Cloud Computing Bible

Chapter 3. Understanding Cloud Architecture

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Using the cloud computing stack to describe different models

• Understanding how platforms and virtual appliances are used

• Learning how cloud communications work

• Discovering the new world of the cloud client

Cloud computing is a natural extension of many of the design principles, protocols, plumbing, and systems that have been developed over the past 20 years. However, cloud computing describes some new capabilities that are architected into an application stack and are responsible for the programmability, scalability, and virtualization of resources. One property that differentiates cloud computing is referred to as composability, which is the ability to build applications from component parts.

A platform is a cloud computing service that is both hardware and software. Platforms are used to create more complex software. Virtual appliances are an important example of a platform, and they are becoming a very important standard cloud computing deployment object.

Cloud computing requires some standard protocols with which different layers of hardware, software, and clients can communicate with one another. Many of these protocols are standard Internet protocols. Cloud computing relies on a set of protocols needed to manage interprocess communications that have been developed over the years. The most commonly used set of protocols uses XML as the messaging format, the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) protocol as the object model, ...