How Cloud Computing Works - Report Example

? Definitions Submitted to, Submitted By, of the Submitted on, [March 16th, CROSSTALK Crosstalk is any noise or any other type of signal that changes the normal routine of any other noise. More specifically it may be said that the interference caused by the signal which may be passing through the conductors nearby. The phenomenon of crosstalk may exist most commonly in telephones, televisions, radios and network related tools. The transfer of electrical energy between conductors is referred to as coupling and it often becomes the cause of crosstalk. Conductive, Inductive and capacitive are a few types of crosstalk that may exist. The first type of coupling or conductive coupling is a result of the establishment of physical contact between conductors. Inductive crosstalk results when the current passing through a single conductor results in the generation of a similar current in another conductor. The third type of crosstalk or capacitive coupling is the resultant of the coming together of two or more conductors such that they begin to act as a capacitor. Figure 1: Introduction to Crosstalk. Source: polarinstruments.com Crosstalk may be PREVENTED by enabling the positioning of conductors to be at respective distances. Instead, the introduction of insulation between the conductors may also result in the lessening of crosstalk. Practically it is not possible to separate out wires in distances therefore the option for insulation is better. Crosstalk due to inductive capacitance may be eliminated by twisted the inducing cables around each other. The inter-wound cables are often referred to as twisted pair cables. The way crosstalk gets reduced is due to the reduction of the field size cross section on which crosstalk may occur. Thus electromagnetic interference gets reduced considerably. Digital signals are often affected less or not at all by crosstalk. The signals mostly affected are those that are analogue in nature. The term has been chosen owing to my personal experience of handling issues related to it in my organization. The networking setup had old fixtures within the entire organizational setup and had to be replaced with better cables that proposed reduced interferences and thus lesser possibilities of crosstalk. CAT 6 CABLE Ethernet or LAN to put simply is the means by which the computer systems present within a closed area are connected together into a network via hardware cables. The cables used for the said process are of various standards. CAT 6 Cable is one of them. The technology of the Ethernet is integral for organizational networks and so is the presence of CAT 6 cable in it. Figure 2 Cat 6 Cable. Source: http://www.openxtra.co.uk/articles/category-6-cat6-cable It is given the name CAT 6 because it belongs to the sixth generation of cables that have been made for the Ethernet technology. Specifically it may be said that it supports the following gigabit Ethernet technologies: 10BASE-T/100BASE-TX and 1000BASE-T/1000BASE-TX. The cable consists of eight wires just like its predecessor Cat 5 cable. However it is different from its former version in the manner that it makes use of all its 4 pairs in data transfer. The Category 6 Cable was used in the establishment of the Local Area Network of the Organization for which I work. The selection and successful installation of this cable was my task and that is how I encountered it. This cable was preferred over the rest of the available option because it is the latest version of cables that complies fully with the standard Ethernet Protocols fo Data Transfer and provides efficient data transfer without any data loss. MP3 MP3 is a short form of MPEG-2 Audio Layer III. It is a standard format for digital music storage that was designed by Motion Pictures Experts Group (MPEG) around mid-1990s. High quality audio files can be created using this standard with extremely optimized storage space. MP3 format is widely used over the internet to share and transfer audio files. How the magic of MP3 works. The compression of audio files is done by shedding those sounds which are not audible to human ears. Certain compression algorithms are also applied for further compression. This amazingly does not hamper the sound quality. The MP3 audio file thus acquired sized around 1/11 of the original audio file. MP3 enables storage of hundreds of music tracks on a basic audio CD that usually stores 15 to 16 normal audio tracks. Smaller size declares these files ideal for sharing and transfers over the internet. Would not be wrong if said that internet played key role in the publicity of MP3 standard format. For MP3 files to be played the player software must support the format. Currently all major media players support MP3, for example Real Player, Quick Time, Windows Media Player and iTunes. However, WinAmp is considered as the most primitive and basic MP3 player. Along with so many advantages of using MP3 audio files, there is a great disadvantage in terms of Piracy. Illegal sharing and transfer of copyrighted audio files is greatly in practice these days over the internet. My personal experience of encountering MP3 within my organizational structure was when training lectures for newcomers were recorded in both audio and video formats. The audio format that was chosen for recording was the MP3. Later on these recordings were uploaded on the Intranet within the environment. The allocation of disk space of the servers for these MP3 files, their categorization and uploading along with their security of the privacy rights for their access were all the tasks that I was required to perform in relation to them. Comparing handling of MP3 files with those of other audio files types handled during office work earlier I found them to be very friendly since they fulfilled their purpose with precision combined with ease of transfer and storage since their file size was considerably smaller. CLOUD: The conventional networks that comprise of client/server computing faced a lot of troubles in managing the network traffic, maintaining the versatile needs of the clients and handling faults. The need of a robust, always available and fulfilling server side leads to the concepts of cluster and its advanced form that is CLOUD. The CLOUD in its real meanings and essence is actually a network of multiple nodes comprising of computers, storage devices, servers and routers, that poses itself as one whole functional unit to its clients. The name cloud indicates the layer of abstraction that covers all the hidden (individual) components and presents a combined effect that serves the purpose of computing. Heterogeneous in nature the clouds exhibit several advantages in comparison to their old counter parts i.e. simple computer networks. Load sharing and Load balancing mechanisms are used as basic fault tolerance mechanisms to keep the clouds always available for the clients. With a graceful degradation in performance the clouds seldom crash. The clouds mainly use either peer to peer scheme of processing or the master/slave scheme. Both the schemes have their merits and demerits. The peer to peer offers a higher level load sharing mechanism whereas the master slave ensures the quick processing of executive decisions. The clouds can also exhibit a hybrid approach but the intelligence required to manage such an approach is not yet achieved. The traffic management over the network is done through proper scheduling and routing of the requests to the respective serving units. The scheduling algorithms used are not that simple and have many troublesome issues that are still improving. The networks of queues are handled through the mathematical models based on queuing network analysis. Some of the examples of clouds are email servers like hotmail, yahoo and gmail, and the search engines like bing and google. The establishment of a Cloud was encountered as a proposal that is to be implemented in order to establish efficient communication among the different branches of my organization that are located in different States. Cloud setup for data sharing is the most secure and reliable setup among all its competitors and has therefore been approved for implementation. TECHNOLOGY INVOLVED IN THE AREA  The cloud based computing can be divided into two parts. The interface i.e. the front end and the hidden processing engine i.e. the back end. Both the ends are connected through a link which is usually the internet or a network. The interface is usually a browser or a browser like interface on a local single computer that hides all the internal complication and gives the user the illusion of being connected with a single dedicated server. The back end which is actually termed as a cloud comprises of computer networks, data storage devices and multiple servers. As a network of dedicated servers for each type of software applications like database servers and gaming servers etc., it gives the impression of a grand server with all the applications servers installed and working on one unit. Through the emulation technology of server virtualization the physical servers are decomposed into multiple virtual servers to optimize the performance of the servers. This in turn reduces the processing time and increases throughput. Under the master/slave approach the dedicated central server or a bunch of central servers handles and manages all the system. From scheduling and monitoring of the traffic/requests to entertaining the diversified demands of clients the central server supervises all the activities in a cloud. The protocol it follows comprises of middleware (a software) that allows different functioning like the communication of different nodes inside a cloud etc. The need of storage for cloud computing is usually very high. The reason is the maintenance of a completely fault tolerant backup of the storage due to the usual failure rate of storage devices. The process of maintain multiple copies of data for backup is called as redundancy. BANDWIDTH It is the capacity of a transmission medium that indicates volume of information (bits) handled or transmitted per unit time (per second). Though it has different meanings for different scenarios like radio transmissions etc., the most popular definition is given under the context of internet. The internet can be considered as a huge worldwide network of millions of computers so far (i.e. the number is increasing). Generally a user connected to the internet sees it as a cloud and doesn’t know much about the data transfer that takes place over the internet. The localized hub or body to which a user intermediately connects to is referred to as ISP (Internet Service Provider). The Internet Service Provider earns money by selling bandwidth to end users or customers. The customers may buy smaller bandwidth for comparatively lesser amounts as per their buying capacity. Shorter the bandwidth, longer would be the duration of data transfer. In simple words, with shorter bandwidth the web pages take longer to get downloaded completely. The distance between user and ISP is referred to as “The Last Mile”. Figure 1 shows the basic structure of internet connectivity. Figure 1. The last mile. (Source: http://www.coolnerds.com/Newbies/Bandwidth/Bandwidth.htm) An analogy of drain pipe explains the phenomenon of bandwidth existence and usage more clearly. A drain hose would empty the pool water comparatively more slowly than a broader drain hose pipe. The water in this example may be considered as data just for the sake of understanding. It can be said the skinny hose pipe has lesser bandwidth than the broader/fat hose pipe. The internet connections are generally discriminated as Dial up and Broadband. The dial up connections that are established via phone lines, allow very narrow bandwidth that is about 50 Kbps (Kilobits per second). These connections are thus slow. While a broadband internet connection facilitates the bandwidth 128 Kbps to 10 Mbps (Megabits/second) or more. Broadband connections are way faster than dial up internet connections and costlier as well. This creates a trade-off between time and money. Slow connections come with cheaper costs and vice versa. UNIVERSAL SERIAL BUS The USB or Universal Serial Bus is a standard defined for connectivity between different devices like computers, peripherals and other electronic devices. This standard was primarily developed in early 1990s. The main objective was to reduce the diversity and number of different peripheral connecting ports associated with a PC like serial ports, keyboard, mouse and parallel ports etc. The main theme was to establish an easy access and low cost expansion bus that allows simplest peripheral connectivity with a PC. For low speed peripherals like mouse and keyboard, USB offers maximum bandwidth of 1.5 Mbps. While for higher speed devices it allows 12Mbps bandwidth. USB 1.1 was the first well known and mostly adapted standard. Currently USB 2.0 is the latest standard that was established in year 2000 as a result of joint efforts of seven computer industry tycoons namely Microsoft, HP, Compaq, Intel, Lucent, NEC and Philips. USB 2.0 replaced the old USB 1.1 standard and adopted all over the world. Following are some of the features of USB 2.0. Extremely simple to use. Supports bus powered devices. USB 2.0 offers a splendid data transfer rate ranging between 12 Mbps to 480 Mbps. This speed allows real time high definition video streaming connectivity. USB 2.0 offers full downward compatibility for USB 1.1 standard devices. With seamless connectivity it allows automatic detection, installation and data rate management accordingly for different devices like external storage, Cameras and different data acquiring devices. With USB multiport hubs there is a provision of attachment of maximum 127 peripheral devices. 1000 times faster than old conventional ports. Universal Serial BUS technology is encountered everyday innumerable times for reliable use of peripheral devices within the office environment. REFERENCES Stucken A., (2010). What is an MP3?. WebWise: making most of being online. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/webwise/guides/about-mp3 Polar Instruments (2012) An Introduction to Forward and Reverse CrossTalk. Polar Instruments.com. Retrieved from http://www.polarinstruments.com/support/si/AP8164.html Simpson A. (n.d.). What is Bandwidth. http://www.coolnerds.com/Newbies/Bandwidth/Bandwidth.htm. Fisher T., (2012). Bandwidth. About.com: Guide. http://pcsupport.about.com/od/termsb/g/bandwidth.htm Vohra Deepak, (2011). Hybrid Cloud Computing: The Future Trend in Cloud. Retrieved from: http://cloudcomputing.sys-con.com/node/1682640 Smith Herbert, (2010 Oct), Cloud Computing: key regulatory and contractual issues, Intellectual Property & Technology, Media and Telecommunications newsletter. 2.2. Retrieved from: http://www.herbertsmith.com/NR/rdonlyres/044EA5BE-207A-4E6A-9F25-83A2CF00F7EE/16802/IPTMTNewsletterEOctober2010.pdf Blog on Smog. (2008 Nov, 4), Global Effects of Cloud Computing. Retrieved from: http://www.blogonsmog.com/footprint-friday/global-effects-of-cloud-computing.html. Jonathan S., (2008, April 08).  How cloud computing works. Retrieved from http://computer.howstuffworks.com/cloud-computing.htm. Admin, (2009, October 14). Companies involved in cloud computing. Retrieved from http://www.asp-toolkit.com/companies-involved-in-cloud-computing.html Silicon Imaging, (2012). Universal Serial Bus. Retrieved from http://www.siliconimaging.com/universal_serial_bus.htm OPENXTRA (2012) Category 6 (CAT 6) Cable. Retrieved from http://www.openxtra.co.uk/articles/category-6-cat6-cable Read More