amongst the four cloud services provided by Oracle Cloud Viz. Infrastructure as a Service or
IaaS, Platform as a Service or PaaS, Software as a Service or SaaS and Data as a Service or
DaaS, the Platform as a Service (Paas) could be directly utilized for the purpose of
deployment of Java EE applications (Cloud.oracle.com. 2018). It is solely done by the
PaaS Extension Control by utilizing the Java Cloud Services. The other three cloud
services model, i.e. IaaS, SaaS and DaaS cannot be utilized for the purpose of deploying
Java EE applications.
Cloud Services by Nectar Cloud:
Nectar Cloud provides scalable as well as flexible power of computing to all of its users, who
have computing infrastructure, services and software or storing, accessing and even running
data autonomously and rapidly (Nectar Cloud. 2018). The self-service structure of the Nectar
Cloud solely helps to allow effective, efficient and fast data access and a strong platform to
collaborate with others.
Three types of cloud services are provided by Nectar Cloud. They are the Infrastructure as a
Service or IaaS, Platform as a Service or PaaS, and Software as a Service or SaaS. For the
successful deployment of Java EE applications, the module should be developed and
assembled (Nectar Cloud. 2018). Next, the target server or the cluster is needed to be
configured. Before deploying anything, it should be ensured that the target vision is
significantly compatible with the module selected for Java EE applications deployment.
Part 3: Misconceptions on Cloud Computing:
Cloud computing is extremely useful and significant method of transferring any information
or data through the Internet. It is being utilized by several popular multinational companies
worldwide. However, still few organizations; do not want to take up cloud for their business
as they have several misconceptions about cloud.

The five important misconceptions about cloud computing with their clarifications are given
below:
i) Cloud is Riskier:
This is the most important and popular misconception about cloud computing. People think
that cloud is riskier. There is a conception that cloud means that all the files or data are
floating around the world without security. This is absolutely wrong as cloud is the
representation of Internet that has the access to the programs and data (Avram 2014). An
amazing backup plan is also present within the cloud; so that if any problem occurs, the data
could be easily retrieved. When the information is stored virtually, the connection between
the office networks and devices are broken. Thus, cloud is responsible for saving from
physical emergencies or physical disasters. Thus, cloud is not at all riskier and rather it helps
to store and secure the data properly.
ii) Cloud Computing is Expensive:
This is the second misconception regarding cloud computing. Although switching to cloud,
sometimes increases the migration costs or installation costs, it saves money in the longer
run. Cloud computing is utilized for the reduction of IT infrastructure management costs
(Khan et al. 2013). The most significant advantage of cloud computing is that it takes up
annual expenses and within that anything related to the services are incorporated. Therefore,
no extra cost is incurred. Thus, it is myth and cloud computing does not incur huge costs.
iii) Not Increasing Security:
Another important misconception about cloud computing is the not increment in security. It is
considered that cloud cannot provide extra security to any building or place (Hashizume et al.
2013). However, with the extra layers of encryption and behaviour based key management

servers, an additional layer of protection is supplied by the cloud. Thus making the object
more secured.
iv) Cloud is Unreliable:
The fourth significant misconception about cloud computing is that cloud is extremely
unreliable and thus could not be trusted at all. This is absolutely wrong as cloud is extremely
reliable and secured and can be easily utilized by all organizations (Rittinghouse and
Ransome 2016). The data could be easily backed up to various locations or services, thus,
giving an extra layer of protection.
v) Cloud is Just a Trend:
The fifth popular misconception regarding cloud computing is that it is considered that cloud
is only a trend. All the organizations, which rely on various web applications like Amazon,
Gmail and Dropbox solely utilizes and relies on the cloud computing (Dinh et al. 2013).
Cloud migration has become extremely popular for all organizations and thus this is not just a
trend. It is extremely flexible and could be easily customized in every business.
Part 4: Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion it can be concluded that cloud computing is the safest
mode of transferring any type of data or information through the Internet without any type of
complexities. It helps to deliver the hosted services on the Internet. It enables the
organizations in consuming the computing resources like a virtual machine or VM, storing or
even applying and not to build or maintain the computing infrastructures.

Benefits of cloud computing:-
Cloud computing comprise of various significant benefits for its users. The most significant
advantage of cloud computing is that it helps in self service provisioning. The second
important benefit is the high elasticity. The organizations could scale up as the computing
requirements increase as well as decrease when the demands go gown. Thus, the need for the
huge investments in the infrastructure is eliminated. The third important advantage of cloud
computing is that it could be easily migrated and thus is easily utilized by most of the
organizations. Moreover, it is workload resilience and therefore the workload of the users are
always kept running.
Challenges of cloud computing:-
However, in spite of having significant advantages, there are few disadvantages that make
cloud computing extremely difficult to be implemented by everyone. The first and the most
important disadvantage of cloud is the downtime. There is no immunity to the service
outages. It is completely dependent on the Internet connection. The second disadvantage of
the cloud computing is the lack of security and privacy. There is always a high chance the
data would be lost with this particular technology. The other disadvantages of cloud
computing mainly include it is extremely vulnerable to attacks and comprise of limited
control and limited flexibilities. The above report has clearly demonstrated the clear idea
about cloud definition and various cloud service models. The problems with the Oracle Cloud
and Nectar cloud are also given here. Moreover, the several misconceptions are also cleared
in this particular report.

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