Audit monitor in cloud computing

Cloud Computing Mechanisms

Chapter 7 – Infrastructure

Chapter 8 – Specialized

Chapter 9 – Management

Chapter 10 – Security (Will be discussed doing the security module)

What is a mechanism?

a system of parts working together in a machine; a piece of machinery.

Learning Outcomes

Understand basic concepts and terminology relating to cloud computing

Understand virtualization technology

Cloud Characteristics mentioned in Chapter 4

The following six specific characteristics are common to the majority of cloud environments:

• on-demand usage

• ubiquitous access

• multitenancy (and resource pooling)

• elasticity

• measured usage

• resiliency

Cloud Characteristics Cloud Mechanisms
On – Demand Usage Hypervisor
Virtual Server
Ready-Made Environment
Resource Replication
Remote Administration Environment
Resource Management System
SLA Management System
Billing Management System
Ubiquitous Access Logical Network Perimeter
Multi-Device Broker
Multitenancy / Resource Pooling Logical Network Perimeter
Hypervisor
Resource Replication
Resource Cluster
Resource Management System
Elasticity Hypervisor
Cloud Usage Monitor
Automated Scaling Listener
Resource Replication
Load Balancer
Resource Management System
Measured Usage Hypervisor
Cloud Usage Monitor
SLA Monitor
Pay-Per-Use Monitor
Audit Monitor
SLA Management System
Billing Management System
Resiliency Hypervisor
Resource Replication
Failover System
Resource Cluster
Remote Management System
Cloud Infrastructure Mechanisms

Chapter 7

Cloud Infrastructure Mechanisms

7.1 Logical Network Perimeter

7.2 Virtual Server

7.3 Cloud Storage Device

7.4 Cloud Usage Monitor

7.5 Resource Replication

7.6 Ready-Made Environment

7.1 Logical Network Perimeter

Logical Network Perimeter

Defined as the isolation of a network environment from the rest of a communications network, the logical network perimeter establishes a virtual network boundary that can encompass and isolate a group of related cloud-based IT resources that may be physically distributed

This mechanism can be implemented to:

isolate IT resources in a cloud from non-authorized users

isolate IT resources in a cloud from non-users

isolate IT resources in a cloud from cloud consumers

control the bandwidth that is available to isolated IT resources

Logical Network Perimeter

Logical network perimeters are typically established via network devices that supply and control the connectivity of a data center and are commonly deployed as virtualized IT environments that include:

• Virtual Firewall – An IT resource that actively filters network traffic to and from the isolated network while controlling its interactions with the Internet.

• Virtual Network – Usually acquired through VLANs, this IT resource isolates the network environment within the data center infrastructure.

7.2 Virtual Server

Virtual Server

A virtual server is a form of virtualization software that emulates a physical server. Virtual servers are used by cloud providers to share the same physical server with multiple cloud consumers by providing cloud consumers with individual virtual server instances.

Virtual Server

7.3 Cloud Storage Device

Cloud Storage Device

The cloud storage device mechanism represents storage devices that are designed specifically for cloud-based provisioning. Instances of these devices can be virtualized, similar to how physical servers can spawn virtual server images

Cloud Storage Levels

Cloud storage device mechanisms provide common logical units of data storage, such as:

• Files – Collections of data are grouped into files that are located in folders.

• Blocks – The lowest level of storage and the closest to the hardware, a block is the smallest unit of data that is still individually accessible.

• Datasets – Sets of data are organized into a table-based, delimited, or record format.

• Objects – Data and its associated metadata are organized as Web-based resources.

Network Storage Interfaces

Object Storage Interfaces

database storage interfaces

Relational Data Storage

Non-Relational Data Storage

7.4 Cloud Usage Monitor

Parent monitoring mechanism

Monitoring agent

Resource agent

Polling agent

Cloud Usage Monitor

Monitoring Agent

Cloud Usage Monitor

resource agent

Cloud Usage Monitor

Polling Agent

7.5 Resource Replication

Resource Replication

Creating multiple instances of the same IT resource

7.6 Ready – Made Environment

READY-MADE ENVIRONMENT

Is a defining component of the PaaS cloud delivery model that represents a pre-defined, cloud-based platform comprised of a set of already installed IT resources.

Typical pre-installed IT resources are:

Databases

Middleware

Development tools

Governance tools

READY-MADE ENVIRONMENT

Business and Technical Perspectives of Cloud Mechanisms

Specialized Cloud Mechanisms

Chapter 8

Cloud Characteristics Cloud Mechanisms
On – Demand Usage Hypervisor
Virtual Server
Ready-Made Environment
Resource Replication
Remote Administration Environment
Resource Management System
SLA Management System
Billing Management System
Ubiquitous Access Logical Network Perimeter
Multi-Device Broker
Multitenancy / Resource Pooling Logical Network Perimeter
Hypervisor
Resource Replication
Resource Cluster
Resource Management System
Elasticity Hypervisor
Cloud Usage Monitor
Automated Scaling Listener
Resource Replication
Load Balancer
Resource Management System
Measured Usage Hypervisor
Cloud Usage Monitor
SLA Monitor
Pay-Per-Use Monitor
Audit Monitor
SLA Management System
Billing Management System
Resiliency Hypervisor
Resource Replication
Failover System
Resource Cluster
Remote Management System
Specialized Cloud Mechanisms

8.1 Automated Scaling Listener

8.2 Load Balancer

8.3 SLA Monitor

8.4 Pay-Per-Use Monitor

8.5 Audit Monitor

8.6 Failover System

8.7 Hypervisor

8.8 Resource Cluster

8.9 Multi-Device Broker

8.10 State Management Database

Automated Scaling Listener

Automated scaling listener mechanism

Monitors and tracks communication

Deployed near firewall

Track workload status information

IT resources can be scaled out or in

Automatic notification to cloud consumer with workloads exceed or fall below thresholds

Load Balancer

A common approach to horizontal scaling is to balance workload across two or more IT resources

Goal is to increase performance

Can perform specialized work load distribution functions:

Asymmetric

Workload Prioritization

Content-Aware Distribution

Load Balancer

Have configured set of performance and QoS rules for optimizing performance for IT resources

Located between the IT Resource generating and performing the workload

Can be hidden from the cloud consumers

SLA Monitor

Observes the runtime performance of cloud services that are fulfilling the contractual QoS requirements

Data collected by the monitor is process by the SLA management system to be aggregated into SLA reporting metrics

The system can proactively repair or failover cloud services

Pay-Per-Use Monitor

Measures cloud-based IT resources usage in accordance with predefined pricing parameters

Typical monitoring variables are:

Request / response message quantity

Transmitted data volume

Bandwidth consumption

Data collected by the pay-per-user monitor is processed by a billing management system

Audit Monitor

Collects audit tracking data for networks and IT resources in support of regulatory and contractual obligations

Failover System

Increase reliability and availability of IT resources

Is configured to automatically switch over to a redundant or standby IT resource

Are commonly used for mission critical programs and reusable services that can introduce a single point of failure

The resource replication mechanism is sometimes utilized by the failover system

Failovers two basic configurations:

Active – Active, redundant implementations of the IT resources – synchronously

Active – Passive, standby or inactive implementation is activated

Hypervisor

Used to generate virtual server instances of a physical server

Limited to one physical server

Hypervisors have limited virtual server management features

Hypervisor software can be installed directly in bare metal servers

Resource Cluster

Cloud-based IT resources that are geographically diverse can be logically combined into groups to improve allocation and use

Groups multiple IT resources so they can operate as one - This increases:

Computing capacity

Load balancing

Availability

Resource Cluster

Common resource cluster types:

Server Cluster

Database Cluster

Large Dataset Cluster

Two basic resource clusters:

Load Balanced

High Availability

Provision of cluster is more expensive than a single IT resource

Multi-Device Broker

Mechanism use to facilitate runtime data transformation so as to make a cloud service accessible to a wider range of cloud service consumer programs and devices

Mutli-device brokers commonly exist as gateways or incorporate gateway components such as:

XML

Cloud stage gateway

Mobile device gateway

State Management Database

Is a storage device that is used to temporarily persist state data for software programs.

Is an alternative to caching state data in memory

Chapter 9. Cloud Management Mechanisms

Chapter 9. Cloud Management Mechanisms

9.1 Remote Administration System

9.2 Resource Management System

9.3 SLA Management System

9.4 Billing Management System

Remote Administration System

The remote administration system mechanism (Figure 9.1) provides tools and user-interfaces for external cloud resource administrators to configure and administer cloud-based IT resources

Remote Administration System

Two primary types of portals created with the Remote Administration System:

Usage and Administration Portal

Self-Service Portal

Remote Administration System

Usage and Administration Portal – A general purpose portal that centralizes management controls to different cloud-based IT resources and can further provide IT resource usage reports.

Remote Administration System

Self-Service Portal – This is essentially a shopping portal that allows cloud consumers to search an up-to-date list of cloud services and IT resources that are available from a cloud provider (usually for lease). The cloud consumer submits its chosen items to the cloud provider for provisioning

Tasks that can commonly be performed by cloud consumers via a remote administration console include:

• configuring and setting up cloud services

• provisioning and releasing IT resource for on-demand cloud services

• monitoring cloud service status, usage, and performance

• monitoring QoS and SLA fulfillment

• managing leasing costs and usage fees

• managing user accounts, security credentials, authorization, and access control

• tracking internal and external access to leased services

• planning and assessing IT resource provisioning

• capacity planning

Resource Management System

The resource management system mechanism helps coordinate IT resources in response to management actions performed by both cloud consumers and cloud providers

Core to this system is the virtual infrastructure manager (VIM) that coordinates the server hardware so that virtual server instances can be created from the most expedient underlying physical server.

A VIM is a commercial product that can be used to manage a range of virtual IT resources across multiple physical servers. For example, a VIM can create and manage multiple instances of a hypervisor across different physical servers or allocate a virtual server on one physical server to another (or to a resource pool).

Resource management system functions can be accessed by cloud resource administrators employed by the cloud provider or cloud consumer. Those working on behalf of a cloud provider will often be able to directly access the resource management system’s native console.

SLA Management System

The SLA management system mechanism represents a range of commercially available cloud management products that provide features pertaining to the administration, collection, storage, reporting, and runtime notification of SLA data

An SLA management system deployment will generally include a repository used to store and retrieve collected SLA data based on pre-defined metrics and reporting parameters. It will further rely on one or more SLA monitor mechanisms to collect the SLA data that can then be made available in near-real time to usage and administration portals to provide on-going feedback regarding active cloud services

A cloud service consumer interacts with a cloud service (1). An SLA monitor intercepts the exchanged messages, evaluates the interaction, and collects relevant runtime data in relation to quality-of-service guarantees defined in the cloud service’s SLA (2A). The data collected is stored in a repository (2B) that is part of the SLA management system (3). Queries can be issued and reports can be generated for an external cloud resource administrator via a usage and administration portal (4) or for an internal cloud resource administrator via the SLA management system’s native user-interface (5).

BILLING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

The billing management system mechanism is dedicated to the collection and processing of usage data as it pertains to cloud provider accounting and cloud consumer billing. Specifically, the billing management system relies on pay-per-use monitors to gather runtime usage data that is stored in a repository that the system components then draw from for billing, reporting, and invoicing purposes

A cloud service consumer exchanges messages with a cloud service (1). A pay-per-use monitor keeps track of the usage and collects data relevant to billing (2A), which is forwarded to a repository that is part of the billing management system (2B). The system periodically calculates the consolidated cloud service usage fees and generates an invoice for the cloud consumer (3). The invoice may be provided to the cloud consumer through the usage and administration portal (4).