What is cloud infrastructure?
Cloud infrastructure is the combination of hardware and software components such as storage, networking, virtualization, management tools, and servers that meet the computing needs of a cloud computing model.
Cloud infrastructure also includes an abstraction layer that virtualizes resources and services for users via program programming interfaces or API-enabled command-line and graphical interfaces.
What role does cloud infrastructure play in cloud computing?
Cloud computing is based on cloud infrastructure, which disaggregates the functions and features of these hardware and software components. A cloud service provider (or information technology department in the case of private clouds) hosts these virtualized resources and distributes them to users via the internet or the network. These resources include virtual machines (VMs) and their components, such as servers, memory and network switches, firewalls, and load balancers. These resources often support complex and task-specific services such as machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI).
What are the cloud infrastructure's components?
Cloud infrastructure is the back-end technology element found in most enterprise data centers, such as servers, persistent storage, and networking equipment, but on a larger scale. Large cloud providers such as Facebook or LinkedIn have partnered with vendors to create custom infrastructure components that meet specific requirements such as power efficiency and workloads that incorporate big data and/or AI.
Servers
Many prominent public cloud providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform offer services based on shared multi-tenant servers. This requires enormous computing resources to manage unpredictable user demand changes and balance the demand across fewer servers. Cloud infrastructure is typically composed of high-density systems that share power. Often, these multi-socket or multicore servers are used.
Storage
Cloud infrastructure uses attached storage, which is different from traditional data center infrastructure. This includes hard-and solid-state drives (SSDs) and hard drives (HDDs) instead of shared arrays on a storage network. These persistent storage systems can be aggregated with a distributed filesystem (DFS), designed for a specific storage scenario such as an object, block, or big data. A distributed file system allows for scaling by separating the management and storage control from the physical infrastructure. This helps cloud providers match their capacity with users' workloads. Instead of adding many compute nodes through large storage chassis at once, it slowly adds compute nodes with the correct number and type of local disks.
Networking
Cloud computing relies on high-bandwidth connectivity for data transmission. Therefore, cloud infrastructure includes local equipment, such as switches, routers, and virtual networking support.
Hybrid cloud architectures: public vs. private
Each of the three major cloud computing deployment models has cloud infrastructure—private, public, and hybrid cloud.
Private cloud
A private cloud is where an organization builds and owns cloud infrastructure components. It then houses them in its own data center. This is a single-tenant environment. It means that the organization uses the entire infrastructure and services. This architecture combines the best of the cloud and the security and control that come with owning a data center.
Because their computing requirements are unpredictable, organizations may opt for private cloud infrastructure. They might need greater security and control over infrastructure assets, critical apps, or sensitive data.
Public cloud
A public cloud model is one where the cloud infrastructure components are owned and shared by customers. Customers pay for core infrastructure resources, such as CPU cycles, storage, bandwidth, and other services, but they do not own or manage these resources. Cloud providers often sell these services on demand, usually per hour and sometimes with long-term commitments.
Hybrid cloud
A hybrid cloud is a combination of both public and private cloud models. It provides a single cloud that can be used by users. One business can use a private cloud for sensitive workloads, applications, or data hosting. The public cloud is used to host other apps. Public cloud resources can also handle spikes or bursts in demand, which gives users more options and helps private clouds work better.
Another related model is the multi-cloud model. This allows an enterprise to use multiple cloud providers. This could be used to migrate apps between providers or run services concurrently.
What various cloud computing delivery models are there?
Three models of cloud computing services are available, each reflecting the resources that have been accessed and those that have been provided.
Infrastructure as a Service
The infrastructure as a service (IaaS) model allows organizations to use cloud infrastructure components over dedicated internet connections. This model typically has recurring monthly costs for the user but will enable providers to make revenue by renting out equipment or other pay-as-you-go models.
Providers offer various specialized services in addition to the primary cloud infrastructure services. Some examples include container infrastructure, service fabric, serverless functions, and managed network services—virtual private clouds, load balancers, domain name services, application delivery control controllers, firewalls, and others.
IaaS is typically priced on a per-user basis by cloud providers. Rates correspond to the level of usage. Here are some examples:
- An increment of the standard virtual CPU size and the corresponding memory.
- Storage service type (object, block), performance level (SSD or HDD), and availability.
- Capacity is measured in units of time, usually per month.
IaaS vendors offer discounts for continued usage or the consistent use of a certain amount of computing capacity for a specific period. Customers can also save with reserved capacity, where they prepay a set capacity for a particular period (month, year, or multiple years).
Platform as a Service
The lines between IaaS (PaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) have blurred recently. This adds additional capabilities to those infrastructure resources. These functions include load balancing and autoscaling, application development frameworks, automated deployment mechanisms, and automatic deployment. The cloud provider's services should be able to meet customers' IT and business needs.
Software as a Service
Software as a Service (SaaS) is a third type of cloud delivery model. It does not directly involve customers using cloud infrastructure resources, as with IaaS or PaaS models. SaaS is a service that hosts and manages an application. This type of architecture is often multi-tenant. Customers can log in to the service using a browser. Customers' data can be saved locally, in the cloud, or both.
Cloud infrastructure versus cloud architecture
The blueprint for a cloud environment that includes components and services on a large scale A provider can offer a wide range of cloud services from this cloud architecture. These services are delivered via isolated locations, each with multiple connected data centers.
The physical representation of these plans is cloud infrastructure. It includes hardware, operating systems, and virtual resources that provide computing, storage, networking, and middleware services. These physical resources' abstracted capabilities and services are made available to the public cloud to allow them to scale quickly to meet individual customer workloads. This will enable you to separate control and management of those resources. For example, locally attached storage is preferred over shared disk arrays.
Public cloud services are intended to support several thousand unique customers via multi-tenancy. Their architecture and infrastructure must provide sufficient performance, reliability, and security.
What specifications must a cloud infrastructure meet?
A public cloud provider is the best choice for organizations adopting cloud computing. They have vastly more excellent resources and are better equipped to manage, design, and build a cloud infrastructure. These providers often acquire infrastructure components, sometimes with design input, and customers can select the levels of abstraction, such as compute, storage, virtualized instances, and other resources. These providers offer higher-level services such as orchestration, integration, security, reporting, billing, and reporting.
Some organizations may need their own cloud and choose to manage the entire stack, from hardware to management to the apps and workloads that run on it. To build a private cloud infrastructure, they will need to follow these steps:
- A standard architecture allows IT resources to be shared, workloads to grow and shrink, and configurations to be based on policies.
- Hardware and software on-premises that can be used to abstract resource capabilities such as computing, virtualization, containers, storage, networking, and other functions;
- Additional management functions include integrations, orchestration, and security. Reporting and chargeback are also possible.
The chosen provider will determine the tech stack required to create a private cloud. The choice of provider will determine the tech stack for a private cloud. A business can use the hardware and software it already has or hire a vendor to provide both software and hardware.
You could also use the resources of cloud providers to set up a private cloud on your own property:
- A hosted private cloud is a service provider that hosts and manages services for one customer using dedicated infrastructure, such as hardware, software, and networking.
- The managed private cloud is an extension of the hosted option. The provider can also manage other services, such as identity management.
- A virtual cloud is an isolated environment within a public cloud that isolates workloads from other customers but runs on multi-tenant servers. This concept can be extended to include on-premises infrastructure managed by the cloud provider. Examples of these are AWS Outposts and Azure Stack.
Cloud infrastructure has many advantages
Customers can enjoy many benefits from managing and procuring in-house infrastructure from cloud infrastructure. A public cloud provider offers many benefits, including security and cost savings.
Flexibility: Customers can access resources quickly and manage them to meet their business needs. This makes it possible to move workloads from on-premises to the cloud and use additional resources.
Reliability: The cloud providers' vast infrastructure and redundancy options via availability zones provide reliability at a scale that is beyond the capabilities of any customer's internal resources. Cloud outages are not common, but they do happen. Customers should plan how they will use the cloud based on how reliable their workloads are and how much uptime they need.
Cost: Cloud infrastructure reduces upfront capital costs and follows a consumption-based model. Users pay only for the infrastructure services they use, usually hourly, weekly, or monthly. The significant capital investment needed to build infrastructure on site is also turned into a more minor, predictable operational cost.
Security: Initial concerns regarding the security of public cloud resources have decreased. Cloud providers continue to invest in their security capabilities and make improvements. Most cloud security problems can be traced back to user misconfigurations of individual service services rather than bad external actors.
Cloud infrastructure's disadvantages
However, cloud infrastructure can present many challenges.
Shared security: Cloud providers are diligent in protecting their cloud infrastructure, but managing such a large scale of services and infrastructure is complicated. The shared responsibility model does not allow providers to secure their infrastructure. Customers are in charge of keeping their data and workloads safe by setting up, controlling access to, monitoring, and maintaining their systems correctly.
Management and visibility: Customers don't have access to the physical hardware on which their workloads run. Even though public cloud providers offer dedicated hardware and bare metal servers, these tend to be more expensive and give you more control over the server stack.
Uncontrollable costs: Cloud customers can use a pay-as-you-go model if they carefully allocate and monitor their services. Unexpected cloud costs can be quickly incurred by inactive resources, overprovisioning, and failure to recognize service dependencies. Cloud services are becoming more complex, granular, and integrated, so customers must be diligent in monitoring and managing cloud usage.
Tools and processes for cloud infrastructure management
Cloud infrastructure management tools are available in a variety of formats. Many cloud platform providers offer a variety of performance, and pricing tiers for compute and storage, networking, monitoring and analytics, machine learning, and storage, as well as network and storage. AWS Elastic Compute Cloud, Simple Storage Service, and Glacier have computed storage service examples. Microsoft Azure VMs and Azure Files, as well as Blob Storage and Microsoft Azure Files, are also available. Examples include Google Compute Engine, File store, and Persistent Disk.
Cloud infrastructure services that are more specific address container-based workloads and serverless functions. These are some options for container management:
- Amazon EKS, Amazon ECR and AWS Fargate, Amazon ECS;
- Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Azure Container Instances, and Azure Container Registry;
- Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), Google Cloud Run, and Google App Engine;
- Primary serverless cloud services, including Azure Functions, AWS Lambda, and GCF.
AWS CloudFormation and Azure Automation are other examples of cloud infrastructure automation. There are also third-party options like Chef Automate, Puppet Enterprise, and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform.
Similarly, third-party managed service providers offer public cloud services through Rackspace or DigitalOcean.