Cloud Computing is delivery of different services using internet, These resources include tools and applications like data storage, serves/O.S, databases, networking, software and much more. In other words cloud offers faster innovation, flexible resources and economics of scale such as Pay as you go feature by AWS.
How does it work?
According to cloud academy : There are two huge factors that have contributed to the success of cloud computing
1) Technological advancements, such as virtualization of compute instances/resources and abundant high-speed internet access.
2) Widespread investment in constantly building and updating infrastructure, which results in economies of scale. Because of these factors, cloud computing can take all the ingredients that make up a traditional data centre and makes all these resources available to consumers on an as-needed basis.
For example: Companies now a days use AWS cloud services to use advance computational resources to do their work and don’t invest on owning and maintaining their costly IT infrastructure and can simply pay to AWS on the usage of their service.
Reason to move your business on Cloud?
We must know what plan to choose according to need of our business and nature.
Here are 4 reason why companies should move their business on cloud:
1)Accessibility and Flexibility: We as user can access ,modify ,save data from any device from any where in the world with one central location.
We can also create groups with different level of access rights. All your team members can coordinate with each other with cloud computing. This will really increase productivity, saving your time and money both.
2)Data Recovery: What if you work on your physical system and your system got stolen or your data gets corrupt or something worse can also happen ..?
So we can over come all these problem using cloud computing as it is very effective and has reliable backup data centres.
3)Disaster Recovery and Security: Cloud Computing can help you with disaster recovery. In the case of any disaster like power cut, equipment breakdown, natural calamities like flooding, earthquake etc Cloud Computing will take care of all of these unforeseen situations.
As well as all the data is encrypted so it can’t be hacked easily.
4)Affordability: Cloud Computing is very affordable considering all the advantages it has to offer. And services like AWS provide pay as you feature which helps user to pay only on the usage and time of services used.
Cloud services are provided by many great companies but here are some most used services by the user:
AWS by Amazon, Azure by Microsoft, GCP by Google, Alibaba,
Oracle ..Etc.
Overview of cloud Computing market in 2020:
Images and content is taken from a site here’s the link to refer: https://kinsta.com/blog/cloud-market-share/
As we all know cloud computing market is increasing day by day, According to Synergy Research Group across seven key cloud service and infrastructure market segments, operators, and vendors — reports revenues in excess of $150 billion for the first half of 2019. A 24% growth on the previous year
As big as the cloud market has become, there is massive scope for expansion. Especially when you consider Gartner is projecting worldwide IT spending of $3.79 trillion in 2019.
If we Talk about AWS by Amazon the growth was exponential(2019) and still is increasing:
Annual Growth of Cloud services according to Gartner are followed:
What Are The Different Types Of Cloud Computing?
Mainly there are 3 categories of cloud computing services.
1)Software as a service(SaaS)
2)Platform as a Service (Paas)
3)Infrastructure as a Service(IaaS)
And their are two more category which are not widely used:-
4)Mobile Backend as a Service(MBaas)
5)Security as a Service(SEcaas)
→SaaS: These are services like Gmail, the ubiquitous free webmail service. With a SaaS product, the consumer simply accesses the product through their browser and doesn’t have to be concerned with installations or updates. When paid, these services usually are subscription-based. Example-Microsoft 365
→PaaS: We can think of PaaS offerings as a curated set of services that work together to solve a large business need. For example, a business may want to create a modern microservices-based product, use remote developers, and have the product readily accessible with no delays around the world. A PaaS company will offer a full development environment where the software can be built, tested, and deployed within their predetermined constraints. This frees the customer to focus on the business and creativity of the product, instead of additional concern over infrastructure. Example-Salesforce.com
→IaaS: It is the public cloud environment at its lowest commoditized levels. Companies such as AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud offer their infrastructure’s resources, network connectivity, and security compliance as a product that enterprises can use to customize how they see fit in order to build a cost-optimized software offering.
→ MBaaS: Vendors can make use of Cloud services for the handheld devices like smartphones. For example we can learn customers purchasing habits and utilize it.
→SaaS: In this, service provider combines their security services into a corporate infrastructure more cost effectively. The vendor provides services on the subscription basis very effectively as compared with any other big corporations. Security services include antivirus/malware, hacking detection, authentication etc.
Characteristics of Cloud Technology?
There are Three main cloud deployment models:
1)Public: This is an important kind of model is mostly available in the market provide by many companies such as AWS by Amazon ,GCP by Google, In this all the services are accessible to everyone or to Public Internet. User don’t need to be concerned with any infrastructure ownership.
2)Private: Private cloud is little bit different from standard Cloud. Owners need to subscribe for the resources and manage the employees but with improved security because only the owners can access this environment.
3)Hybrid: It is a combination of both, with a link over the public internet connecting the private and public clouds. This aids in disaster recovery or situations when the private cloud has reached its limit and needs to leverage the vast resources of a public cloud.
Overall Summary of Cloud till now:-
#Case Study on Amway using AWS Cloud Service.
“Using the AWS IoT platform, we were able to build policies and security throughout the entire architecture.”
Mike Gartner
Senior. IoT Platform Architect, Amway.
What is AMWAY:
Amway is the number-one direct-selling business in the world, according to the Direct Selling News 2017 Global 100, with more than $8.8 billion in sales revenue. The company provides a breadth of nutrition, beauty, and home products through a multilevel network of millions of global sales distributors.
When Amway thought of using internet of things:
Despite the company’s huge size and global footprint, however, its initiative to develop Internet-connected products — or Internet of Things (IoT) — began as a grassroots effort within the organization when it was in the process of enhancing its top-of-the-line air-treatment system. “During this process, a cross-functional team identified an opportunity to enhance the user experience by adding Wi-Fi and Bluetooth communication,” says Everett Binger, chief IoT solutions architect at Amway.
The idea quickly became an executive initiative that ultimately transformed how the company executes product development. Since embarking on its IoT journey, Amway has successfully launched its first Internet-connected product — the Atmosphere Sky Air Treatment System — and plans to further explore what benefits IoT can bring to the enterprise.
Adaptation of IoT using AWS:
Amway conducted a four-month evaluation of different IoT platforms, ultimately choosing AWS IoT. AWS’s scalability, global presence, maturity in the IoT space, security, and outstanding professional services were the deciding factors for Amway. “We do business in more than 100 countries and territories, and we had no idea how much data-center capacity we would need from an IoT perspective,” says Mike Gartner, senior IoT platform architect at Amway.
Amway implemented its IoT platform in a serverless architecture using AWS IoT. It used other AWS services — including AWS Lambda, Amazon API Gateway, and Amazon DynamoDB — to implement key features for its connected devices, including:
1)Command and control — the ability to send commands to devices anywhere in the world and get a response.
2)Firmware updating — the ability to automatically update features on its devices.
3)Telemetry data capture — the ability to continuously collect data from devices and transform that data for later analysis or use in real time.
4)Just-In-Time Registration — the ability to securely onboard a device to the AWS IoT platform.
5)Device pairing — the ability to know a device owner is the only one who can control the device.
What was the main issues for Amway:
Security was one of Amway’s biggest concerns in moving into IoT. “Using the AWS IoT platform, we were able to build policies and security throughout the entire architecture,” says Gartner. Several AWS teams worked with Amway and Atmel (now Microchip), to implement Just-in-Time certificate registration for Amway’s connected devices. Just-in-Time Registration is a new AWS IoT process that automatically registers new device certificates as part of the initial communication between the device and AWS IoT, creating a seamless, highly secure user experience. Communication between devices and AWS IoT is protected through the use of X.509 certificates.
With AWS Just-in-Time Registration, users are assured their Amway device will talk only to Amway’s AWS IoT platform — not to a different IoT platform or a hacked version that sits in between. For Amway, Just-in-Time Registration ensures a given device truly is an Amway manufactured device, and not a fake. For Amway’s devices, Just-in-Time Registration is handled by the Atmel microprocessor within each unit. “Valid certificates for our air-treatment systems are actually created before they even leave the factory floor,” says Binger.
When it came to designing the architecture required for its IoT platform, Amway used AWS Professional Services to help it create a continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline to automate delivery of platform software updates. The pipeline picks up source code changes from a repository, builds and packages the application, and then pushes the new update through a series of stages, running integration tests to ensure all features are intact and backward-compatible in each stage.
Review Done by Amway on AWS:
By using AWS serverless architecture
The CI/CD process has allowed the company to be much more agile and has completely changed how it executes product development. “In the past, it would normally take a week to get a production deployment completed and tested,” says Binger. “Now we are able to do it within minutes to hours.”
“We didn’t need to invest in IT infrastructure because AWS offered a serverless architecture — that in and of itself is a huge savings,” says Binger.
“Our investment in AWS Professional Services paid off by significantly reducing our learning curve and increasing speed-to-market,” says Binger. “It’s hard to believe we went from initial conception to building a production-ready appliance with IoT capability in a little over a year’s time. That’s extremely fast for Amway — our typical product-development cycle is significantly longer than that.”
Prediction by Binger, Amway:
He predicts that a serverless approach will be adopted for many other systems throughout Amway’s enterprise IT architecture.
“There’s some very insightful information for us there,” says Binger. “And that is causing conversations to take place within the organization that will change how we think about marketing, product development, and research development activities in the future.”
Extracting Value from Device Data:
Perhaps the most important value realized by Amway through its IoT implementation is the ability to seamlessly gather information about its products. This allows the company to better understand device performance and the needs of the end user, allowing for innovation to take place both for existing and future Amway products.
According to Amway:
“Our research and development group is getting information about how our top-of-the-line products are functioning that was impossible to gather before,” says Binger. “We have insights into not only how the product is functioning, but also how people are using the product. For example, we gather statistics about motor speed, errors, voltages, and so on, which tell us how well our air-treatment units are operating in the field,” says Binger. “We also collect information about users’ interactions with our mobile application in order to improve that offering.”
Overall Benefits of AWS:
→Implemented AWS IoT solution and developed first IoT product within 14 months
→Increased agility and scalability using AWS serverless infrastructure
→Simplified X.509 certificate registration by using Just-In-Time Registration
Overall services used by Amway:
→AWS IoT
→AWS Professional Service
→AWS Lambda
→AWS DynamoDB
*Above case study is done by taking notes and references from Amazon AWS official Website.
