NIST Cloud Computing Reference Architecture

NIST cloud computing reference architecture is discussed in this tutorial.

Different major actors, their activities and roles in cloud computing environment are discussed in detail. A generic high-level architecture is shown in the figure.

This architecture is the basis of nist cloud security reference architecture. This is also known as cloud computing reference model.

Understanding of the requirements, uses, characteristics and standards of cloud computing are explained in this tutorial.

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Frequently Asked Questions

After reading this NIST Cloud Computing Reference Architecture Tutorial students will be able to answer the following questions which are generally asked from this topic.

• What is NIST model in cloud computing ?
• What is reference architecture of cloud computing ?
• Who are cloud consumer ?
• Write the difference between cloud consumer and cloud provider ?
• What do you mean by a cloud provider ?
• What are the role of cloud provider ?
• What are different audits performed by cloud auditor ?
• What is service aggregation in cloud?
• Why is auditing necessary in cloud computing ?
• What does a cloud broker do ?
• What is the role of cloud carrier ?
• What is carrier in cloud computing ?
• What is nist cloud security reference architecture ?

Let’s start with the introduction of NIST Cloud computing reference architecture.

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NIST Reference Cloud Architecture

There are five major actors in NIST cloud computing reference architecture as shown in above figure.

These actors are listed below

• Cloud Consumer.
• Cloud Provider.
• Cloud Carrier.
• Cloud Auditor.
• Cloud Broker.

Each actor is an entity may be a person or an organization that participates in a transaction or process and/or performs tasks in cloud computing.

Activities and roles perform by each actor is discussed here one by one.

1. Cloud Consumer

• Cloud consumer is the main participants of cloud computing environment.
•  A cloud consumer is a person or organization that use the cloud services such as SaaS, PaaS and IaaS.
• A cloud consumer browses the service catalog provided by a cloud provider, cloud consumer requests the appropriate service.
• Cloud provider sets up cloud environment for the service and make a contracts with the cloud consumer for the use of the service.
• Cloud consumers need cloud Service Level Agreement(SLA).

SLA act as a agreement for technical performance requirements provided by a cloud provider.

Some terms and conditions regarding the quality of service, security, remedies for performance failures are mentioned in the SLA.

Software as a service applications in the cloud are made accessible via a network to the SaaS consumers.

The consumers of SaaS may be a organizations that gives their employee with access to software applications, end users who directly use software applications, or it may be software application administrators who is responsible for configure applications on the software for the customers.

Platform as a service can also be employ by the consumer the tools to develop, test, deploy and manage the applications hosted in a cloud environment.

PaaS consumers can be application developers who design and implement application software in software company.

PaaS consumer may be application testers who run and test applications in cloud-based environments, application deployers who publish applications into the cloud,

PaaS may be  a application administrators who configure and monitor application performance on a platform.

Cloud Consumers of Infrastructure as a service have access to different hardware resources like virtual computers, network devices such as router, storage media and other fundamental computing resource.

The consumers of Infrastructure as a service may be system developers, system administrators and IT managers who creates, install, manage and monitor the services for IT infrastructure operations.

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2. Cloud Provider

• A cloud provider is responsible for making a service available to the cloud consumer. Cloud provider may be a person , team or an organization.
• A Cloud Provider maintain and manages the different cloud computing services for the consumer and makes arrangement to deliver the cloud services to the Cloud Consumers suing network access or internet.

In context to Software as a Service Cloud provider is responsible for deploys, configuring, maintaining and updating the operation of the software applications on a cloud infrastructure so that the services are provisioned as per the required levels by the cloud consumers.

The  major responsibilities  of cloud provider in context to software as a service are to manage , control the applications and overall  infrastructure.

In context to Platform as a Service, the Cloud Provider manages the computing infrastructure for the platform and runs the cloud software that provides the components of the platform. These components may be software execution stack, databases and some other components that act as middleware.

 The PaaS Cloud Provider generally supports the development, deployment and management process of the Platform as a Service.

Some integrated tools like IDE, SDK, development version of cloud software, deployment and management are also the part of Platform as a Service.

Physical computing resources such as servers, networks, storage and hosting infrastructure  are also maintain and manage by the cloud provider for the consumer of Infrastructure as a Service.

The Cloud Provider implement the cloud software so that computing resources become available to the Cloud Consumer who use the infrastructure as service through a set of service interface and virtual network interfaces that helps in resource abstraction.

3. Cloud Auditor

A cloud auditor is a dedicated team of technically skilled person that can perform an independent examination or review of cloud service controls with the intent to express strength and weakness of the process and some suggestion or improvement.

Audits are performed to verify the standards of services after checking the evidence.

Major role of a cloud auditor is to evaluate the services provided by a cloud provider against the parameters such as security controls, privacy impact and performance etc.

To perform the audit of security a cloud auditor do the assessment of the security controls in the information system to determine the extent to which the controls are implemented accurately and  operating as per expectation and producing the desired outcome with respect to the security requirements for the system.

Cloud auditor also confirm the security of cloud as per nist cloud security reference architecture.

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4. Cloud Broker

Some time services integrations becomes more complex due to which it becomes difficult for the  cloud consumer to manage the cloud service.

In such situation cloud consumer request cloud services from cloud broker. Cloud Broker acts as mediator between consumer and provider.

• A cloud broker manages the delivery of cloud services , their performance and use.
• A cloud broker negotiates relationships between cloud providers and cloud consumers.

In general, a cloud broker  involves in three types of activities which are as follow

 Service Intermediation

A cloud broker may enhances a given service by improving some specific capability and providing value-added services to cloud consumers.

The improvement may be related to managing the  access to cloud services, identity management, performance reporting, enhanced security, etc.

Service Aggregation

Services aggregation can be seems as combining and integrating multiple services into one or some more new services.

The broker ensures the data movement between the cloud consumer and multiple cloud providers in secure manner.

A cloud broker also provides the data integration.

Service Arbitrage

Service arbitrage is very similar to service aggregation but there is a little bit difference also.

In service arbitrage the services to be aggregated are not fixed in advance.

In Service arbitrage a broker has the flexibility to select the services from multiple agencies.

The cloud broker, for example, can use a credit-scoring service to measure and select an agency with the best score.

 5. Cloud Carrier

Cloud Carrier is another important actors in NIST cloud computing reference architecture.

• Role of cloud carrier is to provide the connectivity and transport of cloud services between cloud consumers and cloud providers.
• Cloud carriers provide access to consumers through network, telecommunication and other access devices.

For example-  cloud consumers can obtain cloud services through network access devices, such as computers, laptops, mobile phones, mobile Internet devices.

Conclusion and Summary

• In this tutorial we have learned about NIST cloud computing reference architecture and it’s various actors, their role and responsibilities.
• Nist cloud security reference architecture will be easy to understand after getting the knowledge of nist cloud computing reference architecture in this tutorial.
• Cloud computing reference model

I hope this tutorial will be beneficial for the students and helpful in enhancing their cloud computing concepts.

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