Ask David - Cloud Computing

and why should you care about it

What is Cloud Computing, and Why Would a Secretary of State (SOS) Office Care?
Cloud Computing is a concept in computer software and hardware architectures that offers a scalable platform for deploying (typically) web‐based projects. (Scalability is a desirable property of a system, a network, or a process, which indicates its ability to either handle growing amounts of work in a graceful manner, or to be readily enlarged.) Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the platform "in the cloud" that supports them. Cloud Computing offers many benefits, incorporating several different architectural paradigms, some of which are outlined below.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS):

Rather than purchasing servers, software, data center space or network equipment, clients instead buy those resources as a fully outsourced service. IaaS shares many traits with typical hosting environments:

• Scaling up bandwidth and computing resources to meet short‐term traffic needs
• Scaling down to accommodate lulls on demand
• Hands‐off maintenance and service
• Outsourced disaster recovery and backup solutions
• Often uses bandwidth‐based pricing

Platform as a Service (PaaS):

PaaS is the delivery of a computing platform and software solution tools as a service. It facilitates deployment of applications without the cost and complexity of buying and managing the underlying hardware and software layers, 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 ‐ with no software downloads or installation for developers, IT managers or end‐users. It's also known as cloudware. PaaS adoption is driven by many of the same features driving SaaS adoption (see below) but there are additional PaaS specific factors:

• The benefits of ad hoc, geographically distributed development teams working together on projects.
• The ability to incorporate web services from multiple sources
• The cost reductions derived from using built‐in infrastructure services for security, scalability, failover etc, rather than obtaining and testing and integrating these separately.
• The cost reductions derived from using higher level programming abstractions for creating services, user interfaces and other application elements.
• The desire of people (users) to have evolving technology that can be continuously improved to support multi‐user interaction to address the complex problems we face.
• To drive the use of technology that has a purpose of making it easier to develop interactive multi‐user applications for people not just in development teams, but in any group of people doing things together

Software as a Service (SaaS):

SaaS is a model of software deployment whereby a provider licenses an application to customers for use as a service on demand. This is similar to Application Service Provision (ASP) environments:

• Service‐providers (vendors) host applications on their hardware, typically using service‐provider owned software licenses (primarily for the operating system and other areas of the operating environment) and price applications typically on a per‐user basis reducing the need for large software investments.
• The vendor offers centralized feature updating, which obviates the need for end‐users to download patches and upgrades.
• The vendor ensures that the software application is available and running.
• The vendor can typically provide detailed usage statistics, including number of concurrent users, processing time per user, and the like.

Projects designed to reside in cloud computing environments are often web‐service based (or Services‐Oriented Architectures—SOAs). This enables the solution to use a blend of cloud and on‐premise computing. For example, the web presentation and business services layers of a multi‐tier application could reside on the cloud, and the data services layer and data tier could reside on‐premise in SOS data centers. This allows a nice blending of using the cloud and keeping the data local and locally secured.

So, why does a Secretary of State care?

• With cloud computing applications, SOS offices would typically benefit from the ability to scale hardware and bandwidth up and down (e.g. April 15 is approaching, and many jurisdictions experience a spike in traffic in the days leading up to April 15). Instead of procuring servers to handle the spike in traffic, then allowing those computer resources to sit idle the rest of the year, the cloud vendor can provide that flexibility if and when needed.
• The monies that SOS spends on expensive server operating system licenses can be reduced, since the cloud vendor typically includes those licenses.
• cloud computing, security is likely to be easier, cheaper, and more reliable as part of a SOS disaster recovery plan.
• Cloud computing pricing models typically are based on usage rather than flat fees, thus providing the opportunity to pay only for capacity and volume.

On this last point, the industry is quickly moving toward the use of computing as a utility ‐ paying for it like people pay for their power or telecommunications bills. SOS needs to be dedicating resources now to prepare for this move, and to help shape the transition to accommodate SOS specific needs. Otherwise, SOS could find themselves late‐adopters without much say in using the many advantages that cloud computing has to offer to meet their needs.

David Moye
Chief Technology Officer
dmoye@ccis‐inc.com

_{(David Moye brings over 15 years of professional software engineering and technical management experience to bear in the role of Chief Technology Officer at CCIS. As CTO, Mr. Moye is directly responsible for the company's technical direction. He provides strategic input regarding software and hardware technologies to investigate and adopt, for both production and business reasons. A recognized industry thought leader in software architecture, he has BS and MS degrees in Computer Engineering from Virginia Tech, and is finishing his PhD in Computer Science at North Carolina State University. His ability to blend academic theory with industry application helps keep CCIS at the forefront of technology. David has worked with various states on their technology platforms, ensuring they meet changing user needs in a cost‐effective way.)}