Week 15 Reading Notes

http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/04/07/15FE-cloud-computing-reality_1.html

Cloud Computing - multiple definitions: 1. an updated version of utility computing (virtual servers available over the internet) 2. anything you consume outside the firewall (including conventional outsourcing)

Types of Cloud Computing:

SaaS - ex. salesforce.com - delivers a single app through a browser to customers using a multitenant architecture. No upfront investment required of customers; low cost for providers.

Utility Computing - offers storage and virtual servers that can be accessed on demand.  (I don't really understand the difference between this and SaaS).

Web services in the cloud

Platform as a service - you can build your own apps that run on the providers infrastructure.

Managed Service Providers - an app exposed to IT rather than to end users (ex. virus scanning service for email).

Service Commerce Platforms - hybrid of SaaS and MSP

Internet Integration - ex. OpSource - serves SaaS providers


http://www.davinciinstitute.com/page.php?ID=120

I don't know about this "ultimate form" of communcation the author is pondering. This article seems a bit of a mess to me.  It is interesting to conceptualize books as a form of technology with a limited life span, but their life span has obviously been vast thus far and even despite the multitude of benefits of technology to information seeking, books have their place... even if that means the definition of book has to be re-thought.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hplXnFUlPmg&NR=1

Cloud computing permits individual usersto access files from any device and allows businesses to lower the cost of investment in storage space.

Closely associated with web 2.0 - emergence of apps - SaaS (software as a service) - google docs is an example.
HaaS (hardware as a service) - Amazon has elastic compute cloud, Google has app engine

Cloud computing may allow centralization of information.