The DevOps Handbook: How to Create World-Class Agility, Reliability, & Security in Technology Organizations

by Gene Kim

the five essential characteristics of cloud computing defined by the US Federal Government’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST):20 •On-demand self service: Consumers can automatically provision computing resources as needed, without human interaction from the provider. •Broad network access: Capabilities can be accessed through heterogeneous platforms, such as mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and workstations. •Resource pooling: Provider resources are pooled in a multi-tenant model, with physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned on demand. The customer may specify location at a higher level of abstraction, such as country, state, or data center. •Rapid elasticity: Capabilities can be elastically provisioned and released to rapidly scale outward or inward on demand, appearing to be unlimited and able to be appropriated in any quantity at any time. •Measured service: cloud systems automatically control, optimize, and report resource use based on the type of service, such as storage, processing, bandwidth, and active user accounts.