1. A day in the cloud

2. An Introduction to Cloud
Dr David Wallom,
Associate Director (Oxford e-Research Centre)
Thanks to NIST Clouds Introduction & Bob Jones (CERN, Helix Nebula)

3. Outline What is Cloud…? Using Cloud (technically)
Using cloud (non-technical)
Available resources

4. What is cloud?

5. A Working Definition of Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.
This cloud model promotes availability and is composed of five essential characteristics, three service models, and four deployment models.
Walloms Def: If a user speaks to a person to get access to resources, its virtualisation,
if the user gets access through a computational interface, expanding and contracting their available resources at will, it’s a Cloud!
Note 1: Cloud computing is still an evolving paradigm. Its definitions, use cases, underlying technologies, issues, risks, and benefits will be refined in a spirited debate by the public and private sectors. These definitions, attributes, and characteristics will evolve and change over time.
Note 2: The cloud computing industry represents a large ecosystem of many models, vendors, and market niches. This definition attempts to encompass all of the various cloud approaches.
Courtesy of NIST

6. 5 Essential Cloud Characteristics
On-demand self-service
High performance network access
Resource pooling Location independence
Rapid elasticity/service scalability
Measured service/usage is accounted for
Courtesy of NIST

7. 3 Cloud Service Models EC2 = Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
PaaS offerings facilitate deployment of applications without the cost and complexity of buying and managing the underlying hardware and software and provisioning hosting capabilities[1], providing all of the facilities required to support the complete life cycle of building and delivering web applications and services entirely available from the Internet[2].
PaaS offerings may include facilities for application design, application development, testing, deployment and hosting as well as application services such as team collaboration, web service integration and marshalling, database integration, security, scalability, storage, persistence, state management, application versioning, application instrumentation and developer community facilitation.

8. use deployed SaaS provider 3 Cloud Service Models
SaaS: Software as a Service –> Google Apps, salesForce.com, Facebook, Microsoft Office 365;
use
deployed
EC2 = Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
PaaS offerings facilitate deployment of applications without the cost and complexity of buying and managing the underlying hardware and software and provisioning hosting capabilities[1], providing all of the facilities required to support the complete life cycle of building and delivering web applications and services entirely available from the Internet[2].
PaaS offerings may include facilities for application design, application development, testing, deployment and hosting as well as application services such as team collaboration, web service integration and marshalling, database integration, security, scalability, storage, persistence, state management, application versioning, application instrumentation and developer community facilitation.
SaaS
provider

9. use deployed Application package PaaS provider 3 Cloud Service Models
SaaS: Software as a Service –> Google Apps, salesForce.com, Facebook, Microsoft Office 365;
PaaS: Platform as a Service –> Google App Engine, Force.com, Azure Platform, Oracle Fusion;
use
Application
package
deployed
EC2 = Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
PaaS offerings facilitate deployment of applications without the cost and complexity of buying and managing the underlying hardware and software and provisioning hosting capabilities[1], providing all of the facilities required to support the complete life cycle of building and delivering web applications and services entirely available from the Internet[2].
PaaS offerings may include facilities for application design, application development, testing, deployment and hosting as well as application services such as team collaboration, web service integration and marshalling, database integration, security, scalability, storage, persistence, state management, application versioning, application instrumentation and developer community facilitation.
PaaS
provider

10. Microsoft Azure Azure™ Services Platform .NET PHP Python Ruby
Visual Studio and Eclipse …
Web Standards + Industry Standards

11. use instantiated OS image IaaS provider 3 Cloud Service Models
SaaS: Software as a Service –> Google Apps, salesForce.com, Facebook, Microsoft Office 365;
PaaS: Platform as a Service –> Google App Engine, Force.com, Azure Platform;
IaaS: Infrastructure as a Service –> Amazon Web Services, EGI Fed Cloud, 100%IT
use OS
image
instantiated
EC2 = Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
PaaS offerings facilitate deployment of applications without the cost and complexity of buying and managing the underlying hardware and software and provisioning hosting capabilities[1], providing all of the facilities required to support the complete life cycle of building and delivering web applications and services entirely available from the Internet[2].
PaaS offerings may include facilities for application design, application development, testing, deployment and hosting as well as application services such as team collaboration, web service integration and marshalling, database integration, security, scalability, storage, persistence, state management, application versioning, application instrumentation and developer community facilitation.
IaaS
provider

12. Amazon AWS Amazon AWS Elastic Compute Cluster (EC2) SimpleDB
Simple Storage Service (S3)
Simple Queue Servcie (SQS)
CloudFront

13. 4 Deployment Models Courtesy of NIST Private cloud Community cloud
enterprise owned or leased, e.g operated by your institutional IT support
Community cloud
shared infrastructure for specific community, e.g. provided only to specific sectors, e.g. EBI
Public cloud
Sold to the public, mega-scale infrastructure, e.g. Amazon
Hybrid cloud
composition of two or more clouds, e.g. what it says on the tin!
Courtesy of NIST

14. Common Cloud Characteristics
Cloud computing often leverages:
Massive scale (beyond a single projects scaling)
Homogeneity
Virtualization
Resilient computing
Low cost software
Geographic distribution
Service orientation
Advanced security technologies
Courtesy of NIST

15. The NIST Cloud Definition Framework
Hybrid Clouds
Deployment
Models
Community
Cloud
Private Cloud
Public Cloud
Service
Models
Software as a Service (SaaS)
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Resource Pooling
High Perf Network Access
Rapid Elasticity
Measured Service
On Demand Self-Service
Essential
Characteristics
Cloud diagram idea inspired by Maria Spinola
Low Cost Software
Virtualization
Service Orientation
Advanced Security
Massive Scale
Resilient Computing
Homogeneity
Geographic Distribution
Common
Characteristics
Based upon original chart created by Alex Dowbor -

16. Usage Models of Cloud

17. Private/Public Multiple Clouds
Amazon cloud
NGS cloud
Azure cloud
Eduserv cloud
Users
Globally distributed;
different resources/cost;
different applications;
non standardised: different AAA and UI.
EGI cloud

18. Mediated Private/Public Multiple Clouds
Amazon cloud
UK NGS cloud
Management
Interface
Users
Automation;
load balancing;
costs reduction;
usability.
Engineering design: a systematic approach, 614pp, no definition of design!
Eduserv cloud
EGI cloud

19. Hybrid Multiple Clouds
EGI cloud
Amazon cloud
Eduserv cloud
NGS cloud
Institutional cloud
Federation of Local and Global resources
Elasticity managed by local cloud not user
different resources/cost;
different applications;
non standardised: different AAA but single UI through private provider
Users

20. Migration Paths for Cloud Adoption
Use public clouds
Develop private clouds
Build a private cloud
Procure an outsourced private cloud
Migrate data centers to be private clouds (fully virtualized)
Build or procure community clouds
Organization wide SaaS
PaaS and IaaS
Disaster recovery for private clouds
Use hybrid-cloud technology
Workload portability between clouds

21. Great flexibility vs. extra effort
Using an IaaS
Users retains (full) control on:
operating system:
create, modify or use existing OS images;
VM instantiation and management (start, stop, #VMs);
networking:
elastic IP, virtual firewalls, isolation (security groups);
data:
create and manage EBS devices;
snapshotting.
Great flexibility vs. extra effort
EC2 = Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

22. Cloud Infrastructure for Research
Centralisation Vs Federation
Centralisation: one large, dedicated datacentre that serves the national HEI demand
Federation: heterogeneous set of infrastructures coordinated in order to satisfy the HEI demand
Criteria for evaluation
Accountability
Funding
Obsolescence
Scalability
Competitiveness
Flexibility
Security
Maintenance
Support

23. Client Tools
Command Line Interface
HybridFox
RightScale Gems RightAws

24. Cloud Computing Security

25. Security is the Major Issue

26. Analyzing Cloud Security
Some key issues:
trust, multi-tenancy, encryption, compliance
Cloud security is a tractable problem
There are both advantages and challenges

27. General Security Advantages
Shifting public data to a external cloud reduces the exposure of the internal sensitive data
Cloud homogeneity makes security auditing/testing simpler
Clouds enable automated security management
Redundancy / Disaster Recovery

28. Cloud Security Advantages
Data Fragmentation and Dispersal
Dedicated Security Team
Greater Investment in Security Infrastructure
Fault Tolerance and Reliability
Greater Resiliency
Hypervisor Protection Against Network Attacks
Possible Reduction of C&A Activities (Access to Pre-Accredited Clouds)
Simplification of Compliance Analysis
Data Held by Unbiased Party (cloud vendor assertion)
Low-Cost Disaster Recovery and Data Storage Solutions
On-Demand Security Controls
Real-Time Detection of System Tampering
Rapid Re-Constitution of Services
Advanced Honeynet Capabilities

29. General Security Challenges
Trusting someone else's security model
Customer inability to respond to audit findings
Limitations in obtaining support for investigations
Indirect administrator accountability
Proprietary implementations can’t be examined
Loss of physical control

30. Cloud Security Challenges
Data dispersal and international privacy laws
EU Data Protection Directive and U.S. Safe Harbor program
Exposure of data to foreign government and data subpoenas
Data retention issues
Need for isolation management
Multi-tenancy
Logging challenges
Data ownership issues
Quality of service guarantees
Dependence on secure hypervisors
Attraction to hackers (high value target)
Security of virtual OSs in the cloud
Possibility for massive outages
Encryption needs for cloud computing
Encrypting access to the cloud resource control interface
Encrypting administrative access to OS instances
Encrypting access to applications
Encrypting application data at rest
Public cloud vs internal cloud security
Lack of public SaaS version control

32. Examples of using cloud in research

33. Set up a cloud computing infrastructure for European Research Area
Identify and adopt policies for trust, security and privacy on a European-level
Create a light-weight governance structure involving all stakeholders
Define a short and medium term funding scheme

35. Cloud Resources Available
Private Cloud – Various universities and STFC
Community Cloud – Eduserv, EBI, Magelium
Public Cloud – Amazon, Elastic-hosts, Microsoft Azure IaaS, CEMS, 100% IT