Rapid elasticity or cloud elasticity is used in cloud computing to get scalable provisioning. It also helps to get scalable services and an extra space in the cloud. Cloud computing services allow businesses and their clients to do their work seamlessly. It provides scalable services of cloud computing to users and clients. It is one of the scalable aspects of computing.
The main aim of rapid elasticity in cloud computing is to raise concern in practical computing situations. Business administrations noticed that the various requests for allocation and de-allocation could impact the system. Here we will study the primary purpose of rapid cloud elasticity.
Rapid elasticity is the capacity of a cloud that helps clients and users automatically enlarge and compress the company’s resources. The process is done in a short period to manage the workload efficiently. It helps minimize the cost required to set up the company’s infrastructure.
Rapid elasticity is not suitable for all types of IT environments. It is only suitable for a domain whose resource requirements suddenly up and down for a specific time interval. It is not beneficial to use in an infrastructure where uninterrupted resources are required.
According to Wikipedia, “In cloud computing, elasticity is defined as “the degree to which a system can adapt to workload changes by provisioning and de-provisioning resources in an autonomic manner, such that at each point in time, the available resources match the current demand as closely as possible.” Elasticity is a defining characteristic that differentiates cloud computing from previously proposed computing paradigms, such as grid computing. The dynamic adaptation of capacity, e.g., by altering the use of computing resources to meet a varying workload, is called “elastic computing.”
Cloud scalability is essential to handle businesses with their full workload without disturbing the growing performance. Growing performance helps to work with high efficiency, and it must be able to work with different applications. It is used for businesses where the resource needs a deployment to handle workload efficiently.
Example:
Let’s take an example of a business whose database is small at first. But as days pass, their business grows, and hence the size of their database also increases. In such a case, the company must request their cloud services provider to scale up the capacity of the database.
Vertical Scalability (Scale-up)
In vertical scalability, businesses can maximize the power of resources in the IT environment in an upward direction.
Horizontal Scalability
Horizontal scalability adds extra resources to scale up the resources in a horizontal row.
Diagonal Scalability
In diagonal scalability, resources are added in both ways: horizontally and vertically.
The primary purpose of rapid cloud elasticity is to manage the provisioning of resources. Over-provisioning and under-provisioning of resources can control with the help of rapid cloud elasticity. If a company buys more space than required, it comes under over-provision. Moreover, we can use under-provisioning when a company believes less space than needed.
Over-provisioning can increase the cloud cost, which is expensive for any business. Under-provisioning is due to the server overwork which damaged the server. Further, it impulsively increases the revenue cost of the organization.
Elasticity is the upgraded name of scalability, the essential requirement in the IT industry or infrastructure. It is the ability to provide the required capacity and remove the power like memory and processing for infrastructure.
According to Techopedia, “Cloud elasticity refers to the ability of a cloud service to provide on-demand offerings, nimbly switching resources when demand goes up or down. It is often an immediate reaction to clients dropping or adding services in real time”.
The rapid elasticity or elasticity in cloud computing can use as pay-per-use services. It can mostly use for public cloud services where administrators only pay for the period they consume the resources.
Example:
For an eCommerce platform, shopping can increase during various seasons or festivals. Hence during such pick time, when transactions increase, there is a need to increase the resources. So, businesses can use cloud rapid elasticity services for such a specific period to handle the situation. Therefore, once the festival goes out, the resources can withdraw from the site.
Cloud elasticity and scalability are opposite to each other. Elasticity helps businesses fulfill the dynamic needs of the companies, as we have learned in the abovementioned example. Whereas scalability can use for the static needs of the businesses. Let’s differentiate cloud elasticity and scalability.
- Cloud elasticity helps meet the changes in the business workload. It means if there is an Ups and down in the workload, elasticity will help manage it. At the same time, cloud scalability allows the situation like static increases in the workload.
- Dynamic changes can meet with the help of cloud elasticity if the resource needs to maximize or minimized.
- Small businesses can use elasticity as per their demand for a specific period. In large enterprises where clients are continuously growing, the use of scalability is more.
- Rapid cloud elasticity is used and adopted for short-term planning to deal with an unexpected workload demand. Therefore, scalability is an extensive term planning acquired to deal with the growing demand.
Insurance, eCommerce, and streaming services are excellent examples of rapid cloud elasticity.
Insurance
In auto insurance, customers renew their auto policies at the same time every year. But sometimes, the customer wants to exceed the deadline of policy renewal time, and hence the traffic will automatically increase when you arrive at that time. In such a case, if they use only scalability, it will result in a server outage. It can lead to revenue loss.
Instead, they can lease VMs (Virtual machines) to handle the traffic for that particular period. Customers wouldn’t notice any performance changes or have more customers in that specific year. Rapid elasticity helps you with that. Hence, it will only charge for the particular resource they have used.
e-commerce
For an eCommerce website, if the new buyer registers for a new account during the peak seasons, it will put a load on the server. Also, existing customers can revisit to redeem their wish-listed items. With elasticity, they can provide more resources for festive seasons. Therefore, after that season, they can return the extra capacity to their cloud providers.
Streaming services
Streaming services like Netflix is an excellent example to use in such case. Netflix uses AWS cloud services to serve multiple server requests as it has many customers who have the same episode simultaneously. Moreover, it provides the service within a short period and with less downtime.
Conclusion
In conclusion, cloud elasticity can help the client or customers directly scale up or down the resources per their requirements. Both cloud elasticity and scalability provide essential services in cloud computing. Rapid cloud elasticity is used for a very small timeframe to deal with an unexpected workload demand. Scalability is an extensive term for dealing with the growing demand.