CLOUD COMPUTING

“Cloud Computing” are the latest buzzwords in the computer industry. It is a general term for anything that involves providing hosted services over the internet. The term comes from the use of a cloud image to represent the internet or a large networked environment.

What's all this about?

Efficient computing requires the right hardware and software. This involves the high cost of purchasing hardware and software and the maintenance thereof.

Soon, however, there may be an alternative to this. Instead of installing a suite of software for each computer, only one application would need to be installed that would allow users to log into a Web-based service which hosts all the programs the user would need from email, to word processing, to complex data analysis programs.

Remote computers owned by someone else would undertake the actual running of the software, processing, and storage of data.

This is called Cloud Computing and it could change the entire computer industry.

The significance of this innovation is that there will be a drastic shift in the workload undertaken by computers when it comes to running applications with the network of computers in the cloud taking up the load. Hardware and software demands on the user's side will decrease, all that’s needed being interface software, usually in the form of a Web Browser.

There is a good chance that the readers of this article have already used some form of cloud computing. Email accounts with services such as Google Mail, Hotmail where the user logs onto a web email account instead of using an email program is a good example of cloud computing. Another example is GoogleApps which is a service providing free word processing, spread-sheeting etc.

Here are some of the advantages of cloud computing:

• Users can access their applications from anywhere and at any time provided of course that there is access to the internet.
• A significant saving on the cost of hardware. User's computers will require the minimum memory and speed as the cloud system will provide all the necessary “muscle”.
• Software costs will also be reduced as users will be freed form the never-ending cycle of hardware and software upgrades necessary to remain competitive. Instead users will pay a metered fee to a cloud computing company.
• A saving of office space as servers and other related equipment will no longer be needed.
• A saving on IT support costs as simpler hardware will have fewer problems.
• Greater processing power if the cloud system is a grid computing system.

Concerns:

• Security. Users may be concerned about handing sensitive information to someone else. Companies offering cloud computing are, however, likely to employ the best technology to ensure security to preserve their reputations.
• Privacy. If a user can log into an application from anywhere then unauthorised persons with the correct user-names and passwords could do so too. Authentication techniques and authorisation formats will probably evolve to cater for this concern.
• There are as yet unresolved issues such as who owns the information, can a cloud company refuse to provide defaulting customers with information etc.

Some Observations

Key logging programs exist which record a user's keystrokes and can be used to crack user-names and passwords. Care should therefore be taken to ensure that your computer is not infected with this sort of software.
Cloud computing could result in most computers reverting back to being “dumb terminals” consisting only of a monitor, keyboard, and mouse with only enough computing power to provide access to the cloud. This would probably eliminate the ever present threat of viruses and other malicious software.
An area of computing presently undergoing extensive research is Autonomic Computing. Such a system will provide for its own monitoring and repair of problems. Should this become a reality it will eliminate the need for many IT maintenance jobs.
Cloud computing is closely related to grid computing and utility computing. A grid computing system provides a network of computers that are able to access the resources of all other computers. This greatly enhances the processing power of the individual computers in the system. Utility computing is a business model where payment is made for access to computer applications or data storage.

Open Source Software

Most people are unaware that in most instances it is completely unnecessary to purchase software as there is a host of open source software available for free to anybody. The term “open source” refers to the design and code of the software being in the public domain and available to anyone to use and modify.

• Linux. This is an open source operating system which comes in many “flavours”. These include Ubuntu (supported by Mark Shuttleworth's foundation), Red Hat, SuSe, and Fedora. It is estimated that there are about 10 million Linux users worldwide.
• OpenOffice. This is an open source suite of office applications including word processing, spread-sheeting, database functionality. It has interoperability with MS Office files and runs under any operating system.

Bruce Lyle | Membership Services Manager