Excursive Summary
This report descript cloud computing, its features and functionalities. Description of how organizations can use cloud computing to identify business opportunities and improve business performance. Description of how organizations will use cloud computing. Identify the issues and risks that managers should know about. Provide the provision of a list of additional references or sources of information for further learning.
The cloud computing is the future.
Introduction
Cloud computing as a technology is made up of three basic models called software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and infrastructure as a service (IaaS). Software as a service eliminates customer’s disadvantage of installing software on their own computers because this IT is provided for a continuous expense through the internet. Software vendors are providing this service on web servers making server hardware unnecessary for individuals. Platform as a service on the other hand makes available the web applications and software from SaaS from the internet, while infrastructure as a service makes sure there is a computer infrastructure were platform virtualization created by the host software gives a simulated computer environment for the operating system, but for communication over a computer network there must be a LAN Adapter because the operating system requires it. In other words cloud computing has virtualized hardware made it unnecessary with hardware bound to individual computers because the virtual computer or hardware is presented as software (Langley, 2008) .
Illustration: (Langley, 2008) .
Description of the technology, its features and functionalities
Cloud computing is a technology which makes it possible for everyone to access software and to store personal data such as written documents on the internet from wireless devices including iPods, laptop computers and home/office computer. This is possible due to the connection these devises gets with super computers initially made for advanced calculations for scientists and the military. Hard drives are unnecessary because all data is stored online. Software installation on your computer is not necessary either due to it being available on the internet as well. Microsoft has developed a so called ‘mesh folder’ which makes it possible for individuals in the nearest future to store their work in this mesh folder which is on the internet. The folder can also be shared between several people, and accessed by several devices (Moses, 2008) .
Big computers provided from IBM, Sun Microsystems, Dell, and HP stored together in huge halls can be operated for more than three days in case of power failure due to a big Caterpillar diesel generator providing two megawatts of electricity. Extra fuel and batteries also available is backing up for extended periods. An internet connection linking the computers to businesses using the data center to run their software and store their data is formed as a thick bundle of fiber-optic cables. Software that companies using this center had to purchase, install, and fix or renew can now be replaced with only having to access the computers in the center through the internet from their offices. As a result of this, new hardware or other equipment is not necessary either for these businesses. VeriCenter which operates these big computers take care of providing their users with what they need. The information age came after the industrial age where electric plants were a revolution. Now, the hall of big computers is the new power plant, but this time a computing plant. The modern dynamo which is connected to the internet is capable of supplying private households and businesses with digitized information and data-processing. Software is now run by the dynamo instead of as before when one would have to install it on one’s own computers. Because of the high efficiency of the dynamo, computing has become a cheap and universal commodity (Carr, 2008) .
How organizations can potentially use the technology to identify business opportunities and improve business performance
Let us back to the great benefits or characters which the cloud computing can bring into the new era market.
1. Scalability: the ability of a computing system to grow relatively easily in response to increased demand.
2. Elasticity: the ability of a system to dynamically acquire or release compute resources on-demand.
3. Highly Available: systems designed such that the loss of any one component of a system will not result in system failure. No single points of failure (Langley, 2008) .
From the characters of the cloud computing, almost every industry can use this technology to instead of the traditional IT service of now days.
So, the cloud computing is considered as the new generation infrastructure of the information system. It will exist in everywhere in the society. The platform of the cloud computing can give namely scalability, agility, automation, and resource sharing (Why Cloud Computing?, 2008) .
There are some major applications in the future. People change their IT consume behaviors from purchasing information system to only purchasing service (Langley, 2008) .
For the small firm, people can acquired the same service from the cloud as the same of the big firms. For example, salesforce.com provides the CRM service on the internet. The each small firm can have the same resource as the big firm at the rate of 9USD per user per month for their CRM solution. This makes the small company turn to more efficient from the business information system.
For the multiple national business firms, the cloud computing idea is very attractive too. They can use public cloud or private cloud to achieve their information management goal. Like IBM, they are setting up a private cloud solution for both their selves and their customers. They call their solution as “blue cloud” (Cloud Computing: The Evolution of Software-as-a-Service, 2008) .
In the future, when the cloud computing technology is mutual more and more professional service will join into the cloud. They will bring a lot of service into the cloud. There are huge amount of opportunities both for the providers and users.
How organizations are and/or will use it:
There are a lot of companies are using the Cloud Computing technology including both the major players in IT area and new comers. Here are some cases which the cloud computing used in the reality society.
Linden Lab for an example has used cloud computing to be able to download their virtual world ‘Second Life’.
Microsoft Corp used cloud computing to increase the speed of software downloads. Windows cloud gives businesses the opportunity to access computing cycles through the cloud instead of having to buy new computers.
Google has enabled organizations and individuals to store their work or information on the internet where they can use Google’s web based software. Examples of such applications are the Google calendar that organizes events, Picasa that stores pictures, YouTube that holds videos, Gmail that stores e-mails, and Google Docs that keeps documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. It is also possible for anyone to store contents of one’s whole hard drives through a Google service online. But also Amazon, AOL, and Microsoft provide cloud computing space and software online. Storage prices starts from $0.15 per gigabyte per month to $9.95 for 50 gigabytes per month (Kate, 2007) .
Issues and risks that managers should know about
Cloud computing is the future and the Gartner gives a very positive recommend on this new technological trend (Stevens & Pettey, 2008) . But there are some issues about the risk in the cloud computing, these concerns are mentioned by both IT managers in firms and individual internet users.
There are some security issues and high availability concern of the cloud computing. Firstly, if the company changed from hosting service to cloud, a lot of regulations about the using data should be not compromised with the traditional technology. Secondly, the commingling data stores in the cloud. Cloud providers store data from multiple customers on the same hardware. Some customers will have concern to separate their information from their competitors’ physically (Thurman, 2008) . Thirdly, is there any a single point of failure? For the new technology, there are still a lot of practices should be done to test the system reliability especially for the enterprise users (Langley, 2008) .
For the individual user, there are more concerns about their private information safety. There are 90% users are very concerned about their files will be sold to others. That survey shows there are 68% users feel uncomfortable with advisements targeted them based on their online behaviors (Horrigan, 2008) . As an IT manager, when the company tries to use cloud computing technology, the ethic problems should be consider carefully.
The other main issues should be concerned as an IT manager is the changed billing way of the cloud computing service. The traditional evaluation of the investment of the IT infrastructure is based on hardware, software and human resource cost. The way of the billing of the cloud computing has charge into based on how many service you acquired or how many store space or how many calculate process. The cost of IT function should be considered in compare to original IT project investment (Langley, 2008) .
As the cloud computing is a new technology, when the enterprise comes into the cloud the support resource should be concerned. There are few technical support engineers in the market than the traditional IT service. It will come to high cost of support problem and poor service quality problem. All the service is from the cloud, if something happened to the cloud service provider, what will be the backup plan of the company (Langley, 2008) ?
The using of the cloud computing will bring a lot of benefit to the company. Whatever the cloud is the public cloud or private cloud. When the company moves into the cloud, there will be more concerns than the traditional projects. This is why the cloud computing need more three to five year to get mutual (Stevens & Pettey, 2008) .
Lists of additional references or sources of information for anyone who wants to learn more
Bragg, R. (2008, 7 26). Cloud Computing: When Computers Really Do Rule. Retrieved 10 22, 2008, from Linux Insider: http://www.linuxinsider.com/rsstory/63954.html
Brodkin, J. (2008, 7 28). Open source fuels growth of cloud computing, software-as-a-service. Retrieved 10 22, 2008, from Network World: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/072808-open-source-cloud-computing.html?page=2
Delic, K. A., & Walker, M. A. (2008, 8 5-11). Emergence of The Academic Computing Cloud. Retrieved 10 22, 2008, from www.acm.org: http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/volume_9/v9i31_delic.html
Distinguishing Cloud Computing from Utility Computing. (2008, 3 26). Retrieved 10 22, 2008, from ebizq: http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/saasweek/2008/03/distinguishing_cloud_computing/
Gruman, G., & Knorr, E. (2008, 4 28). What cloud computing really means. Retrieved 10 22, 2008, from InfoWorld: http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/04/07/15FE-cloud-computing-reality_1.html
Hewitt, C. (2008). ORGs for Scalable, Robust, Privacy-Friendly Client Cloud Computing. IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 12, no. 5, Sep/Oct , 96-99.
Jeff Bezos' Risky Bet. (2006, 11 13). Retrieved 10 22, 2008, from Business Week: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_46/b4009001.htm
Langley, N. (2008, 6 24). Google Apps makes its way into big business. Retrieved 10 22, 2008, from ComputerWeekly.com: http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2008/06/24/231178/google-apps-makes-its-way-into-big-business.htm
Lohr, S. (2007, 10 8). Google and I.B.M. Join in ‘Cloud Computing’ Research. Retrieved 10 22, 2008, from The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/08/technology/08cloud.html?_r=1&ex=1349496000&en=92627f0f65ea0d75&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&oref=slogin
Lohr, S. (2007, 11 15). I.B.M. to Push ‘Cloud Computing,’ Using Data From Afar. Retrieved 10 22, 2008, from The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/15/technology/15blue.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Miller, R. (2008, 3 25). What’s In A Name? Utility vs. Cloud vs Grid. Retrieved 10 22, 2008, from Knowledge Data Centre: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2008/03/25/whats-in-a-name-utility-vs-cloud-vs-grid/
Munarriz, R. A. (2008, 6 28). With Their Heads in the Clouds. Retrieved 10 22, 2008, from The Motley Fool: http://www.fool.com/investing/high-growth/2008/07/29/with-their-heads-in-the-clouds.aspx
Schurr, A. (2008, 7 8). Keep an eye on cloud computing. Retrieved 10 22, 2008, from NetworkWorld: http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/itlead/2008/070708itlead1.html
Weier, M. H. (2008, 3 10). SAP Is The Latest Convert To Software-Plus-Services Vision. Retrieved 10 22, 2008, from Information Week: http://www.informationweek.com/news/services/saas/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207601148
Wieners, B., & Scanlon, J. H. (1999, 9 7). The Internet Cloud. Retrieved 10 22, 2008, from The industry standard: http://www.thestandard.com/article/0,1902,5466,00.html
Conclusion
Cloud Computing is the greatest opportunity in the IT area. In the two to three years, this technology will be mature in the market. Although there are some risks and weak points in the usage of the Cloud Computing but the solution providers are currently working on the plan to meet the market need. The solution will be more available and more flexible.
Cloud Computing is also a challenger for the existing company in the IT area. More competitors will become the service providers in every industry the Cloud. The leadership position will be taken by the Cloud Computing solution providers.
References
Carr, N. (2008). The Big Swith: rewiring the world, from Edison to Google. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Cloud Computing: The Evolution of Software-as-a-Service. (2008, 6 4). Retrieved 10 22, 2008, from Knowledge W. P. Carey: http://knowledge.wpcarey.asu.edu/ar...
Horrigan, B. J. (2008, 9). Use of Cloud Computing Applications and Services September 2008. Retrieved 10 22, 2008, from PEW/INTERNET: http://www.pewinternet.com
Kate, G. (2007). Google’s Cloud Looms Large. Retrieved 10 22, 2008, from Technology Review: http://www.technologyreview.com
Langley, K. (2008, 3 9). Hadoop Meetup San Francisco by GigaOM. Retrieved 10 22, 2008, from www.productionscale.com: http://www.productinscale.com
Moses, A. (2008, 4 28). Cloud computing takes the 'P' out of PC. Retrieved 10 22, 2008, from smh.com.au: http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/cloud-computing-takes-the-p-out-of-pc/2008/04/24/1208743109210.html
Stevens, H., & Pettey, C. (2008, 6 26). Gartner Says Cloud Computing Will Be As Influential As Ebusiness. Retrieved 10 22, 2008, from Gartner: http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?i...
Thurman, M. (2008, 10 20). Security Manager's Journal: Looking for cloud computing's silver lining. Retrieved 10 22, 2008, from Coumputerworld: http://www.computerworld.com/actio...
Why Cloud Computing? (2008). Retrieved 10 22, 2008, from Appistry: http://www.appistry.com/cloud-info-c...
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