ICT and Environment in Computer Science

ICT and Environment Computer Science 1
ICT and Environment Computer Science
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ICT and Environment Computer Science 2
Abstract
Cloud computing is the storage of information and data application on remote servers and
accessing them through the internet instead of installing as well as saving it on personal
computers. With the incline in the volume of data availability, it has made it not practical to
move data on desktops for analysis. Therefore, such issues call for novel computing paradigms
such as cloud computing. Recent achievements in the cloud computing industry have provided
users with assurance to get rid of these obstacles. Microsoft has a significant significance
towards the development of data centers for public cloud infrastructure referred to as Microsoft
Windows Azure. Accordingly, Microsoft Windows Azure serves to provide users with setting up
of scientific needs for a website for documentation and discussing research results for
performing complex analysis of data in an ascending environment.
Introduction
Cloud computing is gaining popularity among organisations since it offers a range of benefits
regarding access to data and cost. Cloud computing has been projected to change the computing
environment from making us of local apps as well as software into centralised services offered to
corporations (Canali, Balzarotti, and Francillon, 2013). On the same note cloud computing is
referred to as on-demand computing which is internet-based for offering information in addition
to shared resources to computers and other devices on-demand. Therefore, cloud computing
provides on-demand services to a shared pool of configurable computing resources. Indeed, it
provides consumers with several capacities for processing and storing data in third part centers.
The primary objective of cloud computing is to maximise on the efficiency of shared resources.
Thus, cloud computing aid corporations to evade upfront expenses associated with infrastructure
and focusing on the project which make their business unique as an alternative to infrastructure.

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As a result, cloud computing has become service with high demand because of its benefit of high
computing power reasonable service costs, scalability, high performance, availability, and
accessibility. Most firms have their cloud computing providers. Microsoft Windows Azure is a
cloud computing platform that was launched in 2010 by Microsoft Company. The platform is
significant as it aids in creating, managing and deploying applications and services via
worldwide network operated by Microsoft data centers. Microsoft Windows Azure platform
consists of has exceptional capacity and services. Consequently, the platform offers both
Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and Platform as a service (Paas) and also provide a range of
tools that support a for programming languages and framework. The platform offers both
Microsoft specific framework and third-party systems and software.
Literature Review
Through the study of a range of journals, related to the research topic, and research papers which
offers significant information. The information comprises different cloud computing services,
aspects, and contemporary issues associated with these systems that go-ahead to provide diverse
solutions to the present problems. As a result, it aids in enhancing and overcoming challenges of
the current approach in future
Voras et al. (2011) Define cloud computing as a model that allows convenient, ubiquitous and
on-demand network accessibility for sharing a pool of computing resources such as servers,
networks, services, applications and storage. Cloud computing allows fast sharing of resources
with minimal management efforts. Windows Azure platform rapidly support the computation of
huge tasks through Roundup algorithm. The roundup algorithm provides computing capacity,
and it is also cost-effective.

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Cloud computing models
Cloud computing services are classified into three principal clusters Software as a Service
(SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a service (IaaS).
Software as a service (SaaS) is a model through which applications are hosted like service to
users who access it through the Internet. SaaS offers users with the facilities which they have to
take care for maintaining, installing as well as implementing their virtual cluster through which
they are tasked with managing, executing and installing their software (Marinescu, 2013). IaaS
makes use of a range of tools for virtualisation and conversion of physical sources to relevant
resources which are provided and published to users on request.
Platform as a service (PaaS) supplies all the needed resources for developing applications as well
as services using the internet minus the need for downloading or software installing. The PaaS
consists of hosting, development and design applications. Furthermore, PaaS has additional
service such as web service integration, scaling, security and database integration (Smith, 2017).
Therefore, users do not need to worry about buying software and hardware or hiring experts to
manage the hardware and software. PaaS offers the flexibility for software installation on
systems, and scalability. Nonetheless, PaaS does not allow portability and interoperability among
users.
Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is a model that is tasked with the responsibility to provide
virtual computing resources, and network resources. Therefore, IaaS users have to assemble their
virtual collection thus they have the responsibility to install, execute and maintain their virtual
stack of software. IaaS make use of different tools for converting and virtualizing physical
resources to logical resources which are provided and published to users as requested.

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Figure1: Cloud service models
Types of cloud computing deployment models
Cloud computing systems are categorized into four main classes as public cloud, private cloud,
community cloud, and hybrid cloud.
Public clouds
Public clouds are models that are owned and operated by third party individuals. These groups
provides customers with super economies of scale since the costs of infrastructure are trenched
across a range of users. Public cloud is advantageous because it allows each user to choose a
package that they find it to be pocket-friendly which is commonly referred to as “pay-as-you-go”
(Velte et al., 2010, p. 44). In this sense all users share the same infrastructure pool with restricted
security protections, configurations and variance availability. The infrastructure pool is
controlled and managed by the cloud service provider. Buyya, Broberg, and Goscinski, (2010)

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Asserts that the public cloud is significant as it can be bigger than the enterprises cloud hence
providing the capacity for seamless scalability on request. On the same note, Rahimi et al. (2014)
state that users are regarded as authoritative by default in public cloud thus privacy and security
are major challenges. An example of a public cloud includes Google App Engine and Amazon
EC2.
Private Cloud
In accordance with Modi et al. (2013), private clouds are developed exclusively for one
organization. Private clouds intend to cater for issues concerning data security and providing
control. Therefore, private clouds fall into two categories: on-premise private cloud and
externally hosted private cloud. On-premise private clouds are also referred to as internal clouds
which is hosted inside one’s data center. This type of cloud offers a more standardized
procedures and security. Nonetheless, these procedures and safety are restricted based on the
scalability and size. As a result, the information technology department has to incur operating
costs for physical resources. On-premise private cloud is appropriate for application which have
compete configurations and control of the security and infrastructure. On the other hand,
externally hosted private cloud is a form of private cloud which is hosted externally by the cloud
provider (Chou, DeVadoss, and Erl, 2010). Therefore, it is the cloud provider who provides a
unique cloud setting with completely guaranteed confidentiality. Accordingly, this is a suitable
model as there is no public sharing of resources which interferes with the privacy of users.
Externally hosted private cloud is therefore much secure as compared to public cloud as its
clients comprise of trusted internal to the enterprise. Examples of private cloud include Microsoft
cloud, IBM cloud, and other private organizational clouds.
Community cloud

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Under the community model cloud, the infrastructure is collectively shared by various
enterprises by the same compliance and policy standards. Menascé and Ngo, (2009) Postulate
that the concept aid in minimizing on expenses as compared to the private cloud since it shared
by big groups. Community cloud model is used by government departments which have to
access similar data related to hospitals, and roads for collecting information.
Hybrid cloud
Hybrid is a combination of public and private cloud models. Through the hybrid cloud, the
service provider can make use of a third party cloud supplier either partially and completely
hence it enhances computing flexibility (Buyya, Broberg, and Goscinski, 2011). As a result, the
hybrid cloud setting has a better chance of offering on-demand external scalability provisions.
Deployment model Scope of services Managed by Level of security
Public model Large industry groups
and general public
Cloud service
provider
Low
Private model Single enterprise Single enterprise High
Community model Organizations which
share similar mission,
policy standards, and
security features
Various enterprises or
cloud service
providers
High
Hybrid model Public and
organization
Public and
organization
Medium
Table 1: Comparison between different computing deployment models

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Microsoft Windows Azure
Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing service advanced by Microsoft for testing, building,
managing and deploying different applications and services across global Microsoft-managed
network data centers (Jennings, 2010). Azure offers the following services service software as a
service (SaaS), infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) and also
support several frameworks, tools, and programming languages. These service consists of both
Microsoft-specific as well as third-party software and systems.
Service offered by Windows Azure
Computing: According Armbrust et al. (2010) state that through infrastructure as a service (IaaS)
Azure perform virtual computing services using virtual machines which allow consumers to
launch general-purpose Linux and Microsoft Windows virtual machines. It is also possible to
preconfigure machine images for common software packages. Other service performed by Azure
include website hosting which enable web developers to develop sites through PHP, Asp.Net,
and Python and deploy it is via Git, FTP, Team Foundation Server and Mercurial.
Storage services: Storage services offer SDK APIs and REST for data storage and accessibility
to data on the cloud. Similarly, table services allow structured text and binary programs to be
stored as blobs which can be accessed through hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) paths. In
addition, blob services offer means of security which regulates accessibility to data.
Data management: Azure search offers text search as well as a subset of OData’s framework
filters with the help of SDK APIs.
Discussion