Cloud Computing: Models, Services, Misconceptions and Examples

This report outlines a brief discussion regarding the entire concept of cloud computing. It clearly depicts the description on the various cloud service models viz. Infrastructure as a Service or IaaS, Platform as a Service or PaaS and Software as a Service or SaaS. The misconceptions related to cloud computing are also solved here. The final part of the assignment concludes with a description on the several benefits and challenges of cloud computing.

Running head: CLOUD COMPUTING
Cloud Computing
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note:

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Table of Contents
Part 1: Introduction....................................................................................................................2
Part 2: Cloud Computing Model................................................................................................3
Cloud Services by Oracle Cloud............................................................................................6
Cloud Services by Nectar Cloud............................................................................................7
Part 3: Misconceptions on Cloud Computing............................................................................7
Part 4: Conclusion......................................................................................................................9
References................................................................................................................................11

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Part 1: Introduction
Cloud computing can be defined as the paradigm of information technology, which
helps to enable the 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. It is completely different from the traditional IT
servicing. The main difference is that cloud computing is extremely elastic and resilient,
whereas both of these 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 (Fernando, Loke and Rahayu 2013). The other differences include cost
effectiveness, high security and office automation; all these features are not available in
traditional IT systems.
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
viz. 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 here. The misconceptions related to cloud computing are also solved here. The final
part of the assignment concludes with a description on the several benefits and challenges of
cloud computing.

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Part 2: Cloud Computing Model
Cloud computing mainly comprises of three distinct service oriented architecture
models. They are as follows:
i) 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. It is a
virtualized infrastructure that helps all of 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

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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.
ii) Platform as a Service or PaaS: The second type of cloud service model is the
Platform as a Service or PaaS (Jain and Paul 2013). 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. This particular 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 software service that is to be deployed on any public IaaS or infrastructure 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 particular
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 particular 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 particular model (Wei et
al. 2014). The best examples of this particular cloud model of platform as a service or PaaS

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are AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Windows Azure, Force.com, Heroku, Google App Engine and
Apache Stratos.
iii) Software as a Service or SaaS: Software as a Service or SaaS in short is the
particular 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 particular 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
(Botta et al. 2016). The main advantage of SaaS is that it is cost effective and thus could be
afforded by all organizations. The utilization of this particular service model is extremely
broad. While all of 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 users. A particular web browser is required for
the purpose of utilizing the software as a service. The software architecture utilized by all the
initial ASPs is mandated by maintaining the separate instance of application (Gupta,
Seetharaman and Raj 2013). The software as service or SaaS has no specific physical
requirement or the indirect distribution as the distribution is not done physically and is thus
deployed instantaneously. Hence, the partners or the middlemen are not required here. The
most significant advantages or benefits of this software as a service or SaaS are cost

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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 best or the most significant 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 particular 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 (Xiao
and Xiao 2013). 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 Software as a Service could be directly utilized for the purpose of
deployment of Java EE applications (Cloud.oracle.com. 2018). It is solely done by the SaaS
Extension Control by utilizing the Java Cloud Services. The other three cloud services model,
i.e. IaaS, PaaS and DaaS cannot be utilized for the purpose of deploying Java EE
applications.

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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 (Sanaei et al. 2014). 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

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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

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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. Cloud computing
comprise of various significant benefits for its users. The most significant advantage of cloud
computing is that is 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 is 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.
However, in spite of having such vats and 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

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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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