CLOUD COMPUTING INFRASTRUCTURE

 Cloud computing infrastructure refers to the underlying hardware and software components that enable the delivery of cloud computing services over the internet. It encompasses the physical and virtual resources, networking infrastructure, and management tools required to support cloud-based applications and data storage. The infrastructure may include servers, storage systems, networking equipment, virtualization software, and automation tools deployed in data centers or distributed across multiple locations. Cloud computing infrastructure providers offer various services, such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS), allowing users to access computing resources on-demand and scale their IT infrastructure based on their needs.

Cloud infrastructure components:

Different components of cloud infrastructure support the computing requirements of a cloud computing model. Cloud infrastructure has number of key components but not limited to only server, software, network and storage devices. Still cloud infrastructure is categorized into three parts in general i.e.

1. Computing

2. Networking

3. Storage

The most important point is that cloud infrastructure should have some basic infrastructural constraints like transparency, scalability, security and intelligent monitoring etc.

The below figure represents components of cloud infrastructure

Components of Cloud Infrastructure

1. Hypervisor:

Hypervisor is a firmware or a low level program which is a key to enable virtualization. It is used to divide and allocate cloud resources between several customers. As it monitors and manages cloud services/resources that’s why hypervisor is called as VMM (Virtual Machine Monitor) or (Virtual Machine

Manager).

2. Management Software:

Management software helps in maintaining and configuring the infrastructure. Cloud management software monitors and optimizes resources, data, applications and services.

3. Deployment Software:

Deployment software helps in deploying and integrating the application on the cloud. So, typically it helps in building a virtual computing environment.

4. Network:

It is one of the key components of cloud infrastructure which is responsible for connecting cloud services over the internet. For the transmission of data and resources externally and internally network is required.

5. Server:

Server which represents the computing portion of the cloud infrastructure is responsible for managing and delivering cloud services for various services and partners, maintaining security etc.

6. Storage:

Storage represents the storage facility which is provided to different organizations for storing and managing data. It provides a facility of extracting another resource if one of the resources fails as it keeps many copies of storage. Along with this, virtualization is also considered as one of important component of cloud infrastructure. Because it abstracts the available data storage and computing power away from the actual hardware and the users interact with their cloud infrastructure through GUI (Graphical User Interface).