Cloud Computing

Protect Your Own Cloud with Our Awareness Guide for Business Continuity of Cloud Computing Services Users

Integrated services provided by the Authority aimed at developing cloud computing applications and expanding their horizons

What the key characteristics of cloud computing are?

Cloud computing leverages several elements including scale, virtualization, resilience, cost efficiency, service orientation, agility, etc. These elements are combined under National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) definition into five key characteristics:

Service Models

Cloud computing, in its core, offers three different service models, which provide applications, platforms and infrastructure as a service. These service models provide some or all the IT support necessary to deploy an IT solution.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

The capability provided to the consumer is to provision processing, storage, networks and other fundamental computing resources. It’s up to the consumer to decide what software is deployed and operated, which can include operating systems and applications. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure but has control over operating systems, storage, deployed applications, and possibly limited control on selection of networking components (e.g. firewalls). Examples may include, but are not limited to:

Mainframes
Mid-tier Servers
Storage
IT Facilities/Hosting
Services
Virtual Machines

Depending on the selected service model, users of the cloud services will outsource certain portions of the IT value chain to the CSP. For instance, in the Software as a Service (SaaS) model, the CSP will provide a software application targeted towards end-users and available via the cloud. As part of this offering, the CSP will cover the platform infrastructure, database management systems, libraries, software-processing tools, and other test tools needed for application development and implementation. Additionally, the CSP will provide the physical infrastructure, which typically includes the facility layer (heating, ventilation, power, etc.) and hardware layer (servers, storage, network components, etc.), as well as the virtualized infrastructure layer that includes software elements (hypervisors, virtual machines, and virtual data storage) used to build the infrastructure upon which the cloud computing platform is established. Similarly, the Platform as a Service (PaaS) model covers the platform architecture layers as well as both the physical and virtualized infrastructure layers. As for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), the CSP will provide both the virtualized and the physical infrastructure layers.