History of Cloud Computing :

In this, we will discuss the history of Cloud computing. And also cover the
history of client server computing, distributed computing, and cloud
computing.
 Before Computing was come into existence, client Server
Architecture was used where all the data and control of client resides
in Server side. If a single user want to access some data, firstly user
need to connect to the server and after that user will get appropriate
access. But it has many disadvantages. So, After Client Server
computing, Distributed Computing was come into existence, in this
type of computing all computers are networked together with the
help of this, user can share their resources when needed. It also has
certain limitations. So in order to remove limitations faced in
distributed system, cloud computing was emerged.

 During 1961, John MacCharty delivered his speech at MIT that

“Computing Can be sold as a Utility, like Water and Electricity.”
According to John MacCharty it was a brilliant idea. But people at
that time don’t want to adopt this technology. They thought the
technology they are using efficient enough for them. So, this concept
of computing was not appreciated much so and very less will
research on it. But as the time fleet the technology caught the idea
after few years this idea is implemented. So, this is implemented by
Salesforce.com in 1999.
  This company started delivering an enterprise application over the
internet and this way the boom of Cloud Computing was started.

 In 2002, Amazon started Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon

will provide storage, computation over the internet. In 2006 Amazon
will launch Elastic Compute Cloud Commercial Service which is
open for Everybody to use.

 After that in 2009, Google Play also started providing Cloud

Computing Enterprise Application as other companies will see the
emergence of cloud Computing they also started providing their
cloud services. Thus, in 2009, Microsoft launch Microsoft Azure and
after that other companies like Alibaba, IBM, Oracle, HP also
introduces their Cloud Services. In today the Cloud Computing
become very popular and important skill.

Characteristics of Cloud Computing :

There are many characteristics of Cloud Computing here are few of them :
1. On-demand self-services: The Cloud computing services does not
require any human administrators, user themselves are able to
provision, monitor and manage computing resources as needed.
2. Broad network access: The Computing services are generally
provided over standard networks and heterogeneous devices.
3. Rapid elasticity: The Computing services should have IT resources
that are able to scale out and in quickly and on a need basis.
Whenever the user require services it is provided to him and it is
scale out as soon as its requirement gets over.
4. Resource pooling: The IT resource (e.g., networks, servers, storage,
applications, and services) present are shared across multiple
applications and occupant in an uncommitted manner. Multiple
clients are provided service from a same physical resource.
5. Measured service: The resource utilization is tracked for each
application and occupant, it will provide both the user and the
resource provider with an account of what has been used. This is
done for various reasons like monitoring billing and effective use of
resource.
6. Multi-tenancy: Cloud computing providers can support multiple
tenants (users or organizations) on a single set of shared resources.
7. Virtualization: Cloud computing providers use virtualization
technology to abstract underlying hardware resources and present
them as logical resources to users.
 8. Resilient computing: Cloud computing services are typically
designed with redundancy and fault tolerance in mind, which ensures
high availability and reliability.
9. Flexible pricing models: Cloud providers offer a variety of pricing
models, including pay-per-use, subscription-based, and spot pricing,
allowing users to choose the option that best suits their needs.
10.Security: Cloud providers invest heavily in security measures to
protect their users’ data and ensure the privacy of sensitive
information.
11.Automation: Cloud computing services are often highly automated,
allowing users to deploy and manage resources with minimal manual
intervention.
12.Sustainability: Cloud providers are increasingly focused on
sustainable practices, such as energy-efficient data centers and the
use of renewable energy sources, to reduce their environmental
impact.
Advantages or benefits of cloud computing:
Business Agility :
Business Agility is a progressive, people-centric approach to all
aspects of business that is transforming how organisations operate and
succeed in the modern world. It embraces a mindset and way of working
that is fast becoming essential for a world disrupted by environmental,
social and economic issues.

Reduced it cost:
Cloud services cost less to maintain than on-premises hardware
because maintenance costs are passed on to vendors. Your
organization's cloud services provider handles server maintenance and
potential hardware failures. Having less hardware on location means
less maintenance to perform
High availability:
High availability means that an IT system, component, or
application can operate at a high level, continuously, without
intervention, for a given time period. High-availability infrastructure is
configured to deliver quality performance and handle different loads and
failures with minimal or zero downtime.
Business continuity:
Business continuity in cloud computing is a more comprehensive plan
that includes strategies, policies, and procedures to maintain essential business
functions during disruptions. It focuses not only on technology recovery but
also on managing overall operations or communication and service delivery.
Business continuity includes redundant infrastructure alternative processes and
workforce continuity planning to ensure the organization’s resilience in the
event of extended disruptions.
Flexible scaling:
Flexibility in cloud computing means organizations can scale up
and down as needed without buying any additional hardware. For
example, an organization can add more data storage if they start
producing more data.
Without scalability, a business may struggle to meet increased
demand, leading to customer dissatisfaction and potential loss of market
share
Flexibility of access:
Flexible Applications Access allows users to work remotely as if
they were in the office. It is a simple and secure solution for remote
access to your company’s information system, whether on site or in the
cloud, for employees working remotely or traveling, or for partners.
Users are authenticated and access only authorized data with their
computers, tablets or smartphones. All transactions between users and
your business are encrypted.

Application deployment and testing:

Cloud Testing is one type of software testing in which the software
applications are tested by using cloud computing services. Cloud testing
intends to test the software based on functional and non-functional
requirements using cloud computing services that ensure faster availability,
scalability, and flexibility that saves time and cost for software testing
Simplified infrastructure management:
Cloud infrastructure management comprises the processes and
tools needed to effectively allocate and deliver key resources when and
where they are required. The UI, or dashboard, is a good example of
such a tool; it acts as a control panel for provisioning, configuring and
managing cloud infrastructure.
Increased collaboration:
Cloud collaboration also enables better tracking, storage and
version control of documents. All changes made to a document or file
are recorded, stored and presented to others via the cloud so elements
of a project can be reviewed and revisited.
Masked complexity
Cloud services often follow a pay-as-you-go model, which means
users only pay for the resources they use. This eliminates the need for
significant upfront investments in hardware and software, making it cost-
effective for businesses. For example, maintenance work and upgrades
can be performed in the background.
Why is cloud computing becoming highly important
Cloud computing is important for several reasons, and its significance
continues to grow as technology and business landscapes evolve. Here
are some key reasons why cloud computing is important for business:
Scalability: Cloud computing allows businesses and individuals to scale
their resources up or down quickly and easily based on their needs. This
scalability is essential for handling varying workloads, seasonal
demands, and business growth.

Cost effectiveness:
Cloud services often follow a pay-as-you-go model, which means
users only pay for the resources they use. This eliminates the need for
significant upfront investments in hardware and software, making it cost-
effective for businesses.
Accessibility:
Cloud services are accessible from anywhere with an internet
connection, enabling remote work, collaboration, and access to data and
applications on a global scale. This accessibility is crucial for modern
business operations.
Features of cloud computing:

1. Resources Pooling

Resource pooling is one of the essential features of cloud computing.

Resource pooling means that a cloud service provider can share
resources among multiple clients, each providing a different set of
services according to their needs. It is a multi-client strategy that can be
applied to data storage, processing and bandwidth-delivered services.
The administration process of allocating resources in real-time does not
conflict with the client's experience.

2. On-Demand Self-Service

It is one of the important and essential features of cloud computing. This

enables the client to continuously monitor server uptime, capabilities
and allocated network storage. This is a fundamental feature of cloud
computing, and a customer can also control the computing capabilities
according to their needs.

3. Easy Maintenance

This is one of the best cloud features. Servers are easily maintained, and
downtime is minimal or sometimes zero. Cloud computing powered
resources often undergo several updates to optimize their capabilities
and potential. Updates are more viable with devices and perform faster
than previous versions.

4. Scalability And Rapid Elasticity

A key feature and advantage of cloud computing is its rapid scalability.

This cloud feature enables cost-effective handling of workloads that
require a large number of servers but only for a short period. Many
customers have workloads that can be run very cost-effectively due to
the rapid scalability of cloud computing.

5. Economical

This cloud feature helps in reducing the IT expenditure of the

organizations. In cloud computing, clients need to pay the administration
for the space used by them. There is no cover-up or additional charges
that need to be paid. Administration is economical, and more often than
not, some space is allocated for free.

6. Measured And Reporting Service

Reporting Services is one of the many cloud features that make it the
best choice for organizations. The measurement and reporting service is
helpful for both cloud providers and their customers. This enables both
the provider and the customer to monitor and report which services
have been used and for what purposes. It helps in monitoring billing and
ensuring optimum utilization of resources.

7. Security

Data security is one of the best features of cloud computing. Cloud

services make a copy of the stored data to prevent any kind of data loss.
If one server loses data by any chance, the copied version is restored
from the other server. This feature comes in handy when multiple users
are working on a particular file in real-time, and one file suddenly gets
corrupted.

8. Automation

Automation is an essential feature of cloud computing. The ability of

cloud computing to automatically install, configure and maintain a cloud
service is known as automation in cloud computing. In simple words, it is
the process of making the most of the technology and minimizing the
manual effort. However, achieving automation in a cloud ecosystem is
not that easy. This requires the installation and deployment of virtual
machines, servers, and large storage. On successful deployment, these
resources also require constant maintenance.

9. Resilience

Resilience in cloud computing means the ability of a service to quickly

recover from any disruption. The resilience of a cloud is measured by
how fast its servers, databases and network systems restart and recover
from any loss or damage. Availability is another key feature of cloud
computing. Since cloud services can be accessed remotely, there are no
geographic restrictions or limits on the use of cloud resources.

10. Large Network Access

A big part of the cloud's characteristics is its ubiquity. The client can
access cloud data or transfer data to the cloud from any location with a
device and internet connection. These capabilities are available
everywhere in the organization and are achieved with the help of
internet. Cloud providers deliver that large network access by monitoring
and guaranteeing measurements that reflect how clients access cloud
resources and data: latency, access times, data throughput, and more.

Advantages of cloud computing:

Faster time to market:

Cloud computing supports new innovations by making it easy to test new

ideas and design new applications without hardware limitations or slow
procurement processes.

1.Scalability

Salability is a significant benefit of cloud technology. It simply allows a

business to scale up and down according to required storage. It flexibly allows a
rapid adjustment according to variations. There is a time an organization is
started to expand and hire new resources.
2.Cloud Flexibility

It has made employees more flexible, they may complete their tasks in
and out of the workplace. Staff may easily access all important files through
web browser.
3.Cost saving:
Organizations using cloud computing can save money on both
hardware and software upkeep. Because cloud service providers manage
the maintenance and updates, businesses no longer need to make costly
infrastructure investments or set aside resources for continuous
maintenance.

4.Improved Collaboration:

Collaboration is improved because cloud technologies make it possible

for teams to share information easily. Multiple users may work together
on documents, projects, and data thanks to shared storage in the cloud,
enhancing productivity and teamwork.

5.Enhanced Data Security:

Cloud computing places a high focus on data security. To guarantee that

data is handled and stored safely, cloud service providers offer cutting-
edge security features like encryption, access limits, and regular security
audits.

6.Data loss prevention:

Cloud Data Loss Prevention (Cloud DLP) is now part of Sensitive

Data Protection, a family of services designed to help you discover,
classify, and protect your most sensitive data. Sensitive Data Protection
includes data discovery, inspection, de-identification, data risk analysis,
important data is secure.

Limitations of Cloud Computing

The limitations of Cloud Computing can be quite daunting. Especially for
businesses with budgets hanging below what’s needed to set up the right IT
infrastructure and resources for effective Cloud computing.

Let’s quickly discuss some prominent cloud computing limitations:

1.Cascading Effect:
If one business accesses the resources of cloud computing and if there is
any type of problem in their data center, then there are big issues because all
virtual machines get affected and there might not be a backup of the data.

2.Network Connection
The first point considers before choosing cloud computing, the client
must have an efficient and reliable network connection because if there is any
problem with the network connection to accessing the cloud is also becomes a
big problem, performing your cloud computing totally depends on the network
connectivity at client-side the speed of download speed is slower as compared
with the local server.

3.Control of Data Security

The third limitation is control of data security. You have limited control
over the data security in a public cloud. There are more chances of phishing
attacks and suspicious activity on data.

4.Additional Costs:
Cloud computing offers various affordable cost benefits to access the
data. It provides various additional services, but at an extra charge.