CLOUD: A Computing Infrastructure on Demand

Cloud Computing refers to both the applications delivered as services over the Internet and the hardware and systems software in the data centers that provide those services. A cloud computing platform dynamically provisions, configures, reconfigures, and deprovisions servers as needed. Cloud applications are those that are extended to be accessible through the Internet. The datacenter hardware and software is what we will call a Cloud. Cloud computing is changing the way we provision hardware and software for on-demand capacity fulfillment and changing the way we develop web applications and make business decisions. Definition: Cloud computing is a computing paradigm in which tasks are assigned to a combination of connections, software and services accessed over a network. This network of servers and connections is collectively known as "the cloud." Computing at the scale of the cloud allows users to access supercomputer-level power. Users can access resources as they need them.

Cloud computing describes how computer programs are hosted and operated over the Internet. The key feature of cloud computing is that both the software and the information held in it live on centrally located servers rather than on an end-user's computer. How does cloud computing

works? The concept is fairly simple. First, consider the traditional means of running application: and application appears to run on a dumb terminal or, these days your PC; practicality, this is only front-end of the application. Your computer is connected to a server that actually runs the

program or application and returns information to your personal computer. The server constitutes the backend and it can be located in the same building as you are or not. With cloud computing application program runs somewhere within the cloud; ideally the user concern only with applications that are available and need not to be aware of the underlying technology or the physical location of the Application's computer. User desktop is connected via internet to a server farm, a collection of remote servers that runs many, many applications at once. Which server or servers an application runs on is determined by the 􀁪pplication program already running on the machines; there IS an attempt to balance the load so that all of the programs run optimally.

A carbon 2.0 framework based on cloud computing

One remarkable news in 2009 was the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) held in Copenhagen. Although many were disappointed with COP15's main output, the summit did introduce a new kind of dynamics in global climate policy, in addition to the Copenhagen accord. Specifically, considering the climate change all over the planet, we must pay close attention to this severe situation and take action as soon as possible. Under this new trend, all organizations, even households and individuals, are expected to set their agendas to manage their carbon

footprint (CFP) below a certain level in the near future. This new practice needs appropriate IT systems to help tackle challenges in measuring, analyzing and managing carbon emissions in a cost-effective manner . Currently, several carbon management systems are being developed to facilitate enterprises to calculate and manage their CFP, such as ESS's GHG/Carbon management SolutionTM , U.S. Army's Enviance system ,IBM/EIM's GreenCertTM, etc. However, their IT architectures are less efficient compared to the latest IT technologies. In addition, a number of CFP tools are being developed to fulfill households and individuals’ carbon

related needs, such as UK Carbon Footprint Ltd's CFP calculator , the Nature Conservancy's CFP calculator , etc. These CFP tools are based on B/S model, and it can only calculate user's CFP over the Internet. Therefore, it is still a challenging issue on how to take advantage of the latest IT technologies to improve carbon systems.We focus on the next-generation carbon systems for both enterprises and households use and present a carbon 2.0 framework based on cloud computing. This new framework is massively scalable and can dynamically configure/deliver

carbon-related services on demand. Moreover, it is a real low-carbon framework itself!

The term "carbon 2.0" was first introduced by Qindong Liu and Jan Stallaert, who attempted to unveil the architecture and functionality of future carbon systems for enterprises. Cloud computing is a new computing paradigm and it can make good use of

economies of scale, and dynamically deliver almost any IT related resources as a service on demand, such as computing power, storage capacity, network service, integrated management, with dynamically configurable interface and the economy model of charging for capacity.