Achieving operational efficiency with cloud based services

Cloud Computing is the evolution of a variety of technologies that have come together to alter an organization's approach to building IT infrastructure. It borrows from several computing techniques — grid computing, cluster computing, software-as-a-service, utility computing, autonomic computing and many more. It provides a whole new deployment model for enterprise web-applications. The cloud proposes significant cost cuts when compared to using an internal IT infrastructure. The "pay for what you use" model of cloud computing is significantly cheaper for a company than the "pay for everything up front" model of internal IT. Hardware Virtualization is the enabling technology behind many of the cloud infrastructure vendor offerings. Through virtualization, a physical server can be partitioned into any number of virtual servers running their own operating systems, in their allocated memory, CPU and disk footprints. From the perspective of the user or application on the virtual server, no indication exists to suggest that the server is not a real, physical server. In this paper, we make an attempt to enhance dynamic cloud based services using efficient load balancing techniques. We describe various steps involved in developing and utilizing cloud based infrastructure in such a way that cloud based services can be offered to users in an efficient manner. In the design of load balancing algorithms for an application offering cloud based services, the various details described in this paper offer useful insight, while the actual implementation may be based on the exact requirements at hand.