Author: Sandra Prior
Two graphics chips. One card. And a whole lotta rendering fun: That’s the basic philosophy behind the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2, AMD’s latest dual-CPU 3D card. Actually, that’s the philosophy AMD has adopted for high-end graphics in general. No longer intending to duke it out with NVIDIA at the very top of the market, instead of producing one monstrous GPU, AMD’s plan is to slap NVIDIA silly with two slightly more compact GPUs crammed onto a single card.
But there’s a problem. In the past, two chips on one board has been a recipe for double trouble, not double your fun. Multi-GPU technology in multi-card form has always been dubious in terms of stability and reliability; a somewhat worrisome fact for a single card that relies on multi-GPU performance scaling for its very existence.
NVIDIA kicked off the modern day version of the twin-chip trend with GeForce 7950 GX2. That board worked fairly well at first. But then NVIDIA launched a whole new graphics architecture and, quite frankly, its driver team stopped caring about the 7950 GX2.
And drivers are absolutely crucial when it comes to any form of multi-GPU technology. Both NVIDIA’s SLI platform and ATI’s competing CrossFire technology use driver profiles to detect games and apply correct multi-GPU scaling methods.
If there’s no driver profile for a given game or if the game is not detected correctly, you’re in trouble. At best, you’ll get single-GPU performance. At worst, the game won’t run at all.
The task for the new Radeon HD 4870 X2 is therefore clear. To be taken seriously it must expunge all hint of multi-GPU unreliability and deliver the sort of stability and ease of use that users expect from a single-chip graphics card.
On paper, there are reasons to be optimistic. For starters, AMD has upgraded its inter-GPU PCI Express bridge chip from 1.0 to 2.0 spec and added a 5GB bi-directional sideport to each GPU. Consequently, overall inter-GPU bandwidth has been boosted from 6.8Gbps to 2l.8Gbps.
Likewise, AMD has made a really smart move in stuffing fully 2GB of graphics memory onto this card. At really high resolutions, 512MB per GPU may not be enough to store all the game data. When that happens, a graphics card is forced to use the PCI Express bus to fetch data. And that means hideously slow frame rates. But with 1GB per GPU, the 4870 should suffer from no such shortcoming.
Fully Automagic
The 4870 X2 is also extremely user-friendly by multi-GPU standards. It shows up as single device for driver installation purposes and there’s no need for users to even think about enabling multi-GPU scaling it all happens automatically. Unlike most other multi-GPU boards, the 4870 X2 is also capable of full multi-display support.
But, what the 4870 X2 conspicuously does not do is to move the game forward in a technological sense. One day, a company will produce a multi-chip solution that behaves likes a single rendering device, thereby sidestepping current multi-GPU problems. But that day has not arrived. In essence, the 4870 X2 remains CrossFire on a card and is every bit as dependent on driver support as any other multi-GPU technology currently available.
The CPUs are essentially lifted from the single-chip 4870 board. It’s the same 55nm GPU die running at an identical 750MHz. The 4870 X2 therefore packs 1,600 stream processor and a theoretical maximum compute performance of 2.4TFLOPs. One helluva lot, in other words.
Likewise, the 3.6Mbps data rate of the GDDR5 graphics memory is identical to the single-chip 4870. And like every other 4800 series card, the 4870 X2 offers DirectX 10.1 support. For what it’s worth, NVIDIA’s competing GPUs remain 10.0 bound.
Broken down
When the 4870 X2 performs, it works extremely well. Given that the single 4870 is not all that far behind NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 280, it comes as no surprise to find the 4870 X2 has its measure when multi-GPU scaling is in full flow.
The 4870’s performance in GRID also shows the benefits of all that video memory. The pair of 4870s in CrossFire mode really fall off a cliff at 2,560 x 1,600. No such problem for the 4870 X2 and its twin 1GB memory buffers. If memory availability is not an issue, the X2 scales largely identically to the 4870s in CrossFire.
That’s the good news. Now brace yourself for the bad. The X2 fails to deliver in the one game where you really want maximum performance, Crysis - as do the 4870s in CrossFire mode. Both setups simply crash approximately five seconds after level loading.
Now, we suspect the X2 works as intended in 95 per cent of system configurations. But not, unfortunately, ours. Given more time and correspondence with AMD, we are sure that a solution will present itself.
We really want to like the new X2. In many ways, especially the memory buffers and multi-monitor support, the HD 4870 is a dual-GPU done right. And when it does work properly, it gets immensely fast results. But the harsh truth is that as long as multi-GPU technology relies on driver profiles, it will be a flaky, hit-and-miss affair. And one that we can’t in all conscience recommend that you buy.
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Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Ati Radeon Hd 4870 X2
Author: Sandra Prior
There are two schools of thought as to why you can, or would even want to overclock most CPUs and GPUs. One of them takes the peace, love and understanding route, namely that the manufacturing process is never 100 per cent reliable, so not every chip that rolls off the same production line is born equal. Those with the most lustrous coats and shiniest eyes (bred on Pedigree, presumably) are ready to be high-end components, but those with a bit of a squint and a runny nose may have a funny turn if they exert themselves too much.
Hence, some chips are slapped with a lower official clockspeed and sold for less groats than their beefier brethren. The potential for their intended glory remains, however. Overclocking techniques can unlock at least some of that potential, albeit at the risk of frying the chip completely.
The tinfoil hat/Angry Internet Men theory is based on the same concept but chucks in a bit of paranoia. In this scenario, every same-series processor is born equal, but The Man artificially neuters most of them and slaps different badges on what are fundamentally the same chips. Overclocking, then, is simply a way of taking back what’s rightfully yours.
The truth likely lies somewhere between the two. Mass production certainly makes more financial sense than dozens of separate lines, and it’s true that a low-end CPU or GPU can be made to punch far above its weight, but their stability isn’t as guaranteed as a chip that’s officially able to run at a higher speed. No manufacturer wants to deal with a steady trickle of returned parts, after all. But it does mean home overclocking is almost always productive - and seemingly more so with every new hardware generation.
It’s also increasingly easy. The earliest overclocking on the 4 to 10MHz 8088-based CPUs of 1983, involved desoldering a clock crystal from the motherboard and replacing it with a third-party one, with only partially successful results. Ouch. Still, the precedent was set: a dedicated guy-at-home could exceed his chip’s official spec. IBM, then very much the top dog of PC land, wasn’t entirely happy about this, so follow-up hardware included hard-wired overclock blocks.
More soldering this time of a BIOS chip, managed to get around this. By 1986 IBM’s stranglehold had been broken, resulting in a raft of ‘clone’ systems - and a wealth of choice. Intel’s 286 and 386 processors became the de facto standard chips, and bus speed and voltage controls began to shift from physical switches and jumpers to BIOS options and settings.
It was the 486 that really changed everything however. It’s telling that this was the chip most prevalent during the era that birthed the first-person shooter as we know it: 1993’s Doom very much popularized performance PCs for gaming driving system upgrades in the same way a Half-Life 2 or Crysis does these days. At the same time, the 486 introduced two concepts absolutely crucial to overclocking both then and now. Firstly, it popularized split product lines; no longer was it a matter of buying simply a processor, but rather which processor. The 486SX and DX offered some serious performance differential, and notably the SXs were hobbled/failed DXs, giving rise to the ongoing practice of assigning different speeds and names to what were the same chip.
For a while too, the 25MHz SXes could be overclocked to 33MHz by adjusting a jumper on the motherboard; something less salubrious retailers took full advantage of. Secondly, it introduced the multiplier: performing more clocks per every one mustered by the system’s front side bus. The 486’s 2x multiplier thus effectively doubled the bus frequency. This was something overclockers would make the best of for successive processor generations - bumping up the multiplier was the simplest and often most effective way of increasing CPU speed. Nowadays (since the Pentium II, in fact), the multiplier is locked to prevent this, save for high-end chips, such as Intel’s Extreme Edition series. For a while, there were complicated ways of defeating the multiplier lock: soldering on a PCB for earlier chips, third-party add-ons and the infamous practice of drawing a line onto certain AMD CPUs with a pencil. No CPU manufacturer’s likely to make that mistake again.
Around this time, RAM overclocking became more common place, as memory speeds were ratified, and with that came more tweaking of the front-side bus to compensate for the locked multipliers. Overclocking shifted further towards the BIOS and away from jumpers, which in turn led to overclocking software.
The first was 1998’s SoftFSB, which enabled bus-tweaking from within Windows for the first time. With the Pentium III era came aftermarket coolers, as processors now chucked out so much heat that a standard cooling block and fan wasn’t enough to cope with an overclocked chip. And so it continued, overclocking largely becoming easier and more common place with each processor generation. This leads us to the Core 2 chips of today, and Intel’s current terrifyingly unassailable dominance of the CPU market. Generally drawing as little as half the power of the Pentium 4s that preceded them, most of the range offers a vast amount of overclocking headroom, to the point that a low-end Core 2 Duo can almost go toe-to-toe with the top of the line.
So how’s it done? Key to processor overclocking is the front side bus (FSB). In the very simplest terms, this is the connection between the CPU and the rest of the PC, and its speed defines the processor’s speed to a significant extent. Intel CPUs final speed is the FSB times the multiplier - so if you’ve got an FSB of 266MHz and a multiplier of 9, your chip will run at approximately 2.4GHz. While the multiplier is usually locked - though some chips let you at least lower it, to conserve power and reduce heat - the FSB isn’t. Bump up the FSB and you bump up the chip. In our example taking the bus to 290MHz gives us a 2.6GHz processor. This is no random example, incidentally, it’s what we run the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 in one of our office test systems at, giving it a healthy 200MHz boost that makes a noticeable difference in CPU-intesive games and hi-def video re-encodes.
What stops us from going higher? Not a lot in the case of this particular chip. We’re playing it safe for desktop work, cos we’re in a particularly sweaty office. When we’re playing around with high-end tasks, we can have it running stably at over 33GHz (with an FSB of 370 or so) on a decentish, third-party air cooler. That’s more or less trading blows with the best Intel has to offer on a $200 chip. But while going to 280MHz on the FSB took a BIOS tweak, a reboot and Microsoft BOB’s your uncle, going much higher does involve more fuss.
First up, when our Q6600 is at 33GHz, it’s also running at nearly 70°C when under maximum load (and around 50°C when idling). It’s perfectly stable, but it could damage it in the long run, and on top of that the fan is making enough noise to wake the deaf pensioner in the next street over. Watercooling, a fancier air-cooler or even just a spot of dust-cleaning will bring the heat down, but there can come a point where that stuff becomes more expensive and hassle than simply buying a better processor.
Hurdle the second is the motherboard. Pushing up the FSB doesn’t
affect only the CPU, but also the motherboard and, in many cases, the RAM
and PCI-e slot to boot. In our case, we’re using a motherboard that supports a monstrously high FSB. When shopping for a motherboard, its max FSB will usually be referred to as four times the actual speed, due to the way the processor actually fetches data. So when we’ve got the FSB set to 266MHz, in effect that’s 1,066MHz. When it’s up to 372MHz, we need a motherboard that’s happy at nearly 1,500MHz. That simply isn’t a given, especially on cheaper boards, so shop carefully. As well as that, if you’ve got a board with a stingy BIOS, you may not be able to alter RAM and PCI timings independently of the FSB, which can lead to those falling over. Ours does, and for our mighty near-Gigahertz Q6600 overclock, we have to lower the RAM’s clock speed a little to compensate for the strain put on it by the raised FSB - we have it sitting pretty at 893MHz. It could comfortably go higher, but the real-world benefits (as opposed to the willy-waving benefits, which are a different matter entirely) would be so miniscule that it’s simply not worth placing the extra pressure on the RAM.
Similarly, while faster and, most likely, more expensive RAM will cope better at their stock speeds with a massive FSB, the pay-off is often so minor that value RAM, running at a lower clock-speed may well be enough to make your overclocking masterplan hugely successful. Even the best memory will net you something in the region of just a five per cent performance boost - worth having if every little helps, but it’s the FSB that makes the big difference. And for that, the motherboard is critical.
Thirdly, there’s the matter of voltage. The faster your chip runs, the more power it needs to feed it. As the FSB goes up, you’ll find your motherboard’s North Bridge and your RAM also get hungrier.
Unfortunately, your hardware will automatically report its revised power requirements, so trial and miserable error are required to find the sweet spot. Volt tweaking is a fiddly and danger-fraught business.
Some overclocking-friendly motherboards can automatically adjust voltages for you, but are understandably conservative about it, so for the really big overclocks you’ll need to set them yourself. This needs to be done by the tiniest increments possible, establishing reboot-by-reboot how many volts your embiggened CPU needs; as low as possible, essentially, as firing too many into it can fry it. Establish in advance what your chip’s out-of-the-box volts are and, through a mix of common sense and googling, decide on a number you’re not going to risk going higher than. We pushed our Q6600 from 13 to 1.4V, which is a fairly big increase as volt modding goes. It’s not just a matter of the so-called vCore either - as you go for the big overclocks, you’ll find you’re having to play with the arcane likes of CPU PLL and FSB termination voltage. Again, so long as you raise stuff in tiny increments the risk of killing your chip, RAM or motherboard is fairly minimal.
It’s a different matter with AMD processors, which for a while now have had an onboard memory controller, which allows the chip to communicate more directly with the RAM, which in turn means there isn’t an FSB as such. Instead, you’re overclocking something known as the HyperTransport bus, which is achieved in more or less the same way, but can require lowering the NT’s own multiplier to retain stability when you bump the speed. If you’ve gone for one of the recent AMD Phenom Black Editions, you’ll find it comes with the multiplier unlocked, which makes overclocking an easier affair.
By contrast, overclocking a graphics card is dead simple. As a more self-contained piece of hardware, there’s none of this confusing multiplier or FSB business; just overclocking the card itself, finding the right speeds for both the GPU and the card’s onboard memory. Free software - some of it official NVIDIA/ATI driver plug-ins - will do the trick from within Windows, and built-in safety cut-offs and stability tests make it incredibly hard to damage the card, though of course you are going beyond the warranty. It’s also grown a little more complicated of late in that you may need to overclock the shader clock as well as the GPU and RAM for the best boosts. In the case of NVIDIA cards, it used to be that this was twinned to the GPU speed, meaning a raise in one had a synchronous effect on the other, but for a little while now they’ve been able to be altered independently. So if you hit the speed ceiling on the GPU, it may yet be possible to eke more performance out of the card by pushing the shader clock a little further.
While the present situation is that you can overclock everything and be pretty confident it’ll work, the future of the form is harder to call. One thing seems sure: it’s not a dirty little nerdy secret anymore, but an increasingly common practice, most especially with Core 2 chips. There’s a vast aftermarket cooler industry to support it, and even cheap motherboards can handle a bit of a free boost. If anything overclocking will become easier, with more and better applications to achieve it within Windows, rather than from the BIOS, and possibly more in the way of automatic volt-modding. But much depends on the future of desktop processing. There’s a big war brewing between Intel and NVIDIA as to whether the CPU or the GPU will be the major element in the PC of the near-future.
Intel are pushing ray-tracing using a multi-core CPU to render game graphics, while NVIDIA’s CUDA enables its recent GeForce cards to perform parallel processing, such as video encoding and in-game physics, far faster than a CPU could manage. If either of these bed in, overclocking will need to take them into account. At the same time, the slow move to ever-more cores potentially reduces the need for conventional overclocking, as raw clock speed continues to be a lesser concern to multi-threading and, in the case of 3D cards, the number of stream processors and texture units. That’s hardly going to stop anyone from trying it, of course. Even when its effects are minimal, overclocking’s always going to be a sure-fire way of making a system feel like its yours rather than simply a collection of mass-produced parts.
Modding the case is one thing, but what makes a PC is its performance. When you’ve painstakingly tweaked that performance into something that suits your own purposes, and it’s become something that feels like you’ve gone far beyond what you paid for it, the system will feel more unique than all the green neon tubing in the world could ever hope to achieve.
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Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Overclock Your Computer
Author: Daniel Stouffer
The term wireless communications technology acts as a bracket for a range of different types of communication. To be more specific, the technology comprises of a method of communication where electromagnetic waves or radio frequencies carry a signal through a part or the entire portion of a particular pathway.
A variety of different types of wireless communication exist:
1. Land mobile radio and specialized mobile radio, as used within some industrial situations and by public safety officers.
2. Citizens band radio, a two way system established for consumer use.
3. Amateur radio enthusiast bands, also known as ham radio.
4. An increasingly large number of car and trucks use a global positioning system (GPS), a technology that has also been favored by ships captains and aircraft pilots for many years now.
5. Within a home or office environment, numerous cordless peripherals exist. For example, your computer mouse or your printer, linked by wireless means to the main computer.
6. To the benefit of the active mom, the cordless telephone is an excellent example of a limited range wireless gadget.
7. Probably the best-known example of wireless communications technology in action is the cellular telephone which, like a pager, provides active connectivity to billions of people worldwide as an integral part of their active personnel or business life.
There are three different types of wireless communications technology which includes radio, microwave or infrared frequency. To convert these forms of communication, we find point to point, broadcasting or cellular networks.
The last 20 or 30 years have seen a dramatic advancement in the field of wireless communications technology, following on the heels of amazing scientific innovations. Who could imagine that we would be seeing such incredible flexibility in our personal and professional lives?
As of recent times, wireless communications technology is the best example of the cell phone. Telephone sets are connected with nearby service points through radio waves. The service site receives and transmits signal, whilst voice and data are exchanged.
Numerous cell sites or transmitting towers are required and these vary in size and distribution according to the density of population; for example, in rural areas they are normally few and far between. The sites are connected to exchanges and on to the bigger network.
Cell sites and handsets can constantly change frequencies according to sophisticated equipment and procedures. Multiple usage and low interference rates are achieved through the use of low-power transmitters.
The current high level of wireless communications technology allows for the existence of a number of different digital cellular options. With stiff competition and constant innovation, we can be assured that consumers will be able to continuously enjoy the technology of tomorrow, in the present.
There can be little doubt that the “wired” world will eventually be replaced almost completely by the freedom of wireless. We will be completely connected wherever we are and whatever we are doing.
Longing for a way to build residual income from a small business? How about starting your own mobile phone business that offers unlimited everything calling plans, i.e. no long term contracts, no international roaming, no minutes or data limits, and so much more. Your customers will scramble for a piece of this mobile revolution. Create residual income today with http://www.Mobi-Business.com
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - How you can gain from Wireless Communications Technology
Author: Derek Rogers
If you need private networks or virtual private networks to connect multiple sites, many companies will allow you to do this. You can give people who work at home or at other remote offices a private network and you can even give this to customers, suppliers and partners where you need to.
What do you need? Do you need Ethernet connectivity, leased lines, SDSL, or ADSL?
These solutions exist today and you can even get the bandwidth and security you need, too. Today’s solutions are top speed, very reliable and perhaps most importantly, secure. With a TLS VPN-based service, if you need to, you can route traffic economically and securely instead of having to build a dedicated private network.
You also will usually get firewall access and you can change bandwidth options as you go so as to change your network needs instead of having to choose the most expensive option first. You have a bespoke capability and multiple service options, multiple access options and usually, 24 hour, seven days a week monitoring and help desk, all for an affordable price.
Virtual private networks explained
With the expansion from local to global logistics for a lot of businesses, companies have suddenly had to think about how to keep sometimes disparate and very remote locations connected. In addition, those connections have to be very fast and secure. Leased lines over a wide area network (WAN) are one option, of course, but this can get expensive and often goes up in cost the further apart locations are.
Enter virtual private networks. Virtual private networks are private networks that use a public network (usually the Internet) to connect its remote users together so that they can communicate in real-time. Instead of using something like a leased line, a “virtual” connection is sent through the Internet from the company’s private network and basically connects with the remote site where the employee, other office, etc is. It’s just basically a way for very distant colleagues who need to work together to have the ability to do so, almost as if they were sitting side by side in the same office.
It’s also very secure, so that no proprietary company information or other information that needs to be kept private is exposed or otherwise put at risk.
Below are two types of virtual private networks are explained:
Remote access VPN
The first is remote access VPN. This type of connection is necessary when secure, encrypted but mobile connections are needed between, for example, salespeople in the field (remote users) and accompanies private network. Other remote users connect to the company’s private network with a third-party service provider.
Site-to site-VPN
The second type of VPN is called a site-to-site VPN. With this, instead of having remote and sometimes mobile users connected, a company can establish permanent connections with two or more remote but “intercompany” sites together with a private network.
Alternatively, another type of site-to-site VPN occurs where you want “intercompany” connections established, such as with a particular company and a major client.
Check with your provider to see if establishing a VPN might be necessary for you.
About the Author:
Derek Rogers is a freelance writer who represents a number of UK businesses. For business internet services, he recommends Iconnyx, one of the UK’s leading providers of private and virtual private networks.
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Private and Virtual Private Networks Explained
Author: Beverley A MacKenzie
Gone in 60 second, is how you could describe a new security attack on home wireless networks. Scientists in Hiroshima University have identified a security attack which exploits a wireless network security weakness. The attack which is known as the Beck and Tew attack, under normal circumstances takes between 12 – 15 minutes to execute. However it has been discovered that when this attack is combined with the standard man-in-the-middle attack, that a wireless network could be breached within 60 seconds.
The attack exploits a feature of the 802.11e wireless QoS system. The 802.11e wireless network has 8 different channels. The attack is affective because it is distributed across all of the channels.
The researchers stated…..
“…….This attack recovers a MIC key and a plaintext from an encrypted short packet and falsifies it……”
Scientist have said that such a security breach, could lead to a Hacker taking control of an internet session; or capturing packets, or falsifying messages.
A scientist stated…
“….That such an attack would completely undermine the confidentiality and integrity of all information received over the internet.”
Hiroshima University have assured us that the new Beck and Tew attack, is only affective when the 802.11e is combined with Wi-fi security (WPA). But due to the nature of the attack it is near on impossible to detect.
Details of these findings were covered in Ohigashi and Morii report, ‘A Practical Message Falsification Attack on WPA’.
Author Beverley A MacKenzie
An Australian online marketing company, uSocial.net, has launched a business which allows Facebook and Twitter members to buy their friends.
The company has over 250 members, and can count Microsoft Corp and Russian Internet investment firm Digital Sky Technologies, as some of its investors.
Leon Hill, uSocial CEO said in a statement.
“Facebook is an extremely effective marketing tool…….the simple fact is that with a large following on Facebook, you have an instant and targeted group of people you can contact and promote whatever it is you want to promote,” he added. “The only problem is that it can be extremely difficult to achieve such a following, which is where we come in.”
Face book is the fourth most visited site on the Internet and is considered a potentially effective marketing tool
Hill told Australian media.
“All we do is send them a welcome message or friend request from the client. If they decide to go ahead and add that person as a friend or a fan then they will; if not, then they won’t,”
It was reported that the company has been accused of spamming members. The Los Angeles Times reported that Digg,com has also tried to get the uSocial site closed down.
Author: Venkatesa kumar
Cloud computing is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet. Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure in the “cloud” that supports them. Cloud computing is a method of delivering hosted services — Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) – over the Internet in a fast, cost-effective way. The technology has gained popularity in a weakened economy as enterprises seek ways to save money, but as always, this emerging technology presents certain risks, and it could open an organization to security vulnerabilities and threats.
The concept generally incorporates combinations of infrastructure as a service (IaaS) , platform as a service (PaaS), software as a service (SaaS) . Cloud computing services often provide common business applications online that are accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on the servers. Cloud computing can be confused with Grid computing which is a form of distributed computing whereby a ’super and virtual computer’ is composed of a cluster of networked, loosely-coupled computers, acting in concert to perform very large tasks and Utility computing – the packaging of computing resources, such as computation and storage, as a metered service similar to a traditional public utility such as electricity
Characteristics
Cloud computing customers do not generally own the physical infrastructure serving as host to the software platform in question. Instead, they avoid capital expenditure by renting usage from a third-party provider. They consume resources as a service and pay only for resources that they use. Many cloud-computing offerings employ the utility computing model, which is analogous to how traditional utility services (such as electricity) are consumed, while others bill on a subscription basis. Sharing “perishable and intangible” computing power among multiple tenants can improve utilization rates, as servers are not unnecessarily left idle (which can reduce costs significantly while increasing the speed of application development). A side effect of this approach is that overall computer usage rises dramatically, as customers do not have to engineer for peak load limits. Additionally, “increased high-speed bandwidth” makes it possible to receive the same response times from centralized infrastructure at other sites.
Companies
Vmware, Sun Microsystems, IBM, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are some of the major cloud computing service providers. Cloud services are being adopted by individual users through large enterprises including vmware, General Electric and Procter & Gamble.
Cloud computing types
Public cloud
Public cloud or external cloud describes cloud computing in the traditional mainstream sense, whereby resources are dynamically provisioned on a fine-grained, self-service basis over the Internet, via web applications/web services, from an off-site third-party provider who shares resources and bills on a fine-grained utility computing basis.
Hybrid cloud
A hybrid cloud environment consisting of multiple internal and/or external providers “will be typical for most enterprises”.
Private cloud
Private cloud and internal cloud are neologisms that some vendors have recently used to describe offerings that emulate cloud computing on private networks. These (typically virtualization automation) products claim to “deliver some benefits of cloud computing without the pitfalls”, capitalising on data security, corporate governance, and reliability concerns. They have been criticised on the basis that users “still have to buy, build, and manage them” and as such do not benefit from lower up-front capital costs and less hands-on management, essentially “[lacking] the economic model that makes cloud computing such an intriguing concept”.
Cloud Computing and Security Issues
The benefits of virtualization and cloud computing are transforming the way we look at IT outsourcing for development, testing, and production. Existing skills, processes, and projects seem to translate naturally to a virtualized environment, and few obstacles seem to impede the adoption of the cloud model for production. Practitioners and the media alike have touted the potential security issues of virtualization. The cloud brings with it a layer of additional security considerations, in terms of both technology and process.
This layer of additional security isn’t necessarily scary or complicated. But right now, trust in the security of cloud computing is the number one impediment to its growth. This article takes a look at the cloud from various points of view. I will compare real-world examples to look at security implications of the Cloud, and show how they integrate with traditional security processes.
About the Author:
V.Venkatesa Kumar.
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Understanding Cloud Computing
