Cloud computing architecture

Abstract

The term cloud is now widely accepted as a remote data centre that houses a massive network of computers and serves as a central repository of data and that provides all kinds of web services. However, to most people, technical and non-technical people alike, the cloud is merely a black box. In this paper, we provide an overview of how the computers in the cloud are organised to support the requirements of performance, scalability, reliability and availability, while keeping down the cost of physical hardware.