Cloud infrastructure

     The heart of cloud-based infrastructure is all about delivering services and applications that are on demand to the environment. Therefore, cloud computing providers understand that they need to provide their services to a lot of users who have different demands and interests. At the same time, these users expect the services to be provided securely, fast and reliably. Therefore, it is imperative for the cloud service providers to have a cloud-based infrastructure that offers intelligent and dynamic infrastructure. They ensure that they achieve this by employing four core objectives. These objectives are security, scalability, transparency, and management.

      Cloud computing comes with its fair share is risks. If the security of a cloud is compromised, thousands of people would suffer damage that would be too costly to them. If the security is compromised, all the data in the cloud and the services that are enjoyed by the users would be at risk. That is one of the reasons why most cloud-based infrastructure go for secure private cloud instead of a public cloud. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the cloud architects to ensure that the cloud model is designed and implemented with security issues being considered a priority. The control node in a mega data center is important since it is the first point of entry into a cloud data center. It provides security starting from layer 2 up to layer 7. The purpose of the control node is to put a stop to potential attacks.

       Cloud security has been a major concern among the cloud users as well as cloud service providers. Let face it, the cloud security concerns are legitimate. The cloud security concerns are not unfounded. To many people, the idea of handing over all the data to another company is a cause for concern. That is one of the reasons why corporate bosses are the most hesitant people when it comes to moving to the cloud. There are some objectives that should be looked at in order to improve the cloud-based infrastructure.

Scalability is one of the major objectives when it comes to cloud-based infrastructure design. Cloud computing service providers obviously build data centers that store very large amounts of data. Scaling application delivery solution is not as easy as it might seem and in most times it is not a crystal clear process. The idea that the service delivery to clients might be interrupted is just unacceptable to cloud service providers. Therefore, they have to ensure that they not only give an ability to clearly scale service infrastructure but they must scale the infrastructure as well. That is not an easy task due to the huge amounts of data that cloud infrastructure handles.

     Transparency in cloud computing is very important. Transparency forms the foundation of cloud-based infrastructure. This is just like virtualization where many resources appear as just a single resource. Therefore, architects of cloud computing infrastructure have to ensure that there is transparent load balancing in order to ensure that there is proper transparent horizontal scaling of services and applications that are in high demand.

Cloud infrastructure sales are increasing at an unprecedented rate. The sales have increased by about 25%. That is an increment of about $6.3 billion. This was just in the first quarter of the year 2015. The reason for this increment is because of the fact that more and more companies are moving to the cloud. According to IDC, an analyst firm, cloud infrastructure has registered the second highest increase. This has also seen many cloud service providers invest more in basic cloud technology items such as servers, Ethernet switches, and storage systems. The investment in these items has increased by 4%, which is from 26% in 2014 to 30% in the first quarter of 2015.

     The growth of cloud infrastructure has outpaced the overall growth of IT infrastructure. As mentioned earlier, this has been facilitated by many companies making the decision to move to the cloud. However, it is worth noting that the increase did not happen equally in all corners of the globe. The areas which experienced the smallest growth were Central and Eastern Europe. In these areas, cloud infrastructure sales actually declined. IDC attributed the decline in sales due to the unstable economic and political climate in those areas.

According to the report, cloud users are still continuing to evaluate the several approaches of adopting cloud services. Some users prefer to use public clouds, while others are choosing to create their own private clouds or use cloud services offered by third parties. There are other users who are choosing to use a hybrid cloud. That shows that the demand for cloud services will still continue to expand as the cloud technology gets better and better. The increasing demand from the end user side of the cloud and expansion in the services that are being offered in the cloud will continue to fuel the growth of the cloud infrastructure.

       Investments are being made on both private and public clouds. However, the investments on the public clouds comprise of two-thirds of the total investments. While the sales of private cloud increased by 24.4%, public loud sales increased by 25.5%. Both of these clouds have been growing at relatively the same pace. This implies that clients are open to a huge array of cloud-based infrastructure deployment possibilities.

Cloud infrastructure offers end users the ability to use parts of massive resources which can be easily and quickly accessed. There are several characteristics that are considered in order for a service to be regarded as a cloud. Some of these characteristics include the ability to for a user to sign up and get the services required without excessive delays. Another characteristic is the ability to access these services across a wide range of platforms such as mobile phones, laptops, tablets and desktop computers. Resources pooling across many is also another characteristic that is considered in order for a service to be considered as a cloud. Others include the ability to handle demand peaks and metered billing.