Cloud Computing:
Advantages & Disadvantages
Craig R. Oliveira
Associate Director of Enterprise Systems and Security
UMass Dartmouth
What is cloud computing?
•
•
•
•
Abstraction
Sharing/Pooling of resources
Flexible
What is cloud computing to you?
My journey to the cloud…
•  Monolithic Minicomputers (VAX/Alpha)
–  Accessed by “dumb terminals”
–  Responsible for multiple information systems
•  Microcomputers
–  Moore’s Law: doubling of computing power
every two years
Moore’s
1
Law
Growth of microcomputers
–  Advantages
•  Specialized dedicated hardware for each
application
•  more powerful and less expensive servers
–  Disadvantages
•  Distribution of resources (CPU, RAM, Disk)
•  More things to manage
•  Purchase…rack…stack…lifecycle
Virtualization removes disadvantages
of microcomputer sprawl
•  Aggregated and pooling of resources
(CPU, RAM, Disk)
•  Abstractions / Simplified management
•  Flexibility – click to deploy
•  New: de-duplication
Private shared cloud
UMass System-wide
•  Advantages
–  Highly available and redundant power/cooling
–  Focus on Technology (not the facility)
–  Economies of scale
•  Disadvantages
–  Control
–  Troubleshooting (hw, sw, network?!?!)
–  Reliance on a larger network (more hops)
–  Latency
Other private clouds
•  ownCloud (open source) owncloud.org
•  NAS (wifi router, time capsule, FreeNAS,
unRAID, synology, drobo)
•  Citrix Xen
•  Microsoft Hyper-V
•  VMware
Private Clouds
Advantages
Disadvantages
•
•
•
•
•  Higher cost of entry
than public cloud
•  Remote access
limited to local
bandwidth
•  Infrastructure &
Physical issues
Control/visibility
Local access (fast)
Simplified DR/BC
Security/Compliance
Public Clouds
•  Storage
–  http://www.pcmag.com/
article2/0,2817,2413556,00.asp
–  http://www.top10cloudstorage.com/top-9cloud-services-for-your-smb/
–  Amazon EC2
Public Clouds
•  Compute
–  Amazon AWS
–  Microsoft Azure
–  Vmware vCloud Air
Public Clouds
Advantages
Disadvantages
•
•
•
•
•  Convenience cost
•  Trust 3rd party for
security/compliance
•  $#@&*^ My internet
is down
Low cost to entry
Commitment?
Burstable
High speed access
from anywhere
Hybrid Cloud
Advantages
Disadvantages
•  Makes private
cloud more
burstable
•  Control
•  Reliance on local
infrastructure
•  Synchronization of
Security and
Compliance
Works Cited
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law#/media/File:Transistor_Count_and_Moore%27s_Law_-_2011.svg