*2.1. Cloud-Related Aspects*

Historically, the growth and expansion of the infrastructures of many companies have come from evolving technologies and innovations. Cloud computing is seen as a unique solution to provide applications for enterprises [11]. It uses different components such as hardware and software to render services, especially over the Internet. The possibility of accessing various data and applications provided was originally made straightforward by Cloud computing.

Several industrial giants and standardization bodies attempted to define Cloud computing in their understandings and views. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is widely considered to provide the most reliable and precise definition for Cloud computing as "a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal managemen<sup>t</sup> effort or service provider interaction" [12].

Five different models particularly characterize Cloud computing: on-demand selfservice, broad network access, multi-tenancy and resource pooling, rapid elasticity, and scalability. Generally, more Cloud computing resources can be provided as required by manufacturers and different enterprises while avoiding interactions with humans involving service providers, e.g., database instances, storage space, virtual machines, and many others. Having access to corporate Cloud accounts is essential as it helps corporations to virtualize the various services, Cloud usage, and supply of services as demanded [13].

Simultaneously, there is a need for broad network access, i.e., accessing capabilities via established channels across the network advance the use of heterogeneous thick and thin customer devices such as workstations, tablets, laptops, and mobile phones [14]. This access leads to the resource pooling aspect, i.e., computing resources from the provider are grouped using a particular multi-tenant model used in serving various clients. The unseen and non-virtual resources are carefully allocated and reallocated according to the customer's needs. Usually, customers do not understand or access the spot-on position or area provided. However, location specification can be established at an advanced state

of situation or abstraction followed by various examples of resources such as network bandwidth, processing, memory, and storage [15].

Such a massive heterogeneous environment leads to the scalability aspect [16]. The growth of a client marketplace or business is made possible due to the tremendous ability to create specific Cloud resources, enabling improvement or reducing costs. Sometimes, changes might occur on the user's need for Cloud computing, which will be immediately responded to by the platform or system.

Finally, the resource use is keenly observed, regulated, and feedback is given to established billing based on usage (e.g., accounts of frequent customers, bandwidth, processing, and storage). The proper reporting of essential services used can be done transparently if the used resources are adequately looked into, controlled and account is given [12].

From the architectural perspective, big, medium, and small enterprises use Cloud computing technology to save or store vital data in the Cloud, enabling them to access this stored information from any part of the world via connecting to the Internet. Serviceoriented and event-driven architectures are the main combination that makes up the Cloud computing architecture. The two important parts dividing the Cloud computing architecture are naturally Front End (FE) and Back End (BE) [17].

As seen in Figure 1, various components are involved in the computing architecture [6]. Furthermore, we take a brief look at each architecture's different features. Furthermore, we can see that a network connects both front and back ends via the wired or wireless medium.

**Figure 1.** Most common task offloading models.
