Defne what makes a "Cloud"

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Posted by Hostwinds-Peter, 08-04-2011, 12:46 AM
With so many companies out there today offering "Cloud Hosting", there hasnt been any set standards for what hardware/software setups make it ok to offer "cloud hosting" In my opinion a true cloud consists of a network of multiple computer (not just 2 or 33, I'm talking 10+, with some kind of attached storage array, setup in a RAID for redundancy. With all of the cloud components working together, with failover where at any time multiple machines can fail and the cloud should keep on running It would probably be good to add that there should be failover switches, as well as redundant network drops, and power drops, just so there really is no single point of failure. I feel that the majority of cloud setups today, while they may be able to slighly increase redundancy and uptime, they don't offer true 100% redundancy capability where literally it would take a hurricane taking out the data center to take out the cloud......except for maybe google
Posted by MikeTrike, 08-04-2011, 12:49 AM
It's mostly smoke and mirrors, there are many definitions of cloud. Cloud to me? Centralized storage (replicated/w failover), multiple hypervisors, redundant network (i.e. SAN/LAN/WAN). Multiple paths out, i.e. carriers. However a single SAN type array with 2+ hypervisors could also be considered a cloud... It really depends on what type of cloud you want or want to offer or whatever. EDIT: OnApp has a really nice example of one way to do cloud. http://onapp.com/how-it-works/network
Posted by lucrativeminds, 08-04-2011, 12:53 AM
Generally, a cloud-hosted website is operating on multiple interconnected servers. Instead of limited to a single server like what we have in traditional hosting services (dedicated/shared hosting), the website now has the access to multiple servers. Virtually, the processing power is unlimited as you can always add a new server and scale up.
Posted by tchen, 08-04-2011, 05:09 PM
Hate to break it to you, but Google hardly uses a 'true' cloud as envisioned on this board. There's also no attached storage like a SAN. Data is replicated on a cluster of storage machines (GFS/BigTable/Spanner) and then accessed usually from nodes on the rack its located. Redundancy is controlled via replica sets across racks/DCs. This is very similar to the way AWS handles its S3/EBS storage and Rackspace its Cloud Files. That said, SANs are a viable alternative for certain uses, when you don't need to scale that big. Its definitely much more convenient when you need single server failover. However, making a narrowed definition of the cloud based on technological choices that would exclude one end of the spectrum is unfounded. If you still want a definition though, at least look at the NIST one to begin with. It doesn't specify hardware, but more what minimum things you should expect it to do so you can build on it.
Posted by nahid5692001, 08-04-2011, 07:29 PM
is Dropbox a cloud? What about JungleDisk? I guess im confused on the issue that is cloud for storage or other things as well?
Posted by che09, 08-04-2011, 11:34 PM
Reliability is improved if multiple redundant sites are used, which makes well-designed cloud computing suitable for business continuity and disaster
Posted by SuperVDS, 08-06-2011, 03:33 PM
A cloud is another name for a collection of servers.
Posted by AL-Benjamin, 08-06-2011, 06:24 PM
My view, its a decentralised server. However if you can get a definition that everybody would agree to then you would be doing well.
Posted by PepperAdmin, 08-08-2011, 12:47 PM
Cloud is an inter connection of servers. But it differs from the traditional clustering. It needs a software, it needs a different physical setup to work as a cloud. So the advantage is, it will be scalable and less fail over with the help of the software or the technology you use.
Posted by Atruehost, 08-08-2011, 04:06 PM
with all the valuable info here definitely going to do some thinking before i make a purchase.
Posted by danadan, 08-09-2011, 02:01 AM
Generally, a cloud-hosted website is operating on multiple interconnected servers. Instead of limited to a single server like what we have in traditional hosting services (dedicated/shared hosting ), the website now has the access to
Posted by x86brandon, 08-09-2011, 10:37 AM
Per NIST, which is the closest thing to a unified definition (http://www.nist.gov/itl/cloud/upload...-def-v15.pdf): Last edited by x86brandon; 08-09-2011 at 10:40 AM. Reason: formatted to make easier to read
Posted by x86brandon, 08-09-2011, 10:41 AM
That said, whether it is on SAN or not becomes somewhat irrelevant as that has little to do with scaling out, it has to do with scaling up. Most of what defines Cloud vs just a regular VPS is things like API, utility billing, etc. Not underlying infrastructure.
Posted by spykee, 08-09-2011, 10:35 PM
Regardless of how it is defined, there are still some providers who are selling 'vps that's on SAN' and they call it Cloud.
Posted by NuCode, 08-21-2011, 11:25 AM
That's what they WANT you to believe. What you are defining is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_computing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing The definition even starts as business orientated "how to charge more" What i've come to understand as a cloud is a "crippled grid/cluster", cheaper, more streamlined, maybe a bit simpler, and overhyped, over valued and most definitely over charged. Mostly cloud services seems to be about splicing things into smaller blocks and overselling as much as possible. For example, vps.net base service seems to translate to a mere standard VPS service with SAN and fail-over capability. Still limited per instance for what a single physical node can do. Other cloud services seems to be mere load balancers for a bunch of web/mysql nodes, and these are capable of actually offering more processing power than a single physical node. Amazon AWS seems to be the same as vps.net service, except hourly billing and APIs to create fast new instances etc. These are actually cheapest for the provider in sense of maximizing resource usage and thus selling the most amount from the resources, but the "Cloud" buzzword guarantees they can charge more, because people in general are "Wooooow, clooooouuud. braaainnnnsssss". Yes, i'm implying the general audience becomes zombies when word "Cloud" is mentioned and looses the ability to think for themselves True cloud services are usually actually clusters/a grid computing model, able to provision more resources (and vastly more) than a single physical node could offer for a single task/instance/whatever. For hosting this could be: - GlusterFS/Lustre storage backend - Bunch of frontend Apache nodes behind nginx reverse proxy load balancers with Virtual IP (IP Sharing, VIP) OR maybe even plain old HA failover could be considered as such. - Bunch of backend database nodes (standard MySQL doesn't really work here, master rings will go down if single node goes down, master-master does not constitute a cluster etc. need MySQL proxy in between) VIP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_IP_address This way any particular site hosted can leverage computing power of many physical nodes when needed But the current "cloud trend" is nothing more than VPS marketed differently to overcharge unknowing IT managers.
Posted by x86brandon, 08-21-2011, 03:21 PM
That statement couldn't be further from the truth. The big draw to cloud is flexibility and agility. Being able to scale out as much as needed as fast as needed any pay for what you use. Usually on the IaaS side, there is complete control over networking as well as servers. Use of throw away instances to scale. Usage based billing. Etc. You can't even begin to compare AWS to a VPS. I suggest you do a lot of research before making statements like that.
Posted by dediserve, 08-22-2011, 07:41 AM
Lots of 'clouds' are VPS, but once they meet the definiteion criteria of acale on demand, API control, etc, they are still clouds.... Others demand things like auto HA, large scale on demand, 'limitless' storage, etc.. and call that 'true' cloud. Others still think only 'platforms' (as you've described) are clouds.
Posted by Jag, 08-22-2011, 10:11 PM
Cloud is a way to re-brand a very old technology. In truth most hosts have been using some form of "cloud" for a decade. What a genuine cloud does is far more than what 90% of most hosting companies claim as a cloud.
Posted by x86brandon, 08-22-2011, 11:24 PM
Most have had a VPS offering for a while. Cloud goes far and beyond just a VPS. It's a concept. It's a shift from what the offering is to how it is orchestrated. Some of the builds I have been part of far exceed anything that existing mainstream 5 years ago, a year ago, etc.
Posted by arunsiam, 08-23-2011, 05:04 AM
Then google must be cloud computer.
Posted by NuCode, 08-25-2011, 02:38 AM
Then where is this flexibility and agility in many of the "cloud" services? Many "cloud" services do not provide these. Also many market their services as "cloud" service when it really is just a bunch of load balanced/ha nodes, nothing new, nothing special. AWS instance is basicly a VPS, yes? But seriously, it's nothing more than VPS with certain tradeoffs and different kind of control panel, and different kind of billing. Yes, it is definitively a shift - in marketing I know someone who offers VPS service for which many of you would wet their pants, they still insist it's just a VPS even tho it fullfills every marketing clause for cloud. It's VMWare based, running on blades, SAN, all of the nice stuff, including the VMWare's fancy cloud stuff etc. Still, it's just a VPS. A very expensive one tho, but just a VPS. So they call it a VPS, as that's what it really is. Even tho they sell resource pools etc. not instances. What many who's gotten bitten by the marketing buzz wants to believe Cloud does, is actually GRID computing. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_computing
Posted by MetaCDN-JamesB, 09-06-2011, 02:31 AM
Cloud definitions are like opinions and ... something else. How does that saying go again? A bit out of date but I rounded up many of the definitions here in a slide share presentation I did. Google for "introduction to cloud computing ccgrid". unfortunately I can't post links yet. I'm sure there have been many new definitions coined since then.
Posted by vikramrandhawa, 09-07-2011, 05:10 AM
Cloud is just the collection of the Different server with different configuration and different settings.. like when we collect google, bing,Yahoo server at one place that will form a cloud..
Posted by Website themes, 09-07-2011, 08:29 AM
Very nice definition. As you can see there is no mention of failover at all. Also I am amazed to see them mention PDAs! I thought those died ages ago and got replaced with smart phones! What next thin client computing? Isn't that what the "cloud" is all about?
Posted by TommyTheTimmy, 09-07-2011, 01:05 PM
seems that I'm now a little bit confused with cloud now, I'm going to subscribe with Voxel Cloud but Voxel Cloud only give 1 Processor, it does not seems right
Posted by mima, 09-08-2011, 07:50 AM
In general, cloud can be described as highly scalable computing resources which are provided as an external service via internet. There are big advantages: high security (a number of machines act as one system), possibility to work remotely, clients pay only for what they use or make changes without any effort.
Posted by SingleHop_Kevin, 09-15-2011, 05:29 PM
Thanks for that link, super helpful!
Posted by Ankur Vishwakarma, 09-20-2011, 06:29 AM
Refer the link below.... http://www.howstuffworks.com/cloud-c...-computing.htm ty
Posted by paulacastromo, 09-26-2011, 02:21 PM
The term "Cloud" refers to either a cluster of servers or VPS, which through geolocalization use less response time to deliver content.
Posted by Yash-JH, 09-28-2011, 02:38 AM
This is cloud for the monolithic application stack. A cloud can be built on commodity hardware - as long as the application is designed to fail & recover. Think PaaS
Posted by YIFY, 10-09-2011, 09:15 AM
very cool concept (I am new to cloud hosting)

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