Q.Write short notes on the following:
Cloud computing delivers computing resources on demand over the Internet on a pay-per-use model (IaaS/PaaS/SaaS); Big data refers to datasets whose Volume, Velocity, Variety, Veracity and Value (the 5 Vs) put them beyond the reach of traditional data-processing tools.
a) Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is the delivery of computing services — servers, storage, databases, software, networking and analytics — over the Internet ("the cloud"), on demand. Instead of buying and maintaining your own hardware and software, you rent exactly what you need from a provider and pay only for what you use.
Key features:
- On-demand self-service — resources are provisioned instantly through a web console, without human negotiation.
- Anywhere access — services are reachable from any Internet-connected device.
- Resource pooling and elasticity — the provider's huge shared infrastructure lets you scale up or down in minutes.
- Pay-per-use — costs follow actual usage, converting large capital expenditure into small operating expense.
Service models: IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service — raw virtual machines and storage, e.g. Amazon EC2), PaaS (Platform as a Service — ready platforms to build and deploy apps, e.g. Google App Engine), SaaS (Software as a Service — ready software like Gmail or Office 365). Deployment models: public, private, hybrid and community clouds.
b) Big Data and its Characteristics
Big data is the term for data that is generated in such huge quantity, at such high speed and in so many forms that traditional databases and tools cannot capture, store or analyse it. Sources include social media posts, e-commerce transactions, mobile phones, sensor networks and web server logs. Specialised frameworks (e.g. Hadoop, Spark) are needed to process it.
The characteristics — the 5 Vs:
| V | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Volume | Enormous size — terabytes to petabytes and beyond; the defining trait |
| Velocity | Data arrives and must often be processed at very high speed (streams, real time) |
| Variety | Many forms — structured tables, semi-structured logs/XML/JSON, unstructured text, images, audio, video |
| Veracity | Data may be incomplete, inconsistent or uncertain — its trustworthiness must be assessed |
| Value | The data is only worth handling if useful insight can be extracted from it |
If you can recall just "5 Vs", you can reconstruct the whole big-data note in the exam — one line per V is exactly what the marking scheme looks for.
Cloud computing: on-demand, pay-per-use delivery of computing services over the Internet, offered as IaaS, PaaS and SaaS. Big data: extremely large, fast and diverse datasets characterised by the 5 Vs — Volume, Velocity, Variety, Veracity and Value.
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