SUBJECT NAME: CLOUD COMPUTING

(Subject: RCS075)
SECTION: A
Short Questions Answers
a. State the basic features/characteristics of Cloud Computing.
b. Define the following terms: Grid Computing, Utility Computing, Distributed Computing,
Uniprocessor Computing
c. Explain the history of Cloud Computing?
d. Write down the basic building blocks of cluster.
e. Compare the following:
(i) Grid Computing Vs Cloud Computing
(ii) Utility Computing vs Cloud Computing
(iii) Parallel vs. distributed computing
f. what do you mean by para- virtualization?
g. Differentiate between a public and a private cloud.
h. Define the terms: SOAP, REST, WSDL, UDDI, API
i. Write down 2 examples of each SAAS, IAAS, PAAS.
j. What is VMware?
k. What is data center?
l. Write down any two advantages of SAAS?
m. Give examples for each kind of services provided by cloud.
n. How cloud computing does provide On-demand functionality?
o. What are the different applications of Cloud Computing?
p. Write a short note on hardware virtualization.
q. Discuss the common pitfalls that come with virtualization.
r. What is Hunt Calendar?
s. Explain the history of Cloud Computing?
t. Write down any two advantages of PAAS?
u. Write down any two advantages of IAAS?
v. Differentiate between Para Virtualization and Full virtualization.
w. Differentiate between local clouds and thin clouds.
x. List 5 public cloud offerings of PAAS.
y. What is SLA (Service Level Agreements)?
z. Write a short note on Hadoop, Force.com and Salesforce.com, Manjrasoft Aneka

SECTION: B
Long Questions:
1. What do you mean by Cloud Computing? Discuss any one of the cloud architectures with
necessary details.
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2. What is Parallel Processing? Discuss the Hardware architectures for parallel processing.
3. With block diagram, explain cloud computing reference model and services.
4. Explain three service models and four deployment models of cloud computing in brief.
5. Discuss the classification or taxonomy of virtualization at different levels with necessary
illustrations.
6. Compare and contrast the different tools/mechanism for implementing the virtualization
techniques.
7. What is the difference between process Virtual machines, Host VMMs and Native
VMMs.
8. Write down at least four names of major players in cloud. Discuss any two in detail.
9. What is a Hypervisor? Explain in detail withnecessary illustrations.
10. Explain the objective of cloud life cycles. Differentiate between IAAS and PAAS.
11. Explain Pass with its service oriented architecture.
12. What is a virtual machine monitor? Discuss the properties of virtual machine. Distinguish
between Xen and Hyper-V.
13. Why organizations are adopting the Cloud for business and IT perspective?
14. Describe the fundamental features of the economic and business model behind cloud
computing.
15. List some of the challenges in cloud computing.
16. Write short notes on any two:
a) Cloud Sim
b) Amazon web services
c) Monitoring as a Service
d) SOA
e) Google App Engine
f) Microsoft Azure

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Sec B (Ans 13.)
The main drivers of cloud computing are economy of scale and simplicity of software delivery and its
operation. In fact, the biggest benefit of this phenomenon is financial: the pay-as-you-go model offered by cloud
providers. In particular, cloud computing allows:
• Reducing the capital costs associated to the IT infrastructure
• Eliminating the depreciation or lifetime costs associated with IT capital assets
• Replacing software licensing with subscriptions
• Cutting the maintenance and administrative costs of IT resources

Cloud computing also introduces reductions in administrative and maintenance costs. That is, there is no or
limited need for having administrative staff take care of the management of the cloud infrastructure. At the
same time, the cost of IT support staff is also reduced.
The amount of cost savings that cloud computing can introduce within an enterprise is related to the specific
scenario in which cloud services are used and how they contribute to generate a profit for the enterprise.
In the case of a small startup, it is possible to completely leverage the cloud for many aspects, such as:
• IT infrastructure
• Software development
CRM and ERP
In terms of the pricing models introduced by cloud computing, we can distinguish three different strategies
that are adopted by the providers:
• Tiered pricing. In this model, cloud services are offered in several tiers, each of which offers a fixed
computing specification and SLA at a specific price per unit of time. This model is used by Amazon for
pricing the EC2 service, which makes available different server configurations in terms of computing
capacity (CPU type and speed, memory) that have different costs per hour.
• Per-unit pricing. This model is more suitable to cases where the principal source of revenue for the cloud
provider is determined in terms of units of specific services, such as data transfer and memory allocation. In
this scenario customers can configure their systems more efficiently according to the application needs. This
model is used, for example, by GoGrid, which makes customers pay according to RAM/hour units for the
servers deployed in the GoGrid cloud.
• Subscription-based pricing. This is the model used mostly by SaaS providers in which users pay a periodic
subscription fee for use of the software or the specific component services that are integrated in their
applications.
All of these costs are based on a pay-as-you-go model, which constitutes a more flexible solution for
supporting the delivery on demand of IT services. This is what actually makes possible the conversion of IT
capital costs into operational costs, since the cost of buying hardware turns into a cost for leasing it and the cost
generated by the purchase of software turns into a subscription fee paid for using it.

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Sec B (Ans 14):

Cloud computing presents many challenges for industry and academia. The most important ones:
The definition:In the NIST working definition of cloud computing . It characterizes cloud computing as on-
demand self-service, broad network access, resource-pooling, rapid elasticity, and measured service; classifies
services as SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS; and categorizes deployment models as public, private, community, and hybrid
clouds.

Cloud interoperability and standards: Cloud computing is a service-based model for delivering IT
infrastructure and applications like utilities such as power, water, and electricity. To fully realize this goal,
introducing standards and allowing interoperability between solutions offered by different vendors are
objectives of fundamental importance. Vendor lock-in constitutes one of the major strategic barriers against the
seamless adoption of cloud computing at all stages. In particular there is major fear on the part of enterprises in
which IT constitutes the significant part of their revenues. Vendor lock-in can prevent a customer from
switching to another competitor’s solution, or when this is possible, it happens at considerable conversion cost
and requires significant amounts of time.

Security, trust and privacy: Security, trust, and privacy issues are major obstacles for massive adoption of
cloud computing. The traditional cryptographic technologies are used to prevent data tampering and access to
sensitive information. The massive use of virtualization technologies exposes the existing system to new threats,
which previously were not considered applicable.

Scalability and fault tolerance:The ability to scale on demand constitutes one of the most attractive features of
cloud computing. Clouds allow scaling beyond the limits of the existing in-house IT resources, whether they are
infrastructure (compute and storage) or applications services. To implement such a capability, the cloud
middleware has to be designed with the principle of scalability along different dimensions in mind—for
example, performance, size, and load. The cloud middleware manages a huge number ofresource and users,
which rely on the cloud to obtain the horsepower that they cannot obtain within the premises without bearing
considerable administrative and maintenance costs.

Organizational aspects: Cloud computing introduces a significant change in the way IT services are consumed
and managed. More precisely, storage, compute power, network infrastructure, and applications are delivered as
metered services over the Internet. This introduces a billing model that is new within typical enterprise IT
departments, which requires a certain level of cultural and organizational process maturity.

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SEC:A [ e – i ]

Grid Computing Vs Cloud Computing

When we switch on the fan or any electric device, we are less concern about the power supply from where it
comes and how it is generated. The power supply or electricity that we receives at our home travels through a
chain of network, which includes power stations, transformers, power lines and transmission stations. These
components together make a ‘Power Grid’. Likewise, ‘Grid Computing’ is an infrastructure that links
computing resources such as PCs, servers, workstations and storage elements and provides the mechanism
required to access them.

Cloud Computing Grid Computing

 Cloud computing works more as a service  Grid computing uses the available resource
provider for utilizing computer resource and interconnected computer systems to
accomplish a common goal

 Cloud computing is a centralized model  Grid computing is a decentralized model,

where the computation could occur over
many administrative model

 Cloud is a collection of computers usually  A grid is a collection of computers which is

owned by a single party. owned by a multiple parties in multiple
locations and connected together so that
users can share the combined power of
resources

 Cloud offers more services all most all the  Grid provides limited services
services like web hosting, DB (Data Base)
support and much more

 Cloud computing is typically provided  Grid computing federates the resources

within a single organization (eg : Amazon) located within different organization.

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SEC:A [ e – ii ]

Utility Computing: Utility computing is the process of providing service through an on-demand, pay per
use billing method. The customer or client has access to a virtually unlimited supply of computing solutions
over a virtual private network or over the internet, which can be sourced and used whenever it’s required.
Based on the concept of utility computing , grid computing, cloud computing and managed IT services are
based.

Through utility computing small businesses with limited budget can easily use software like CRM (Customer
Relationship Management) without investing heavily on infrastructure to maintain their clientele base.

Utility Computing Cloud Computing

 Utility computing refers to the ability  Cloud Computing also works like
to charge the offered services, and utility computing, you pay only for
charge customers for exact usage what you use but Cloud Computing
might be cheaper, as such, Cloud
based app can be up and running in
days or weeks.

 Utility computing users want to be in  In cloud computing, provider is in

control of the geographical location of complete control of cloud computing
the infrastructure services and infrastructure

 Utility computing is more favorable  Cloud computing is great and easy to

when performance and selection use when the selection infrastructure
infrastructure is critical and performance is not critical

 Utility computing is a good choice for  Cloud computing is a good choice for
less resource demanding high resource demanding

 Utility computing refers to a business  Cloud computing refers to the

model underlying IT architecture

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