Cloud Computing Unit 2 Lab 1 Essay

If comparing the cloud solutions and services for businesses from Amazon, Google, and Rackspace. Amazon: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) is a web service that provides resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers. Amazon EC2 is simple web service interface allows you to obtain and configure capacity with minimal friction. It provides you with complete control of your computing resources and lets you run on Amazon’s proven computing environment. 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 changes the economics of computing by allowing you to pay only for capacity that you actually use. Amazon EC2 provides developers the tools to build failure tough applications and isolate themselves from common failure scenarios that are common amongst other cloud providers. Amazon EC2 presents a true virtual computing environment, allowing you to use web service interfaces to launch instances with a variety of operating systems, load them with your custom application environment, manage your network’s access permissions, and run your image with the number of systems as you desire. The Amazon EC2 will provide some of the following features: Inexpensive – Amazon EC2 passes on to you the financial benefits of Amazon’s scale. You pay a very low rate for the compute capacity you actually consume. On-Demand Instances let you pay for compute capacity by the hour with no long-term commitments. Reserved Instances – Reserved Instances give you the option to make a low, one-time payment for each instance you want to reserve and in turn receive a significant discount on the hourly charge for that instance. Spot Instances – Spot Instances allow customers to bid on unused Amazon EC2 capacity and run those instances for as long as their bid exceeds the current Spot Price. The Spot Price changes periodically based on supply and demand, and customers whose bids meet or exceed it gain access to the available Spot Instances. Elastic – Amazon EC2 enables you to increase or decrease capacity within minutes, not hours or days. You can commission a variety of server instances simultaneously. Because this is all controlled with web service APIs, your applications can automatically scale itself up and down depending on its needs. Reliable – Amazon EC2 offers a highly reliable environment where replacement instances can be rapidly and predictably commissioned. The service runs within Amazon’s proven network infrastructure and datacenters. Secure – Amazon EC2 works in conjunction with Amazon VPC to provide security and robust networking functionality for your compute resources. Amazon Elastic Block Store – Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) offers persistent storage for Amazon EC2 instances. Amazon EBS volumes are network-attached, and persist independently from the life of an instance. Amazon EBS volumes are highly available, highly reliable volumes that can be leveraged as an Amazon EC2 instance’s boot partition or attached to a running Amazon EC2 instance as a standard block device. EBS-Optimized Instances – For a low, additional, hourly fee, customers select Amazon EC2 instances types as â€Å"EBS-Optimized† instances. EBS-Optimized instances enable Amazon EC2 instances to fully utilize the IOPS provisioned on an EBS volume. EBS-Optimized instances deliver dedicated throughput between Amazon EC2 and Amazon EBS, with options between 500 Mbps and 1000 Mbps depending on the instance type used. Multiple Locations – Amazon EC2 provides the ability to place instances in multiple locations. Amazon EC2 locations are composed of Regions and Availability Zones. Availability Zones are distinct locations that are engineered to be insulated from failures in other Availability Zones and provide inexpensive, low latency network connectivity to other Availability Zones in the same Region. Amazon Virtual Private Cloud – Amazon Virtual Private Cloud lets you provision a logically isolated section of the Amazon Web Services Cloud where you can launch AWS resources in a virtual network that you define. You have complete control over your virtual networking environment, including selection of your own IP address range, creation of subnets, and configuration of route tables and network gateways. Amazon CloudWatch – Amazon CloudWatch is a web service that provides monitoring for AWS cloud resources and applications, starting with Amazon EC2. It provides you with visibility into resource utilization, operational performance, and overall demand patterns—including metrics such as CPU utilization, disk reads and writes, and network traffic. Google Cloud Connect: a free cloud computing plug-in for Windows Microsoft Office 2003, 2007 and 2010 that can automatically store and synchronize any Microsoft Word document, PowerPoint presentation, or Excel spreadsheet to Google Docs in Google Docs or Microsoft Office formats. The Google Doc copy is automatically updated each time the Microsoft Office document is saved. Microsoft Office documents can be edited offline and synchronized later when online. Google Cloud Sync maintains previous Microsoft Office document versions and allows multiple users to collaborate, working on the same document at the same time. Google Cloud Connect was discontinued on April 30, 2013; former users are advised to migrate to Google Drive. This solution is, however, only available to paying users of Google Drive. Backup: Microsoft Office documents could be manually or automatically backed up to Google Docs each time they are saved locally. Synchronize: Changes made to an Office document on one computer can sync when the file is opened on another computer. Microsoft Office documents synced to Google Docs can be made accessible to one person. Microsoft Office documents synced to Google Docs can be made accessible only to selected people. A shared document can be set to only be viewed by others or edited as well. Documents synced to Google Docs can effectively be published by making them accessible to anyone. Multiple users can work on the same document at the same time. When one person edits a document, others sharing the document receive an email letting them know. Use Google Cloud Print to print to local or remote network connected printers. Allows you to compare the previous version is maintained allowing users to compare to older versions. Roll back allows users can go back to a previous version of the document. Green computing allows documents to be shared without printing or sending large files. Only links need be sent. Mobilize: Google Sync allows synced documents to be viewed and edited with most internet connected mobile devices. Storage: 5GB of Google Drive storage is included for free. Rackspace: The Rackspace public cloud gives you the tools you need—just sign up for a cloud account to get started. Plus, you can combine the quick, flexible deployment options of the public cloud with the security of private cloud and the performance of dedicated servers in the hybrid cloud. Using Rackspace cloud you have access to Linux and Windows servers with persistent local hard drives and optional managed services. MySQL Cloud Databases with 22.9% faster performance than RDS. High-performance SSD Block Storage and Cloud Files storage with CDN for fast global delivery of content. Software-defined networks for network isolation, performing packet filtering, and supporting broadcast/multicast. The Rackspace cloud has different variations including hybrid and private clouds. The Private cloud is a scalable cloud environment providing the agility and efficiency of a public cloud built on infrastructure dedicated exclusively for your organization. It can be hosted in your own data center, in a partner data center, or at Rackspace. Private clouds are ideal when you need to accelerate innovation, have large compute and storage requirements, or have very strict control, security, and compliance needs. Running a private cloud requires time and expertise. When you work with Rackspace, you get the ability to host in our data center, your data center, or a colocation facility, access to experts at the company that launched OpenStack with NASA, as much or as little support as you need. Quickly and easily provision infrastructure so you can scale up and down to meet business needs. Advanced functionality, including dynamic provisioning and workload balancing managed by Rackspace, allow you to avoid costly and time-consuming IT projects and maintenance. The Hybrid (public) cloud is it combines public cloud, private cloud, and dedicated bare metal computing and makes them work as one to: Fit your application, instead of forcing your application to fit it. Boost performance, security, and reliability while reducing costs because you use the right tool for the right job. It delivers an OpenStack-based platform for the flexibility you demand. Rackspace offers a range of hybrid cloud solutions, from out-of-the-box to highly customized.