Cloud computing with regard to technological aspects and changes in infrastructure

This thesis discusses the new way of delivering IT services over the Internet widely known as cloud computing. In its opening part, cloud computing is put into a historical context of the evolution of enterprise computing, and the dominant issues the IT department faces today are mentioned. Further, the paper deals with several components that make up the architecture of cloud computing and reviews the benefits and drawbacks an enterprise can have while it adopts this new model. One of the primary aims of this thesis is to identify the impact of the technology trends on cloud computing. The thesis brings together four major computing trends, namely virtualization, multi-tenant architecture, service-oriented architecture and grid computing. Another aim is to focus on two trends related to IT infrastructure that will lead to fundamental changes in IT industry. The first of them is the emergence of extremely large-scale data centers at low cost locations, which can serve tremendous amount of customers and achieve considerable economies of scale. The second trend this paper points out is the shift from multi-purpose all-in-one computers into a wide range of mobile devices dedicated to a specific user's needs. The last aim of this thesis is to clarify the economic impact of cloud computing in terms of costs and changes in business models. The thesis concludes by evaluating the current adoption and predicting the future trend of cloud computing.