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Cloud computing and mobility are two major trends in the Internet. Cloud computing (cloud computing) is a product of the integration of various technologies, mainly including virtualization technology, distributed processing (distributed computing), parallel processing (parallel computing), grid computing (grid computing), etc. Cloud computing shields the technical implementation details and provides services to users, shifting their focus from technical details to their own needs.
The characteristics of cloud computing can be summarized as ubiquitous data, ubiquitous software, and ubiquitous computing. Users can access software, use data, and perform computations from any location after logging into the system.
Based on the service model of cloud computing, it can be divided into: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS).
Based on the existence form of cloud computing, it can be divided into: public cloud, hybrid cloud, private cloud, and community cloud.
Cloud Computing Concept
So far, there is no standard definition of cloud computing. There are over a hundred definitions available, with the most recognized and cited being the definition from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the United States, which states: “Cloud computing is a model that enables ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (resources include networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.” A recognized definition in China is provided by Professor Liu Peng, Deputy Director and Secretary-General of the Expert Consulting Committee on Cloud Computing: “Cloud computing is a scalable, cost-effective distributed computing capability provided over the network.” Forester Research defines cloud computing from the perspective of cloud service providers: cloud computing is a standardized IT capability that integrates software, application platforms, and infrastructure to create a system that provides services in a demand-driven and self-service manner through Internet technology.
Cloud computing can be understood as the integration of resources and devices via virtualization technology, parallel processing technology, and distributed computing technology over the Internet, providing users with convenient and fast network-based computing and storage services. The services provided by cloud computing include software, hardware, and platform services, which can be customized according to user needs, i.e., “on-demand services,” which is the innovative and significant meaning of cloud computing.
Cloud Computing Principles
Cloud computing is similar to a B/S architecture system, where users access the Internet or an internal LAN using computers, mobile phones, tablets, and other smart terminals, making requests for computing, applications, or storage to the cloud computing server. The cloud organizes and allocates resources within a virtual resource pool according to the content of the requests, dynamically allocating resource usage and promptly feeding back the computation results to the user. Cloud computing services include computation, storage, networking, software, and services. Users do not need to install any application software or store any data; all operations are performed in the cloud. Regardless of location, as long as users connect to the Internet or an internal LAN, they can use the cloud, just as conveniently as using electricity or water.
Cloud computing automatically breaks down large computing processes into countless smaller subprograms over the network, which are then processed by a vast system of multiple servers that search, compute, and analyze before sending the results back to the user. With this technology, remote service providers can process tens of millions or even billions of pieces of information within seconds, achieving network services with the same powerful performance as a “supercomputer.”
History of Cloud Computing Development
In 1983, SUN Microsystems proposed the idea that “the network is the computer,” which can be considered the earliest prototype of cloud computing development. The concept of “cloud computing” was first proposed by Google CEO Eric Schmidt at the 2006 Search Engine Conference. Subsequently, Google promoted cloud computing in collaboration with American universities. In 2008, Yahoo, HP, and Intel also joined the cloud computing ranks. They created six data centers with partners as research experimental platforms, each equipped with 1,400 to 4,000 processors. In the same year, Dell began applying for the “cloud computing” trademark to strengthen control over this term, which may reshape technological architecture in the future. In 2010, NASA and supporting vendors including Rackspace, AMD, Intel, and Dell jointly announced the “OpenStack” open-source project. Microsoft expressed support for the integration of OpenStack with Windows Server 2008 R2 in October 2010; Ubuntu included OpenStack in version 11.04. In 2011, Cisco officially joined OpenStack, focusing on developing network services for OpenStack.
Key Technologies of Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is a technology that has developed alongside the Internet; without high-speed, stable networks, cloud computing would not be possible. Besides networking, the key technologies for implementing cloud computing at the technical level include virtualization technology, distributed data processing technology, and storage technology.
1. Storage Technology
Cloud storage technology achieves effective storage of user data through distributed storage. Distributed storage not only meets the reliability requirements brought by redundancy but also efficiently provides data usage services for a large number of parallel users. In distributed storage, user data with the same content is usually stored in multiple copies across different storage areas, ensuring high availability of data.
The main data storage technologies in the field of cloud computing are GFS (Google File System) and Hadoop, two distributed file systems. GFS is a non-open-source technology invented and used by Google, while most other cloud computing companies use the open-source Hadoop data storage technology. GFS is a scalable distributed file system that manages large distributed data-intensive computing, using inexpensive commercial hardware to build systems and providing fault-tolerant high-performance services to a large number of users.
2. Virtualization Technology
Virtualization technology efficiently utilizes and effectively integrates all resources under existing conditions to achieve rapid deployment of resources and meet the constantly changing needs of users. These features and functions determine that virtualization technology will be a core technology of cloud computing. In a virtualized environment, system deployment and the establishment of distributed computing environments are easier to implement and manage.
3. Data Management Technology
Cloud computing and big data are closely related; big data is generally stored in the cloud, while cloud computing typically processes big data. In data management, cloud computing focuses on data storage, reading, and analysis, while updating operations are secondary. Therefore, the data management technology of cloud computing mainly optimizes data reading, often adopting a column storage management model in the database field, partitioning and storing data tables by column. Similar to data storage, Google’s BigTable data management technology is also an industry leader, and Hadoop has its own data management technology similar to Google’s BigTable, and it is open-source.
4. Programming Model
Cloud computing hides the complex computations and task scheduling execution in the background, providing users with a simple programming model to write programs, greatly reducing the difficulty of programming in the cloud, thus allowing users to navigate the cloud more easily. Cloud computing adopts a programming model similar to MAP-Reduce, which is currently used by most cloud computing systems. Compared to traditional programming models, this programming model is more suitable for writing programs with loosely coupled internal tasks and a high degree of parallelization.
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