Information Storage and Management: Storing, Managing, and Protecting Digital Information in Classic, Virtualized, and Cloud Environments, Second Edition

Chapter 13

Cloud Computing

Key Concepts

Essential Characteristics of Cloud Computing

Cloud Services and Deployment Models

Cloud Computing Infrastructure

Cloud Adoption Considerations

In today's competitive environment, organizations are under increasing pressure to improve efficiency and transform their IT processes to achieve more with less. Businesses need reduced time-to-market, better agility, higher availability, and reduced expenditures to meet the changing business requirements and accelerated pace of innovation. These business requirements are posing several challenges to IT teams. Some of the key challenges are serving customers worldwide around the clock, refreshing technology quickly and faster provisioning of IT resources—all at reduced costs.

These long-standing challenges are addressed with the emergence of a new computing style, called cloud computing, which enables organizations and individuals to obtain and provision IT resources as a service. With cloud computing, users can browse and select relevant cloud services, such as compute, software, storage, or a combination of these resources, via a portal. Cloud computing automates delivery of selected cloud services to the users. It helps organizations and individuals deploy IT resources at reduced total cost of ownership with faster provisioning and compliance adherence.

A widely adopted definition of cloud computing comes from the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST Special Publication 800-145): ...