Cloud Computing- Amazons EC2 - Essay Example

Cloud Computing- Amazon’s EC2 Dear Client, I am sure you will vouch the fact that we are living in a modernized world which is being “run” by science and technology. Many facets of human life, from daily routine activities to significant applications in business environment are becoming dependent on science and technology. In business environment, it is obvious that technologies in the form of Information Technology (IT) or Information Systems (IS) are playing an integral and maximal role not only in the everyday running of organizations, but also in the expansion, transformation, and optimization of organizations. For doing simple tasks like opening a door in the form of authorized entry to accomplishing complex organizational processes, IT and its tools are playing an optimal role. One of the key IT based processes inside an organizational environment is storing of digitized data, sharing it, and importantly processing or analyzing that data using specialized hardwares and softwares to get the desired results. Among the many existing and emerging technologies, cloud computing is being maximally implemented by many organizations in varied business sectors. When an organization utilizes cloud computing, it takes over majority of its IT processes “raining” benefits to it like how rainy clouds would normally ‘envelop’ a particular area. In the part one, we will provide background technical details about cloud computing and the processes behind it. In the second part, we will particularly focus on Amazon’s cloud computing service called EC2 and its effective features. In the third part, by comparing EC2 with other cloud services, will try to show how EC2 is a far superior service than others. Will conclude the report by summing up the points that will clearly show how EC2 is the best service for your company. Cloud Computing- Defined and Background Cloud computing refers to a IT based virtual infrastructure where business operations are carried out using third-party ‘virtual’ servers stationed in distant places through internet-dependant interface, instead of using in-house IT structure. So, it obvious that you need not required to build and maintain an internal IS based infrastructure. If you have a pre-existing structure, you can avoid expanding it. This is because normally cloud can store all kind of data and importantly host many softwares, which may be needed to run your processes. The data and softwares can be accessed using a web based application from any place without major physical limitations. “The storing and accessing of applications and computer data often through a Web browser rather than running installed software on your personal computer or office server” (“Definition: Cloud Computing”). Cloud computing is based on ‘services on demand’ concept as the companies can store data and utilize IT tools by just paying the subscription or rental charges to the hosting parties. Numerous cloud components including different hardwares and softwares are available in the cloud design for providing Cloud Computing services for various processes. The components are categorized as front end and back end. The front end is mostly a web browser and the other applications through which the organization or its IT person can access the ‘Cloud’. The ‘Cloud’ contains hardwares such as servers, data storage devices, and softwares, specialized business applications, and others, which are referred as the back end. “Among the items that are hosted by Cloud hosts or providers (often with extra charges for high-memory or high-CPU instances) are data transfer in and out; storage (measured by the GB-month); I/O requests; PUT requests and GET requests; IP addresses, load balancing, plus various software’s or applications” (“Virtualization/Cloud Computing”). As being discussed, the key feature of cloud computing is "Software as a Service (SaaS)". That is, there is no need to buy expensive softwares which are required by the companies and thereby no need to install it or maintain or update it. The cloud hosting party will do that job for you. We will have an extensive stable of softwares and other applications, which we will keep on updating at regular periods. As the demand for cloud computing increases, business units either big or small are providing different cloud-based services to its prospective clients. In addition to our service (Amazon), well-known IT firms including Google, Microsoft, IBM, and others are also providing cloud computing services. Amazon’s EC2 and its effective features In 2002, Amazon initiated cloud computing in Beta form through Amazon Web Services (AWS). Being the first player in this field, we are proud to be called or considered as pioneer in cloud computing. When the management at Amazon found that we have an extensive IS infrastructure for our own purpose, it introduced the commercial process of sharing its IS infrastructure to other firms. “Think of it this way: Amazon has spent a lot of time and money setting up a multitude of servers to service its popular website, and is making those vast hardware resources available for all developers to use” (Michael 42). Initial Beta phase was run using Microsoft Windows Server as well as Microsoft SQL Server. Then, it got extended to other operating systems like Linux and Open Solaris. So, in 2006, it formally extended its Amazon’s Cloud commercial services in the form AWS which hosted various applications for other business. “Since early 2006, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has provided companies of all sizes with an infrastructure web services platform in the cloud. With AWS you can requisition compute power, storage, and other services–gaining access to a suite of elastic IT infrastructure services as your business demands them” (“What is AWS?”). With the excellent response for AWS, Amazon launched Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) and Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) as part of AWS and also to balance the existing AWS services. Originally Amazon started providing only storage services through S3, but later it developed its cloud computing service by comprising both storage options as well as software applications. From this background, we can understand that Amazon being a pioneer in cloud computing has developed its services through strong and quality research and development process. By using Amazon’s EC2, clients can make use of various software applications at any time. Those software applications can be utilized for running various business simulations, to carry out programming languages, web hosting, and others. “EC2 enables scalable deployment of applications by letting customers request a set number of virtual machines, onto which they can load any application of their choice” (Michael 43). EC2 can provide scalable deployment of software applications through which our clients can boot and load an Amazon Machine Image thereby creating a virtual machine. This process is called as "instance". Named as EC2 with E denoting Elasticity, the main attribute of Amazon’s EC2 is ‘Elasticity’ by which its users can create instances, increase its usage, and the same time end the “instances”, whenever they want. During their peak times in business they might need additional usage of softwares and other applications. The elasticity feature in EC2 allows the business clients to increase their usage or access to the cloud services by paying extra rental charges whenever they required. Importantly all these are done in quick time. “Amazon EC2 reduces the time required to obtain and boot new server instances to minutes, allowing you to quickly scale capacity, both up and down, as your computing requirements change” (“Amazon EC2”). So, the main advantage is firms like yours can initiate or end your server ‘instances’ very quickly at your convenience and based on your needs. The other key feature of Amazon’s EC2 is its elastic IP addresses. That is, EC2’s elastic IP address is not connected with any virtual machine instance. Instead it is connected with the client or user account that creates an instance. This gives an advantage over other static IP address in the data centers. To explain, when client or user connects with a cloud host, the user can map an elastic IP address and can connect to any virtual machine instance. This can be carried out without any help of the network administrator and the user does not have to wait for the DNS to authenticate this new connection. The connection lasts until it is deleted openly but the IP address will remain with the account even when there is no connection with the cloud. The advantage with this feature is that it can actualize quick connection to the cloud without major impediments. CloudWatch is another feature of EC2 which make the service an effective one for its clients. CloudWatch is a monitoring service inside EC2 which is used to collect and track clients’ resources consumption. It monitors the resource consumption such as CPU, networks, and disks. “You can use Amazon CloudWatch to collect and track metrics, collect and monitor log files, and set alarms” (“Amazon CloudWatch”). Clients can also get metrics and other details from Amazon CloudWatch by accessing command line tools and through Web API’s. So, it is obvious that this feature is helpful to monitor the organizational level resource utilization, applications performance, and the instances created from the client side. In addition, the metrics collected through CloudWatch can enable auto scaling feature to automatically create or eliminate EC2 instances thereby helping the clients to carry out their tasks including their increased tasks without any stoppages. Speaking of auto scaling feature, EC2 allows the IS of the clients to manage its instances (to create or to terminate) by calculating the capability and the needs of the system. That is, as being mentioned earlier, it automatically scales up and down according to the usage of the clients. In addition, using this feature, simple applications can be handled with easily accessible schedule-based (e.g. time-of-the-day) and rule-based (e.g. time-of-the-day) auto scaling methods. Recently, Amazon has added more control to this auto scaling feature from start to the termination of the instances. That is, this control feature can aid the users to “hold your newly launched instances in a pending state while you perform actions on them, such as installing software, before they are added to your Auto Scaling group and become in service” (“New Auto Scaling features”). On the same lines, when instances are terminating, “you can temporarily stop the termination to investigate the cause or retrieve logs from an instance before it terminates” (“New Auto Scaling features”). There are chances of creating traffic outage when all users avail cloud services. This problem happened twice to Amazon during 2008 and again in 2011. To avoid this situation Amazon has came up with the feature called “Availability Zones feature”, by which users were allowed to control and select their clouds. For example when their primary Cloud becomes unavailable, they can connect to an alternate functioning cloud. Hence, with appropriate back up service clients can continue their functioning without glitches. “This Availability Zones feature is important because people can now add redundancy to their application. Choosing multiple zones, people can have server instances with separate power, cooling, network access, and physical servers.” (LaMonica). Comparison with other players The fact that Amazon started early and being the pioneer in cloud computing, it has gained an optimal head-start over its competitors. “Behind Amazon, the rest of the market could be described as ‘everyone else’” (Butler). That is, even prominent players such as Google Compute Engine, Microsofts Windows Azure Virtual Machines, Salesforce.com, Rackspace, and others are lagging behind Amazon. They themselves clearly see “Amazon as the #1 cloud player and the top threat to their own cloud ambitions” (Darrow). Amazon was able to elevate itself into this optimal position not only because of their early start but importantly as above-pointed out because of the slew of effective features it offers. Apart from these effective and enticing features, Amazon is able to garner more clients than its competitors because it is able to efficiently manage or nullify any supposed advantages its competitors might have. For example, when Salesforce.com advertised that it has the capability to hold an enormous cache of customer data, including the most valuable data of client information, Amazon launched its own services to effectively manage its client data. “Amazon Glacier is a "cold storage" service for storing a companys long-term data, while Data Pipeline is a relatively new service that makes it easier to transfer all that data between various applications within Amazons cloud” (Butler, “Amazons biggest competitor”). Although, Google with its sizable data centers can compete with Amazon, it has not strongly focused on cloud computing and instead delving into other aspects thereby again giving the edge to Amazon’s EC2. “Google has a lot of data centers that are optimized for massive scaling, which is heavy artillery in cloud battles” (Butler). However, the fact is that Google has mainly focused on application development and hosting. More importantly, Amazon can strongly compete with Google in the area of data centers as well. This is because “Amazon owns the largest data centers in the world, with centers located in 9 regions around the world: 3 in the US and 6 scattered strategically around the globe” (“AWS vs. Azure”). When it comes to Amazon’s competition with Windows, it is clear that Amazon is winning that fight also by exhibiting their flexibility. That is, Windows’ Cloud service provider Azure offers only Microsoft operating system. Although, it makes processes simpler for Windows developers, it can throw serious obstacles to clients using other operating systems. Amazon does not face this problem because it offers Linux, Mac OS X or Windows support, and the client can choose the system which is apt for them. This flexibility further strengthens EC2’s hold in the cloud computing market. Conclusion Based on the above analysis of Amazon’s EC2, its effective features, and its favorable comparison with other cloud providers, it is obvious that EC2 can be a best product for your organization. As mentioned above, firstly, your organization’s requirement to develop and maintain an extensive internal IT infrastructure with hardwares and softwares can be reduced maximally with EC2. Instead they have to just manage their cloud space according to their needs. With the cloud providing the needed softwares, updating it regular to the latest versions, increasing their capacity according to needs, and so on your company has to aptly manage it. Amazon continues to ensure that they provide their clients with real time data’s which they are doing promptly in the current competitive environment. References “Amazon CloudWatch.” Amazon Web Services Amazon EC2. Amazon Web Services AWS vs Azure. Script Rock, 26 June 2014 Butler, Brandon. Cloud computing showdown: Amazon vs. Rackspace (OpenStack) vs. Microsoft vs. Google. Network World, 3 Dec 2012. Butler, Brandon. Amazons biggest competitor in the cloud: Salesforce.com? Network World, 4 April 2013 Darrow, Barb. How Amazon’s cloud competitors are trying to find cracks in AWS’s armor. Gigaom Research, 24 May 2013. “Definition: Cloud Computing”. (n. d.). Retrieved from: http://www.cloudcomputingdefined.com/ LaMonica, M. (2008). Amazon Web Services adds resiliency to EC2 compute service. Retrieved from: http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9904091-7.html Michael, M. (2008). Cloud Computing. New Delhi: Pearson Education India New Auto Scaling features for controlling individual Amazon EC2 instances. Amazon Web Services, 30 July 2014 “What is AWS?” (n. d). Amazon Web Services. Retrieved from: http://aws.amazon.com/what-is-aws/ Virtualization/Cloud Computing. Virtual Statistical System. Read More