The need for cloud computing

Cloud computing solves several critical problems in the realm of IT and technology. Let’s consider the following scenario regarding data analytics:

Data-intensive projects, such as a scientific research initiative, where massive amounts of data need to be ingested, analyzed, and stored.

From the perspective of a network architect, what would be required to build a data-centric architecture to support this initiative on-premises? We’ll need the building blocks: network (fabric), compute, storage (DBs, SAN, NAS, etc.), software (OS, virtualization, middleware, patches, etc.), and data applications (processing, analytics, correlations, home-grown). Let’s keep it at this for now and break down each:

• Networking: To support this from a (physical) network layer perspective, the architecture will need high-speed, non-blocking, low-latency switches and routers with possibly large queuing buffers and hardware-based encryption for...