Notes for BSc CSIT

Data center virtualization  Data center virtualization is the process of designing, developing, and deploying a data center on virtualization and cloud computing technologies. It primarily enables virtualizing physical servers in a data center facility along with storage, networking, and other infrastructure devices and equipment. Data center virtualization usually produces a virtualized, cloud, and collocated virtual/cloud data center. Virtualization, Offering profound changes to the way data centers perform, virtualization makes sense on multiple levels.  The benefits of data center virtualization are as below: 1. Less heat buildup Millions of dollars have gone into the research and design of heat dissipation and control in the data center. But the cold, hard fact is, all of those servers generate heat. The only way around that? Use fewer servers. How do you manage that? Virtualization. Virtualize your servers and you're using less physical hardware. Use less physical hardwa...

Manages Service Providers (MSP)  A managed service provider (MSP) is a company that remotely manages a customer's IT infrastructure and/or end-user systems, typically on a proactive basis and under a subscription model. The MSP business model differs from other types of channel companies, such as value-added resellers (VARs), in numerous ways described below. MSPs charge for their services under a number of different pricing models. Typical approaches include per-device, per-user and all-inclusive pricing. 2nd part In the past, the concept of providing a service involved much more than inventing and designing the service, itself. The appropriate amount and quality of hardware were required for every company to not only build their service but have an adequate amount of space to hold and maintain the hardware for the life of each service, as well. Fortunately, that on-premise era is slowly but surely passing, leaving those rather dated companies still attempting to manage their own ...

 Service-oriented architecture (SOA)   Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is a software development model for distributed application components that incorporates discovery, access control, data mapping, and security features. Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is a software development model for distributed application components that incorporates discovery, access control, data mapping, and security features. The use of services provides major benefits: In contrast to the use of large applications, which tend to be “information silos” that cannot readily exchange information with each other, the use of finer-grained software services gives freer information flow within and between enterprises. Integrating major applications is often expensive. SOA can save integration costs. Organizing internal software as services makes it easier to expose its functionality externally. This leads to increased visibility that can have business value, for example, when a logistics comp...

Intrusion Detection System (IDS)  An Intrusion Detection System (IDS) is a network security technology originally built for detecting vulnerability exploits against a target application or computer. Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS)extended IDS solutions by adding the ability to block threats in addition to detecting them and has become the dominant deployment option for IDS/IPS technologies. This article will elaborate on the configuration and functions that define the IDS deployment. Active and passive IDS An active Intrusion Detection System (IDS) is also known as Intrusion Detection and Prevention System (IDPS). The intrusion Detection and Prevention System (IDPS) is configured to automatically block suspected attacks without any intervention required by an operator. Intrusion Detection and Prevention System (IDPS) has the advantage of providing real-time corrective action in response to an attack. Network Intrusion detection systems (NIDS) and Host Intrusion detection systems...

 Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is one of the three fundamental service models of cloud computing alongside Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS). Infrastructure as a Service is a provision model in which an organization outsources the equipment used to support operations, including storage, hardware, servers, and networking components.  The service provider owns the equipment and is responsible for housing, running, and maintaining it. The client typically pays on a per-use basis. Clients are able to self-provision this infrastructure, using a Web-based graphical user interface that serves as an IT operations management console for the overall environment. API access to the infrastructure may also be offered as an option. IaaS is usually seen to provide a standardized virtual server. The consumer takes responsibility for the configuration and operations of the guest Operating System (OS), software, and Database (DB). Compute capabilities (such as p...

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2)  Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) is an Amazon Web Service (AWS) you can use to access servers, software, and storage resources across the Internet in a self-service manner. It provides scalable, pay-as-you-go compute capacity. It is said to be elastic since it is scalable in both directions along the client as well as the service provider.  Amazon EC2 provides the following features: Virtual computing environments, known as instances Preconfigured templates for your instances, known as Amazon Machine Images (AMIs), that package the bits you need for your server (including the operating system and additional software) Various configurations of CPU, memory, storage, and networking capacity for your instances, known as instance types  Secure login information for your instances using key pairs (AWS stores the public key, and you store the private key in a secure place) Storage volumes for temporary data that are deleted whe...

  Platform as a Service PaaS, or Platform as a Service, is simply a cloud basis where you can create, test, and organize various apps for your organization. Implementing PaaS streamlines the company's software development process.  Paas's virtual runtime environment provides a conducive environment for creating and testing applications. The full set of resources available in the form of servers, storage, and networking can be managed by the organization or a platform provider.  PaaS services such as Google App Engine and AWS Elastic Beanstalk are  common examples.  PaaS is also subscription-based, giving you various pricing options based on your business's needs. PaaS provides - Applications Deployment - Configuring application components - Provisioning and configuring supporting technologies The Essential Characteristics of PaaS 1. Runtime Framework This is the “software stack” aspect of PaaS, and perhaps the aspect that comes first to mind for most people. The...

Virtualization  Virtualization is the "creation of a virtual (rather than actual) version of something, such as a server, a desktop, a storage device, an operating system or network resources". In other words, Virtualization is a technique, which allows sharing a single physical instance of a resource or an application among multiple customers and organizations. It does by assigning a logical name to physical storage and providing a pointer to that physical resource when demanded. The role of Virtualization in a Cloud Environment 1. Protection from System Failures Technology is always at risk of crashing down at the wrong time. Businesses can tolerate a few glitches, but if your developer is working on an important application that needs to be finished immediately, the last thing you could wish for is a system crash. To counter this risk, virtualization lets you open the same work on another device. Store all your backup data through virtualization on cloud services or virtua...

 Platform as a service (PaaS) Platform as a service (PaaS) is a category of cloud computing services that provide a computing platform and a solution stack as a service. Along with software as a service (SaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS), it is a service model of cloud computing. PaaS offerings facilitate the deployment of applications without the cost and complexity of buying and managing the underlying hardware and software and provisioning hosting capabilities. Technically, a PaaS is an Application Platform comprised of an operating system, middleware, and other software that allows applications to run on the cloud with much of the management, security, scaling, and other stack-related headaches abstracted away. This allows you to focus on two things: customers and developing your application. Let the PaaS deal with system administration details like setting up servers or VMs, installing libraries or frameworks, configuring testing tools, etc. Platform as a Service al...

  HYPERVISOR  A hypervisor (also known as a virtual machine monitor, VMM, or virtualizer) is a type of computer software, firmware or hardware that creates and runs virtual machines. A computer on which a hypervisor runs one or more virtual machines is called a host machine, and each virtual machine is called a guest machine. The hypervisor presents the guest operating systems with a virtual operating platform and manages the execution of the guest operating systems.  The term hypervisor is a variant of supervisor, a traditional term for the kernel of an operating system: the hypervisor is the supervisor of the supervisors, with hyper- used as a stronger variant of super. A hypervisor is a function that abstracts, or separates, operating systems and applications from the underlying computer hardware. This abstraction enables the underlying host machine hardware to run one or more virtual machines as guests independently, allowing numerous guest VMs to effectively share th...

 CLOUD SERVICE REQUIREMENTS Cloud computing consists of hardware and software resources made available on the Internet as managed by third-party services. Cloud services requirements typically provide access to advanced software applications and high-end networks of server computers. Service providers create cloud computing systems to serve common business or research needs. Examples of cloud computing services include: 1. Virtual IT. It configures and utilizes remote third-party servers as extensions to a company's local IT network. 2. Software. They utilize commercial software applications or develop and remotely host custom-built applications. 3. Network storage. The backup or archive data across the Internet to a provider without needing to know the physical location of storage. Cloud computing systems in general are designed for scalability to support large numbers of customers and surges in demand. Service providers are responsible for installing and maintaining core technol...

  CLOUD SERVICES Cloud computing service models are divided into three categories: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS) (SaaS). There are evident distinctions between the three in terms of what they can provide a business in terms of storage and resource sharing, but they may also interact with one another to build a single comprehensive cloud computing platform. 1. IaaS (Infrastructure as Service):  This is the most prevalent cloud computing service architecture since it provides the underlying infrastructure of virtual servers, networks, operating systems, and data storage devices. It provides the flexibility, stability, and scalability that many organizations desire from the cloud while eliminating the need for hardware in the office. This makes it excellent for small and medium-sized businesses seeking a cost-effective IT solution to support business growth. IaaS is a completely outsourced pay-for-use service th...

   Cloud The “cloud” in cloud computing can be defined as the set of hardware, networks, storage, services, and interfaces that combine to deliver aspects of computing as a service. Cloud services include the delivery of software, infrastructure, and storage over the Internet. A cloud service is any service made available to users on demand via the Internet from a cloud computing provider's servers as opposed to being provided from a company's own premises servers explained before, the most common cloud service is that one offers data storage disks and virtual servers, i.e. infrastructure. Examples of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) companies are Amazon, Rackspace, and Flexi scale. Cloud computing is the use of computing resources (hardware and software) that are delivered as a service over a network (typically the Internet).  Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage (cloud storage) and computing power, without...

  Phases of MapReduce The MapReduce program is executed in three main phases: mapping, shuffling and reducing. There is also an optional phase known as the combiner phase. Mapping Phase This is the first phase of the program. There are two steps in this phase: splitting and mapping. A dataset is split into equal units called chunks (input splits) in the splitting step. Hadoop consists of a RecordReader that uses TextInputFormat to transform input splits into key-valuepairs. The key-value pairs are then used as inputs in the mapping step. This is the only data format that a mapper can read or understand. The mapping step contains a coding logic that is applied to these data blocks. In this step, the mapper processes the key-value pairs and produces an output of the same form (key-value pairs). Shuffling phase This is the second phase that takes place after the completion of the Mapping phase. It consists of two main steps: sorting and merging. In the sorting step, the key-value pair...

  Media Applications The use of cloud computing technology can benefit media applications as well. Encoding, transcoding composition, and rendering are examples of video processing tasks that are well suited to a cloud environment. These are computationally expensive jobs that can readily be transferred to cloud computing infrastructures. Examples Animoto, Maya rendering with Aneka, Video encoding on the cloud: Encoding.com, Multiplayer online gaming, etc.

The most important advantage of cloud technologies for social networking applications With over 1 billion members, Facebook is perhaps the most visible and intriguing social networking platform. To keep up with this enormous expansion, Facebook has needed to be able to expand capacity and build new scalable technologies and software systems while retaining high speed to provide a seamless user experience. Multiple data centers are required to support systems with a large number of users. They require highly efficient infrastructure. In the case of Facebook, such a platform largely supports the system's major functionality while also providing APIs for integrating third-party apps - such - as social games and quizzes made by others. LAMP is the foundation of the basic reference stack that serves Facebook (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP). This set of technologies is complemented by a suite of additional in-house services. These services are written in several languages and include fea...

  CRM and ERP CRM (customer relationship management) and ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems are two industry categories that are thriving in the cloud, with CRM being the more mature of the two. Cloud CRM programs provide small businesses and start-ups with a terrific way to get fully working CRM software without big upfront expenditures and by paying monthly fees. Furthermore, CRM is not a task that needs a certain set of requirements, and it can be readily migrated to the cloud. Cloud CRM software has grown in popularity as a result of this feature, as well as the ability to view your business and customer data from anywhere and on any device. Cloud-based ERP systems are less mature, and they must compete with well-established in-house solutions. Finance and accounting, human resources, manufacturing, supply chain management, project management, and CRM are all integrated into ERP systems. Their purpose is to give a unified perspective and access to all activities requir...

   GEOSCIENCE: SATELLITE IMAGE PROCESSING  Massive volumes of geographic and non-spatial data are collected, produced, and analyzed by geoscience applications. The volume of data that has to be processed grows considerably as technology advances and our world gets increasingly instrumented (e.g., through the deployment of sensors and satellites for monitoring). A fundamental component of geoscience applications is the geographic information system (GIS). All sorts of spatially linked data may be captured, stored, manipulated, analyzed, managed, and presented using GIS applications. This sort of data is becoming increasingly important in a range of application sectors, ranging from advanced agriculture to civic security and natural resource management. As a result, large amounts of geo-referenced data are fed into computer systems for processing and analysis. Cloud computing is a compelling alternative for completing these time-consuming processes and collecting useful dat...

  Healthcare: ECG (Electrocardiogram) Analysis in cloud computing Healthcare is a field, subject, sector, or territory in which information technology has several uses. These apps are being used to aid businesses in supporting scientists in developing disease prevention solutions. Cloud computing has emerged as an appealing alternative for constructing health monitoring systems as a result of the development of the Internet or to put it another way, as a result of the availability of the internet. The ECG machine, for example, is a health monitoring device that measures the human body's heartbeat and prints the results on graph paper. The electrocardiogram (ECG) measures the electrical activity of the heart's Cardium. A waveform is created as a result of this action, which is repeated throughout time and symbolizes the heartbeat.  The analysis of the shape is used to identify arrhythmias, and it is the most common way of detecting heart diseases. Here the meaning of arrhythmia...

Scientific Applications Scientific applications have been run on both traditional high-performance computing (HPC) systems such as supercomputers and clusters, as well as high throughput computing (HTC) platforms such as Grids, for many years. Many businesses have employed classical HPC to assist tackle a range of problems since they have access to enormous quantities of computer power. Although these systems were often built to solve a specific problem, a growing number of SMEs and even university departments began to use general-purpose HPC systems. Scientists, engineers, system administrators, and developers have been investigating HPC Cloud environments to take advantage of what Cloud Computing has to offer them as new growing technology. Running complex scientific applications has become more accessible to the research community thanks to the popularity of Cloud Computing, which allows researchers to access on-demand compute resources in minutes rather than waiting in queues for t...