Cloud Computing as Evolution of Distributed Computing � A Case Study for SlapOS Distributed Cloud Computing Platform

Abstract

The cloud computing paradigm has been defined from several points of view, the main two directions being either as an evolution of the grid and distributed computing paradigm, or, on the contrary, as a disruptive revolution in the classical paradigms of operating systems, network layers and web applications. This paper presents a distributed cloud computing platform called SlapOS, which unifies technologies and communication protocols into a new technology model for offering any application as a service. Both cloud and distributed computing can be efficient methods for optimizing resources that are aggregated from a grid of standard PCs hosted in homes, offices and small data centers. The paper fills a gap in the existing distributed computing literature by providing a distributed cloud computing model which can be applied for deploying various applications.Keywords: Cloud Computing, Distributed Computing, Grid Computing, SlapOS, Distributed Cloud Computing1 IntroductionInternet users are increasingly adding video content to existing online services and applications, therefore having the effect that the number of people viewing videos online has grown over the past year and the time spent per viewer has increased accordingly. Google sites, including YouTube, continue to be the most watched online video sites with more than 35.4 million Google sites visitors watching YouTube [1].Many real-world systems involve large numbers of highly interconnected heterogeneous components over the Internet. The cloud is among one of the more promising systems that will be deployed at a large scale in the near future because this field counts on many success stories: Amazon EC2, Windows Azure or Google App Engine [2].Cloud computing is traditionally divided into three market segments: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS). To better understand cloud communications, it is useful to understand the different service models of cloud computing [3]. The best known is SaaS where the customer purchases access to an application that is hosted and runs in the cloud. PaaS refers to access to platforms that allow the customers to deploy their own applications in the cloud, and IaaS is at a lower level with access to the systems, storage, network connectivity, and OS management.Recent research on Cloud Computing has focused on the implementation of Service Level Agreements (SLA) and operation of large Data Centers [4]. However, in case of Force Majeure such as natural disaster, strikes, terrorism, unpreventable accidents, etc., SLA can no longer be applied. Rather than centralizing Cloud Computing resources in large data centers, Distributed Cloud Computing resources are aggregated from a grid of standard PCs hosted in homes, offices and small data centers.Based on the proposed scenario, several questions arise regarding its performances and efficiency. Cloud nodes reports on resources used and trusting clients to report billing values is a well-known security issue. The security mechanisms included in the proposed solution are setup to prevent a node from cheating on reported billing values. However traffic on unencrypted links could be intercepted and it is possible for a node to join the cloud and start sniffing sensitive data. Therefore, the optimization of the authentication process for distributed applications is needed [5].Currently, the cloud model can be used for other scientific fields. This is the case with the so-called CloudRAN (C-RAN) [6] used in telecommunications. It is a cloud computing based new radio access network architecture that can support 2G, 3G or 4G systems and future wireless communication standards. Due to the ever growing complexity of the radio access networks, the cloud computing paradigm can be successfully applied for the computationally extensive algorithms that are used in telecommunications networks [7].2 Cloud Computing Technologies and SystemsIn this section the technologies and systems that are the basis for cloud computing solutions and the role of communication networks in such solutions are presented. …