Functionality and performance evaluation of IaaS cloud platforms

Cloud computing has evolved and gained industry interest over the years in many applications. From deploying an own cloud to using a ready-made software running on a cloud, several implementations, tools and methods have been created. This work studies the most basic level of cloud known as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and both the functionality and performance of such platforms is carried out and analysed. The comparison has been done between Eucalyptus; an open source private cloud platform and Amazon EC2; a commercial public cloud platform. Various business models and usage scenarios have also been discussed and theorized to better understand and predict where and in what situations would the use of both these types of clouds will be most efficient and effective. This has also lead to the possibility of using these clouds in conjunction with one another, that is, in a hybrid cloud model where cost and performance trade-offs can decide the type of usage. The feasibility and application of such models have also been discussed and proposed, where the goal has been to suggest a working model that has a trade-off between cost and performance. Furthermore, the performance of both platforms has been carried out and analysed based on a simple web service running on both clouds. These performance measures help in deciding whether the discussed and proposed models are practical and also the effectiveness of using Eucalyptus in comparison with a commercial service. A short discussion for the related and future work branching from this research has also been discussed and could help in taking further research steps in cloud computing and hybrid clouds