Comparing Design Of Cloud Computing Platforms

Cloud computing

It is the use of remote servers on the internet to store, manage and process data rather than a local server or your personal computer.

What is a cloud computing platform?

If a picture is worth a thousand words then one minute of video is worth one point eight million video is one of the densest forms of information made up of many steel frames per second and each frame contains millions of pixels that makes for some very large files and in many different formats but loading or organizing and sharing all this dense data is no easy task that’s where cloud platforms come in not only can the cloud platform manage huge volumes of video information it enables developers to build all kinds of applications  including cognitive ones that make use of visual data  to see what’s in a video.

Cloud Platform Providers:

AWS (Amazon Web Services)

 Microsoft Azure

GCP (Google Cloud Platform)

Vmware

OpenNebula

Nimble

Google Cloud Platform (GCP):

A collection of cloud computing services like compute, storage, networking that runs on an equivalent infrastructure which Google uses internally for its end-user products, like Google Search and YouTube which is provided by Google is understood as Google Cloud Platform. Google Cloud Platform (GCP) started their journey on 6th October, 2011 at that point, they need managed to make an honest presence within the industry. Initially, they need their own services like google and YouTube. But now, they need created the enterprise services. So now anyone can use GCP which shares an equivalent infrastructure that google search and YouTube.

GCP has lot of services so this service has been divided into certain domains. the most domain which may basically host any quite application is that compute, storage and networking using these domains we will create an infrastructure for any quite application. In compute domain, primary service offered by google is cloud engine which help to launching instance on cloud. While launching any instance Google takes only few second. In database domain, database service provided by Google is SQL database, there don’t have provision to settle on any another database aside from MySQL database. In storage domain, cloud storage is that the service which give object-based filing system. So, whenever we store files on this technique are often treated as an object. In troubleshooting domain, primary service provided by Google is Stack driver Logging, any deployed apps on GCP with API calls, those API calls gets recorded within the logs of GCP and may be traced then it helps to troubleshoot application. In monitoring domain, Stack driver monitoring which may monitor each and each resources or service running in GCP account. It provides basic information just like the amount of traffic coming to instance, what quite traffic is connected to instance, the performance of instance, etc.

Availability zones are the isolated locations within data center regions from public cloud services originate and operate and thus the regions are geographic locations within the info centers of public cloud service providers reside. So, GCP has 18 availability zones with 3 more on the way which is sort of lesser than AWS and Azure.

According to Market Share GCP is on 3rd place with 10% of the market share over a worldwide. consistent with recent report on the market share Google successfully jumped its share from 8% to 10% within the cloud business. But comparing with AWS and Azure, Google is a smaller amount market share. Google shares an equivalent infrastructure that of Google program and YouTube. Some their major clients are HSBC, PayPal, Dominos, Target, Bloomberg, etc.

In GCP very basic instance which include 2 virtual CPUs and eight GB of RAM will cost around 52 dollars per month which is 25% cheaper. For the most important instance offered by GCP is 3.75 TB RAM alongside 160 virtual CPUs which cost around 5.32 dollars/hour which is cheaper in terms of virtual CPUs provisioning as compared to AWS and Azure.

 

 

Microsoft Azure

Microsoft introduced their Cloud Computing Platform - Azure in 2010 to provide cloud services where users, businesses and organizations can build, test, deploy, and manage their applications on huge and capable servers/ data centres of Microsoft. These data centres are spread across 54 regions around the world. Azure, by Microsoft, offers variety of services across multiple domains, right from Compute Engines, Database Management to Content Delivery, Networking and many more.

Now let us delve into Azure…

Due to its easy to use and understand design of the Azure Architecture, minimal cost, and flexibility, it is not surprising that it is first choice of more than 90 percent of Fortune 500.

This provides users with the flexibility to use their preferred tools and technologies. In addition, Azure offers four different forms of cloud computing viz. infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), software as a service (SaaS) and server less.

Microsoft charges for Azure on a ‘pay as you use’ basis, meaning that customers receive a bill each month that only charges them for the specific resources they have used for what time.

Looking into the Architecture of Azure, services it offers shapes the design of Azure:

 

Fig. Azure Architecture


AppFabric is the middleware which comprises of services such as compute, storage, networking, and identity management. Azure comprises of all the services that can be offered by a cloud service provide that one can think of. Be it Compute, Mobile, Web, Storage, Analytics, Media & CDN, Integration, IoT right up to DevOps, Security, Containers, Database Management, AI & ML and Blockchain.  This plethora of tools and services is accessible from Microsoft Azure Management Portal.

One of the important reasons which makes Azure first choice of its customers is the seamless integration of Microsoft Apps and Windows into Azure and the features offered by Microsoft such as: Data Recovery, Security, Flexibility, Scalability and Cost

Some Distinct Design Characteristics of Azure include (but not limited to):

•            Web App and Non-Web App (Desktop) Service Type

•            OS level virtualization achieved via AppFabric Fabric Controller

•            Supports all Web APIs, SMTP suppor0074 and value-added services

•            Microsoft Windows Azure Portal is the User Access interface for all of Azure

•            Built on Microsoft.NET framework

 

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon providing on-demand cloud computing platforms and APIs to individuals, companies, and governments, on a metered pay-as-you-go basis.

The AWS platform was launched in July 2002. Cloud market of $50.4 billion (2020) has been dominated by AWS since day one. Now, Synergy Research Group's figures for Q3 2020 have AWS as the clear market leader globally for public IaaS and PaaS market share at 32 percent, followed by Microsoft at 16 percent, Google at 8 percent and Alibaba at 5 percent. AWS's revenue grew by 29% in 2020. According to Amazon, the number of active AWS users exceeds 1,000,000.While small and mid-size companies make up the majority of that user base, recent polls by private consulting firms suggest that enterprise-scale users make up at least 10% of that total.

The AWS Global Cloud Infrastructure offers over 175  fully featured services from data centres globally that is with more than 175 across to compute, storage, database, analytics, networking, mobile, developer tools, management tools, IoT, security and enterprise applications, which is the key strength for the market leader it continues to be the breadth and depth of its services.

AWS launched SageMaker in 2017 as a way to simplify the adoption of machine learning by bringing together a hosted environment for Jupyter notebooks with built-in model management, automated spin up of training environments using EC2 instances, and HTTPS endpoints for hosting capabilities with Amazon S3. The vendor also has a broad set of off-the-shelf machine learning services for use cases like image recognition (AWS Rekognition), text to speech deep learning models (Polly) and the engine that powers Alexa (Lex).AWS storage includes its Simple Storage (S3), Elastic Block Storage (EBS), Elastic File System (EFS), Import/Export large volume data transfer service, Glacier archive backup and Storage Gateway, which integrates with on-premise environments.

 

Fig. AWS Architecture


This is the basic structure of AWS EC2, where EC2 stands for Elastic Compute Cloud. EC2 allow users to use virtual machines of different configurations as per their requirement. It allows various configuration options, mapping of individual server, various pricing options, etc. In the above diagram S3 stands for Simple Storage Service. It allows the users to store and retrieve various types of data using API calls. It does not contain any computing element.

Even though the charges of AWS are high compared to its competitors. AWS is perhaps the best choice for large enterprises with specific requirements, for multinational companies with a presence in many countries, and for businesses all over the world. AWS also offers excellent levels of support, availability, greater redundancy, and number of services.

 

OpenNebula

OpenNebula is an open source cloud computing tool specifically designed as modular to allow easy integration with different environments and hypervisors. It also manages the heterogeneity and complexity of distributed large infrastructure. It is a flexible, scalable, open virtual infrastructure mechanism, capable of enabling the synchronization of network, storage, and virtual techniques. Therefore, it allows users to dynamically deploy services on distributed infrastructure based on provision strategies at data centre and remote cloud resources.

Let us now look at the architecture of OpenNebula:


Fig. OpenNebula Architecture


The platform consists of three main components which includes Core Virtual Infrastructure Manager, Capacity Manager and Drivers. Core Virtual Infrastructure manages the lifecycle of virtual machines. Capacity manager manages all the functionalities from the OpenNebula core such as balancing workloads in virtual machines. The third component drivers supports all platforms under it. OpenNebula does not support Graphic User Interface (GUI) which is the main drawback to the platform. Some of the advantages of the platform include server consolidation, partitioning dynamic clustering, centralized management of all workload, load balancing, heterogeneous workloads, and virtual machine supply on demand. In terms of infrastructure management, Open nebula can dynamically adjust scale of cloud platform infrastructure by increasing the number of partition clusters and hosts in order to achieve various requirements.

The OpenNebula is a preferable platform for organization expecting more of an efficient, scalable, dynamic management of VMs within a private cloud reflecting the involvement of large entities of physical and virtual servers based on Haizea scheduling.

 

Nimbus

Nimbus cloud platform is an integrated open set tool, used to deliver, providing infrastructure as a service cloud computing (IaaS) solution supported by University of Florida and Chicago. Nimbus platform is specifically designed based on science community interest such as batch schedulers, proxy credentials and best-efforts allocation etc., although it has recently supported non-scientific applications. It is written in Python and Java for rapid development of custom community-specific solutions. It enables users to provide, build various remote computing on demand resources via deployment of virtual machines. Nimbus permits combination of Amazon, OpenStack, and many other clouds. Nimbus cloud seems more complicated than many cloud platforms as command and results are inputted in command lines, making nimbus appear extremely complex due to specific applications. Nevertheless, the software is particularly unique based on greater level of flexibility as it supports almost every hypervisor Nimbus platform 285 supports XEN and KVM virtualization technologies except VMware.

Nimbus platform functional components can be grouped into three: client supported module, service supported module and resources management module. Client supported modules is used to support users especially with quick instance launches, one click clusters and consists of context client module, cloud client module, EC2 client module including reference client module. Service supported module is primarily used in providing various cloud services and the modules include EC2 WSDL module, remote interface module, and web service resource framework module. Background resource management module is principally used to manage a range of physical resources on cloud computing platform such as IaaS gateway module, work service management module, EC2 plus another supported platform module, workspace controller, workspace resource management module and workspace pilot module.

Fig. Nimbus Cloud Platform


Nimbus Cloud however seems suited to scientific cooperative community that is more interested in broad customization need rather than technical forms of the system. Globus Toolkit makes nimbus a reasonable choice for the scientific community due to their familiarity with the tool kit and the more conductive of excess cloud time sharing.

 References:

Cloud-platforms-tutorial

What-is-Microsoft-Azure-and-How-Does-It-Work?

Learn-Microsoft-Azure-Intellipaat

Nimbus-Project.org





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