Deploying and Managing a Cloud Infrastructure E-Book

Abdul Salam

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 803

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Learn in-demand cloud computing skills from industry experts Deploying and Managing a Cloud Infrastructure is an excellent resource for IT professionals seeking to tap into the demand for cloud administrators. This book helps prepare candidates for the CompTIA Cloud+ Certification (CV0-001) cloud computing certification exam. Designed for IT professionals with 2-3 years of networking experience, this certification provides validation of your cloud infrastructure knowledge. With over 30 years of combined experience in cloud computing, the author team provides the latest expert perspectives on enterprise-level mobile computing, and covers the most essential topics for building and maintaining cloud-based systems, including: * Understanding basic cloud-related computing concepts, terminology, and characteristics * Identifying cloud delivery solutions and deploying new infrastructure * Managing cloud technologies, services, and networks * Monitoring hardware and software performance Featuring real-world examples and interactive exercises, Deploying and Managing Cloud Infrastructure delivers practical knowledge you can apply immediately. And, in addition, you also get access to a full set of electronic study tools including: * Interactive Test Environment * Electronic Flashcards * Glossary of Key Terms Now is the time to learn the cloud computing skills you need to take that next step in your IT career.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Titlepage

Copyright

Credits

Dedication

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

Introduction

Chapter 1: Understanding Cloud Characteristics

Basic Terms and Characteristics

Object Storage Concepts

Summary

Chapter Essentials

Chapter 2: To Grasp the Cloud—Fundamental Concepts

The True Nature of the Cloud

Virtualization and Scalability

The Cloud Hypervisor

Key Benefits of Implementing Hypervisors

Foundations of Cloud Computing

Summary

Chapter Essentials

Chapter 3: Within the Cloud: Technical Concepts of Cloud Computing

Technical Basics of Cloud and Scalable Computing

The Cloud Infrastructure

Summary

Chapter Essentials

Chapter 4: Cloud Management

Understanding Cloud Management Platforms

Service-Level Agreements

Policies and Procedures

Managing Cloud Workloads

Securing Data in the Cloud

Managing Devices

Summary

Chapter Essentials

Chapter 5: Diagnosis and Performance Monitoring

Performance Concepts

Disk Performance

Impact of Configuration Changes

Common Issues

Summary

Chapter Essentials

Chapter 6: Cloud Delivery and Hosting Models

Private

Public

Hybrid

Community

On-Premises vs. Off-Premises Hosting

Accountability and Responsibility Based on Delivery Models

Security Differences between Models

Functionality and Performance Validation

Orchestration Platforms

Summary

Chapter Essentials

Chapter 7: Practical Cloud Knowledge: Install, Configure, and Manage

Setting Up the Cloud

Virtual Resource Migration

Virtual Components of the Cloud

Summary

Chapter Essentials

Chapter 8: Hardware Management

Cloud Hardware Resources

Management Differences between Public, Private, and Hybrid Clouds

Tiering

Summary

Chapter Essentials

Chapter 9: Storage Provisioning and Networking

Cloud Storage Concepts

Cloud vs. SAN Storage

Cloud Provisioning

Cloud Storage Technology

Cloud Storage Gateway

Cloud Security and Privacy

Summary

Chapter Essentials

Chapter 10: Testing and Deployment: Quality Is King

Overview of Deployment Models

Cloud Management Strategies

Cloud Architecture

Cloud Deployment Options

Creating and Deploying Cloud Services

Summary

Chapter Essentials

Chapter 11: Cloud Computing Standards and Security

Cloud Computing Standards

Security Concepts and Tools

Encryption Techniques

Access Control Methods

Implementing Guest and Host Hardening Techniques

Summary

Chapter Essentials

Chapter 12: The Cloud Makes It Rain Money: The Business in Cloud Computing

The Nature of Cloud Business

Cloud Service Business Models

The Enterprise Cloud

Disaster Recovery

Business Continuity and Cloud Computing

Summary

Chapter Essentials

Chapter 13: Planning for Cloud Integration: Pitfalls and Advantages

Work Optimization

The Right Cloud Model

Adapting Organizational Culture for the Cloud

Potholes on the Cloud Road

Summary

Chapter Essentials

Appendix: The CompTIA Cloud+ Certification Exam

Preparing for the Exam

Taking the Exam

Reviewing the Exam Objectives

Free Online Learning Environment

End-User License Agreement

List of Tables

Table 1-1

Table 1-2

Table 2-1

Table 3-1

Table 3-2

Table 5-1

Table 5-2

Table 6-1

Table 8-1

Table 9-1

Table 9-2

Table 9-3

Table 9-1

Table 11-1

Table 12-1

Table 12-2

Table 12-3

Table 12-4

Table 12-5

Table 12-6

Table 12-7

Table 12-8

Table A-1

Table A-2

List of Illustrations

Figure 2-1: Type 1 and Type 2 hypervisors

Figure 2-2: Cloud application stack

Figure 2-3: Cloud components

Figure 3-1: TCO distribution per rack

Figure 3-2: Redundant power infrastructure

Figure 3-3: Data center schematic

Figure 3-4: Ubuntu Horizon dashboard

Figure 4-1: Cloud management platform

Figure 4-2: Workshop interaction chart

Figure 4-3: Basic cloud system diagram

Figure 4-4: Change management

Figure 5-1: iostat is a common Linux tool used to measure IOPS.

Figure 5-2: File system read/write performance

Figure 5-3: Data frame receiving process

Figure 5-4: Simple representation of round-trip time

Figure 5-5: A simple representation of the multipathing concept

Figure 5-6: Types of scaling

Figure 5-7: CopperEgg server monitoring tool

Figure 5-8: CopperEgg custom metrics

Figure 5-9: AWS CloudWatch metrics

Figure 5-10: Nagios network visualization tool

Figure 5-11: Memory tiers in a virtualized system

Figure 8-1: Virtual environment with SMP

Figure 9-1: File hierarchy and object store

Figure 9-2: SAN vs. NAS

Figure 9-3: How a SAN works

Figure 9-4: LUN network mapping

Figure 9-5: HDFS architecture

Figure 9-6: Data replication and replica management

Figure 10-1: Cloud computing types

Figure 10-2: Cloud architecture

Figure 10-3: Multitenancy in cloud storage

Figure 10-4: Network bottlenecks identified and removed

Figure 10-5: Network bottlenecks identified and removed

Figure 10-6: Big data testing—focus areas

Figure 10-7: Windows Azure Quick Create

Figure 10-8: Uploading cloud service package and configuration

Figure 10-9: Notification area showing the status of the cloud service deployment

Figure 10-10: Cloud service dashboard showing Quick Glance and other options

Figure 10-11: Hello World cloud service–generated web page

Figure 10-12: Flume architecture

Figure 10-13: Overview of multihop system

Figure 10-14: Agent 1 incoming data from RSS feed

Figure 10-15: Agent 1 outgoing data to collector

Figure 10-16: Collector incoming data from agent nodes

Figure 10-17: Collector outgoing data to HDFS

Figure 10-18: HDFS node 1 incoming data

Figure 10-19: HDFS node 1 outgoing data

Figure 11-1: A simple representation of a DDoS attack

Figure 11-2: Illustration of a secure IP tunnel in a virtual private network

Figure 11-3: A virtual firewall setup

Figure 11-4: Single-firewall layout vs. dual-firewall layout

Figure 11-5: Illustration of a public key infrastructure

Figure 12-1: Traditional model vs. cloud model

Figure 12-2: Service models and cloud roles

Figure 12-3: Microsoft Lync sign-in window

Figure 12-4: Adobe Acrobat Connect window

Figure 12-5: Skype sign-in window

Figure 13-1: Different organizational cultures

Figure 13-2: Adaption models

Figure 13-3: The change regime

Figure 13-4: Four phases of persuasion

Guide

Cover

Title Page

Front Matter

Dedication

Introduction

Chapter 1: Understanding Cloud Characteristics

Start Reading

Chapter 2: To Grasp the Cloud—Fundamental Concepts

Chapter 3: Within the Cloud: Technical Concepts of Cloud Computing

Chapter 4: Cloud Management

Chapter 5: Diagnosis and Performance Monitoring

Chapter 6: Cloud Delivery and Hosting Models

Chapter 7: Practical Cloud Knowledge: Install, Configure, and Manage

Chapter 8: Hardware Management

Chapter 9: Storage Provisioning and Networking

Chapter 10: Testing and Deployment: Quality Is King

Chapter 11: Cloud Computing Standards and Security

Chapter 12: The Cloud Makes It Rain Money: The Business in Cloud Computing

Chapter 13: Planning for Cloud Integration: Pitfalls and Advantages

Appendix: The CompTIA Cloud+ Certification Exam

End-User License Agreement

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Deploying and Managing a Cloud Infrastructure

Real World Skills for the CompTIA Cloud+™ Certification and Beyond

Zafar Gilani

Abdul Salam

Salman UI Haq

Copyright

Copyright © 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN: 978-1-118-87510-0

ISBN: 978-1-118-87529-2 (ebk.)

ISBN: 978-1-118-87558-2 (ebk.)

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone]. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: The publisher and the author make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for every situation. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If professional assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. The fact that an organization or Web site is referred to in this work as a citation and/or a potential source of further information does not mean that the author or the publisher endorses the information the organization or Web site may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be aware that Internet Web sites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read.

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TRADEMARKS: Wiley, the Wiley logo, and the Sybex logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates, in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. Cloud+ is a trademark of CompTIA Properties LLC. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Credits

Acquisitions Editor: Kenyon Brown

Development Editor: Tom Cirtin

Technical Editor: Kunal Mittal

Production Editor: Christine O’Connor

Copy Editor: Judy Flynn

Editorial Manager: Pete Gaughan

Production Manager: Kathleen Wisor

Associate Publisher: Jim Minatel

Media Supervising Producer: Rich Graves

Book Designers: Judy Fung and Bill Gibson

Compositor: Craig Woods, Happenstance Type-O-Rama

Proofreader: Kim Wimpsett

Indexer: Nancy Guenther

Project Coordinator, Cover: Patrick Redmond

Cover Image: Wiley

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my family and my alma maters: NUST, UPC, and KTH.

—Zafar Gilani

This book is dedicated to my father and mother, for their kindness and devotion and for their endless support when I was busy writing this book. Without their prayers and support, it would not have been possible for me to complete this book.

—Abdul Salam

I dedicate this book to my father. May he live a long and happy life.

—Salman Ul Haq

Acknowledgments

I thank Thomas Cirtin, Kenyon Brown, Christine O’Connor and the rest of Wiley’s editorial team for their important comments and suggestions.

—Zafar Gilani

I would like to express my gratitude to Ms. Asifa Akram, for her support, patience, and encouragement throughout the project. It is not often that one finds an advisor and friend who always finds the time to listen to the little problems and roadblocks that unavoidably crop up in the course of performing research. Her technical advice was essential to the completion of this book and has taught me innumerable lessons and insights on the writing of this technical ebook.

—Abdul Salam

I would like to thank my family for giving me the time and space required to complete chapters of this book. The awesome team at Wiley has perfectly managed the execution of this book, especially Thomas Cirtin for reviewing the manuscripts and Jeff Kellum, who initially started with the project but is no longer with Wiley. Finally, I would like to thank Zafar for keeping everyone engaged.

—Salman Ul Haq

About the Authors

Zafar Gilani is a full-time researcher and a PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory. Prior to starting his doctoral degree program in 2014, he successfully completed his master of science degree in the field of distributed computing. During that time, he was an Erasmus Mundus scholar at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) and Kungliga Tekniska högskolan (KTH) from 2011 to 2013. For his master’s thesis research, he worked on spatio-temporal characterization of mobile web content at Telefonica Research, Barcelona. One of the technological use cases of his research became the basis for developing mobile web content pre-staging for cellular networks.

Prior to starting master’s studies, he worked at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory as a visiting scientist from 2009 to 2011. At SLAC he was involved in the research and development of Internet performance monitoring techniques and applications for geo-location of IP hosts. He graduated from NUST School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science with a bachelor of science in computer science in 2009. He worked on providing InfiniBand support to MPJ Express (a Java-based MPI-like library) as his bachelor of science thesis research work. He can be reached on LinkedIn and at [email protected].

Abdul Salam is a senior consultant with Energy Services. He has more than seven years of broad experience in cloud computing, including virtualization and network infrastructure. Abdul’s previous experience includes engineering positions at multinational firms. Abdul has authored numerous blogs, technical books and papers, and tutorials as well as web content on IT. He earned a bachelor degree in information technology followed by a master of business administration in information technology and technical certifications from Cisco and Juniper Networks. You can contact him at LinkedIn.

Salman Ul Haq is a techpreneur and chief hacker at TunaCode. His interest in cloud computing grew when Amazon launched Amazon Web Services (AWS), which ushered in the modern cloud. His core expertise is in building computer vision systems and APIs for the cloud. He is co-inventor of CUVI and gKrypt SDKs. His other interests include big data, especially when combined with advanced AI in the cloud, and data security in the cloud. He can be reached at [email protected].

Introduction

Cloud computing is reality now, defining how IT is handled not only in large, medium, and small enterprises but also in—consumer—facing businesses. The cloud itself is a familiar cliché, but when you attach computing, it brings with it a slew of services, vendors, and such, and the horizon includes virtual server providers, hosting providers, virtual storage and networking providers, hypervisor vendors, and private/public cloud providers.

The enterprise IT landscape has always been well-defined and segmented. Cloud computing initially started with replacing the traditional IT model; any business that had anything to do with computers and software (and that was almost 100 percent of businesses around the world) would need to acquire physical servers (often racks of them, depending on the size of the business) and storage and networking components. The business then had to construct a specially designed data center to deploy the components then configure, support, and manage the data center. Specialized IT skills were needed for executing a data center and managing it. Only large-scale enterprises and well-funded businesses could afford to undertake this. Even for large enterprises that had their own massive data centers for distributing enterprise applications to the workers and storing business data, operating the data center itself was a distraction that added to costs.

Cloud computing is a natural transition from this legacy model of enterprise IT to a world where computing can be sold and purchased just like any other commodity, where consumers would pay only for what they use, without steep up-front bills. You can now “order” 100 virtual servers and build enough computing capacity to run an application consumed by 100 million users over the Internet without owning a single server or writing a huge check to cover up-front costs. The cloud has not only ushered in a new age for enterprise IT, it has become the enabler technology for the Internet startups of today. It would be safe to say that a lot of very well-known Internet businesses wouldn’t be possible if there were no cloud.

Who Should Read This Book

The global cloud market is expected to reach $270 billion by 2020. With most government and corporate IT moving into the cloud, this is the perfect time to equip yourself with the right skills to thrive in cloud computing.

Even though cloud computing has significantly lowered the barrier for businesses to use IT resources on demand, this does not mean that you can create your company’s virtual data center in the cloud with just a few clicks. Building the right cloud infrastructure and efficiently managing and supporting it requires specialized skills. In addition to cloud practitioners, this book is for IT students who want to take a dive into understanding the concepts behind some of the key technologies that power modern cloud solutions and are essential for deploying, configuring, and managing private, public, and hybrid cloud environments.

Additionally, the topics covered in this book have been selected to address the CompTIA Cloud+ certification CV0-001, as indicated in the title of the book.

If you’re preparing for the CompTIA Cloud+ certification CV0-001, this book is ideal for you. You can find more information about the CompTIA Cloud+ certification here:

http://certification.comptia.org/getCertified/certifications/cloudplus.aspx

How This Book is Organized

The topics in this book were chosen to cover a wide range of cloud technologies, deployment scenarios, and configuration issues as well as fundamental concepts that define modern cloud computing. Every chapter begins with an introduction and a list of the topics covered within it. To enhance your learning experience, we’ve included hands-on exercises and real-world scenarios. The book also includes a practice exam that covers the topics presented in each chapter, which will help you prepare well for the certification exam.

Chapter 1, “Understanding Cloud Characteristics,”

starts off with a detailed overview of the key terms related to cloud computing, including discussions of elasticity, metering/billing with the pay-as-you-grow model, network access, multitenancy, and a hybrid cloud scenario with cloud bursting, rapid deployment, and automation. The chapter also covers key concepts in object-based storage systems, including object IDs, metadata, access policies, and enabling access through REST APIs.

Chapter 2, “To Grasp the Cloud—Fundamental Concepts,”

takes a dive into the key piece of technology that makes it possible to enable cloud computing—virtualization. This chapter covers Type 1 and Type 2 hypervisors and their differences plus popular open-source and proprietary hypervisors that are available today with an overview of their key features. It also covers consumer versus enterprise use cases and workstation versus infrastructure virtualization. We discuss the key benefits of virtualization, like shared resources, elasticity, and complete resource pooling, including compute, storage, and network. The chapter ends with a discussion of the fundamentals of cloud computing in the context of virtualization technology.

Chapter 3, “Within the Cloud: Technical Concepts of Cloud Computing,”

takes a dive into the technical aspects of scalable computing, which include a comparison of traditional and cloud infrastructures, selecting the right infrastructure for building your own cloud, scaling and optimizing a data center, and economies of scale. At the end of the chapter, there’s a section on cloud infrastructure, which covers open-source and proprietary solutions and includes a discussion on choosing between creating in-house tools or selecting third-party solutions and what drives the build versus buy decisions when it comes to cloud infrastructure.

Chapter 4, “Cloud Management,”

includes a plethora of scenarios, use cases, and issues associated with managing deployment and ongoing support for your cloud implementation. Broadly, this includes managing your own cloud, managing workloads in the cloud, and managing business data assets that live in the cloud, including data migration and secure storage and access of the data. The cloud is device agnostic, so controlling and managing access to the cloud by a plethora of devices—a concept known as BYOD—is also discussed.

Chapter 5, “Diagnosis and Performance Monitoring,”

discusses the aspects of a cloud implementation that you’ll want to gauge and monitor. This includes performance metrics across compute (e.g., IOPS and load balancing), network (e.g., latency and bandwidth), and storage (e.g., file system performance and caching) resources. We also discuss best practices to achieve optimal performance with the hypervisor and common failure scenarios.

Chapter 6, “Cloud Delivery and Hosting Models,”

dives into the three main types of clouds in terms of delivery and access: public, private, and hybrid. On-premise and off-premise hosting options are discussed for all three types. At the end of the chapter is a discussion of the security and functionality aspects of these models.

Chapter 7, “Practical Cloud Knowledge: Install, Configure, and Manage,”

provides hands-on practical knowledge of the intricacies of setting up and managing your own cloud infrastructure. The chapter includes key discussions on creating a complete virtualized data center and configuring virtual compute, storage, and networking components. We’ll discuss migrating existing data and compute workloads to a newly built cloud and provide an overview of the key virtual components of the cloud.

Chapter 8, “Hardware Management,”

walks through the physical hardware components that make up a cloud. Pros and cons of hardware design choices are discussed, including compute (e.g., number of cores and parallelism), storage (e.g., magnetic/spinning disk versus SSD), and networking (e.g., NIC quantities, types, and speed). Toward the end of the chapter, there’s an in-depth discussion of cloud storage options.

Chapter 9, “Storage Provisioning and Networking,”

dives deep into creating virtualized storage, managing storage security and access, and provisioning models. We’ll show you how to configure networking for the cloud, including how to create and configure multiple virtual networks within the same cloud, how to configure remote access to the cloud over the network, and how to optimize network performance. The chapter also includes some common troubleshooting scenarios as well as a discussion of selecting the right networking protocols and networking monitoring and alert mechanisms.

Chapter 10, “Testing and Deployment: Quality Is King,”

focuses on how QoS defines the success of the cloud. This chapter walks through extensive testing criteria for compute, storage, networking, and security/penetration. Test automation is also discussed. Deployment-related aspects like HA, multipathing, and load balancing are discussed toward the end of the chapter.

Chapter 11, “Cloud Computing Standards and Security,”

discusses the importance of standards for cloud implementation and management. The bigger portion of the chapter addresses the important topic of security in the cloud, including a discussion of the technical tools used to implement foolproof security for a cloud infrastructure. Encryption technologies are discussed along with implementation strategies for encryption in all states—communication, usage, and storage.

Chapter 12, “The Cloud Makes It Rain Money: The Business in Cloud Computing,”

discusses the various business models for distributing cloud services, including IaaS, SaaS, DaaS, and PaaS. Enterprise applications and collaboration and telepresence tools are discussed from a business perspective. Disaster recovery, an important responsibility of every cloud service provider, is discussed at length, including redundancy, geographical diversity, and mission-critical application requirements. More recent trends within cloud computing, like the freelance movement and BYOD, are discussed toward the end of the chapter.

Chapter 13, “Planning for Cloud Integration: Pitfalls and Advantages,”

takes a broader look at the technical aspects to consider while making the transition to the cloud. This includes making the right choice for the type of cloud to adopt and modifying the organizational structure to adapt to the new IT trends. Common pitfalls encountered along the road to cloud adoption are also discussed.

If you think you’ve found a technical error in this book, please visit http://sybex.custhelp.com. Customer feedback is critical to our efforts at Sybex.

Interactive Online Learning Environment and Test Bank

This book provides access to relevant study tools and a test bank in an interactive online learning environment, making it an ideal exam prep guide for this challenging, but rewarding certification. Items available among the study tools and test bank include the following:

Practice Exam

This book comes with a 76-question practice exam to help you test your knowledge and review important information.

Electronic Flash Clards

This book also includes 113 questions in a flash card format (a question followed by a single correct answer). You can use these questions to review your knowledge and understanding of concepts.

Glossary

The key terms from this book, and their definitions, are available as a fully searchable PDF you can save to your device and print out.

You can access the online learning environment and test bank at http://sybextestbanks.wiley.com.

Chapter 1Understanding Cloud Characteristics

Topics Covered in This chapter Include:

Basic terms and characteristics

Elasticity

On-demand/self-service

Pay-as-you-grow

Chargeback

Ubiquitous access

Metering and resource pooling

Multitenancy

Cloud bursting

Rapid deployment

Automation

Object storage concepts

ObjectID

Metadata

Extended metadata

Data/blob

Policies

Replication

Access control

Thomas J. Watson, the founder of IBM, remarked in the early 1940s, “I think there is a world market for about five computers.”

Even though that comment was referring to a new line of “scientific” computers that IBM built and wanted to sell throughout the United States, in the context of the cloud, the idea behind it still applies. If you think about it, most of the world’s critical business infrastructure relies on a handful of massive—really massive—data centers spread across the world. Cloud computing has come a long way, from early mainframes to today’s massive server farms powering all kinds of applications.

This chapter starts off with overview of some of the key concepts in cloud computing. Broadly, the standard features of a cloud are categorized into compute, storage, and networking. Toward the end of the chapter, there’s a dedicated section on elastic, object-based storage and how it has enabled enterprises to store and process big data on the cloud.

Basic Terms and Characteristics

Before we begin, it’s important to understand the basic terms that will be used throughout the book and are fundamental to cloud computing. The following sections will touch upon these terms to give a feel for what’s to follow in later chapters.

Elasticity

Natural clouds are indeed elastic, expanding and contracting based on the force of the winds carrying them. The cloud is similarly elastic, expanding and shrinking based on resource usage and cloud tenant resource demands. The physical resources (computing, storage, networking, etc.) deployed within the data center or across data centers and bundled as a single cloud usually do not change that fast. This elastic nature, therefore, is something that is built into the cloud at the software stack level, not the hardware.