Archive for the ‘cloud computing’ Category

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Competing in Telecommunications Market with Network Quality Sunday, December 19th, 2010

Few things have caught the fancy of the general public as cell phones have. The ability to communicate on the go, and be available for communication wherever you are, has indeed affected a lot of things. It has improved the ability to earn income and people’s lifestyles.

The popularity has naturally attracted sellers of everything connected with cell phones, including technology developers. As competition increases, sellers try to differentiate themselves through improved quality of their networks. Advancing technology raises user’s expectations and these expectations are often not met.

Terms like 2G and 3G can be seen as referring to network technologies that attempt to meet user expectations increasingly better. GSM is considered a 2G technology, GPRS a 2.5G one, and 3G uses Broadband Wireless network technologies. Each technology improved the speed of data download, i.e. you could get more things to your mobile device within acceptable times.

Phones were devices that enabled you to talk with someone who is beyond a few minutes of walking distance. Now they are devices that enable you to browse the Internet and download music files without having to wait for ever.

Advancing technologies also improved the range of communications. Telephones can now reach even the remotest corners at acceptable costs.

We are presently in the 3G era which has speeds of up to 2 megabytes per second (2Mbps). 4G is visualized as technologies that can reach 100 Mbps.

And 5G is expected to lead to a truly wireless world, connecting the whole world into a borderless community. Using the potentials of nanotechnolgy, cloud computing and network protocols, a new Next Generation Network promises great things.

The 5G NanoCore is a technology and market report that delves into 5G technology of telecommunications.

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Posted in broadband network, cloud computing, information technology, mobile web, smartphone applications, wireless communication | No Comments »

Connected World: A Cisco Study Friday, December 10th, 2010

In today’s business, workers are more mobile and distributed than ever. This mobility and geographical distribution of workforce presents new challenges, particularly in the areas of data management and security. A Cisco study examines how IT professionals are managing this challenge.

Some major findings of the study include:

* Workers are finding that they need not be in an office to be productive. Workers also prefer the mobility and flexibility of working out of the office to an extent that they are willing to accept such a job even if it pays a little less compared to a job that does not offer such flexibility.
* IT policies have, however, not kept pace with the worker preferences as above, and also with new devices, social media and video and other new modes of communication.
* Better collaboration among teams in the data center, virtualization and cloud computing technologies have an important role to play in the emerging environment.

These trends also creates new problems for security and data governance because employees want to access and work with data from anywhere with different devices.

See the news report on Marketwire for details of the trends.

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Posted in IT security, cloud computing, communications, information technology, mobile web | No Comments »

Google Capitalism Emerging Sunday, November 21st, 2010

Google is the top player in an industry that did not exist in the pre-Internet era. Starting out as a search engine, it has come to dominate the online advertising market. In the process it has created several innovations including AdSense that multiplied the ads exposure. Acquisition of Doubleclick enhanced its advertising offers.

Google has been able to mold the consumer mindset in new ways. With acquisitions like YouTube and other companies, it has been able to offer a complete package that includes news, entertainment and search results in the user’s Web browser. The user can enjoy music and movies, read the latest news and gossip, play games and search for information or products without leaving the computer workstation.

Google TV, with a TV and set-top box is another consumer friendly offer from Google.

Google has become much more than a search and online advertising company now with several new products, such as Google Earth, Cloud computing services offered through Google Docs and other channels, News feeds and Social networking. Software as a Service (SaaS) acquired a new meaning in Google’s hands.

SaaS was a natural next step for Google after it managed to attract a large number of business users through Google Mail. Google Docs has become an alternative to Microsoft Office.

Read about a report on the Google phenomenon and its impact on capitalism at Market Publishers..

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Posted in business, business transformation, cloud computing, information technology, innovation | No Comments »

Is “Private” Cloud a Negation of the Term? Wednesday, November 10th, 2010

What is Cloud Computing?

According to Phil Wainwright, cloud computing consultant, true cloud computing involves four elements:

* Abstraction of the infrastructure in that it is not tied to any specific hardware or operating software. Any component of the infrastructure can be changed without affecting the operation of what is being computed. In practice, this typically means virtualization i.e. independence from the physical infrastructure.
* On-demand, pay-as-you-go service delivery. The provision of the service on-demand and billing only for the resources actually used is a major characteristic of the cloud. It is this characteristic that constitutes the main appeal of cloud computing to most.
* Thousands of users using the shared infrastructure, an infrastructure that is constantly refreshed based on user suggestions, with the latest version being available to all users.
* Cloud is an environment where any user is able to get just the type of computing the person or organization needs. In practice, this becomes possible through the scale of operations and the APIs that make it possible to customize the computing.

Considered against the parameters above, Private cloud is a misnomer as far as the “cloud” part is concerned. The “private” part typically involves duplicating much of the infrastructure, thus losing out on a major benefit of cloud computing. Another plus, viz. benefiting from the contributions of thousands of users, is also lost when the “cloud” becomes private.

Read the original blog post at ZDNet Blog.

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The World Wide Web Experience Friday, October 29th, 2010

The World Wide Web is no more a boring place. You can see fantastic effects on Web pages. In addition to plain old text, you can listen to music, see animated things and video clips and even full feature films. You can also interact with the page by entering something into form fields and receiving an appropriate response.

Things were not always like this (as the current Web user generation might assume). Web pages are creates using HTML, and that language was designed for scientific stuff (the Internet was the preserve of scientists in those days). HTML had to go through several versions, and browser makers had to make their products compatible with the evolving HTML standards, before things began to change noticeably.

In the meanwhile, third parties were at work. Browser makers introduced their own non-standard tricks in their browsers. And programs residing on the Web servers did some processing to generate pages on the fly before sending them to the clients, viz. browsers.

Then JavaScript and Flash came along to create some interesting effects at the client end itself. Web developers put some script or code into the HTML of the pages and these were processed by the browsers at the user end, instead of being to sent to the server to process and send back the result.

Java language (not to be confused with JavaScript) introduced servlets that made development of full fledged Web applications easier. Web applications are just like any other software, but executed in a Web browser over the Internet or Intranet.

Ajax was a concept that involved using different technologies like Java, JavaScript, Flash, DHTML etc to create highly interactive and interesting Web applications. Sliverlight from Microsoft and Air from Adobe also focused on Web applications.

It is the result of all these developments that you see on the Web now. Of course, there might be some over use of the effects to create irritating experiences; but few will want to go back to the old boring text Web.

In fact, we might soon be using Web based operating systems such as Google’s Chrome OS that boots up in no time (instead of after an interminable time of mysterious processes under a Windows OS, for example). And Adobe Air has already put Web applications executable offline, i.e. even when you are not connected to the Web.

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Posted in cloud computing, information technology, trends | No Comments »

Cloud Computing: The Green Alternative Monday, October 18th, 2010

Visualize this scenario: You develop search engine software and install it on your system. The software sends out robot spider programs that crawl the Web and the data they bring back is stored on the system’s disks. An indexer program then analyzes the data and creates an index that is also stored on the disks. You use this index to do all your Web searches.

In addition to creating an infrastructure of computers, software, storage media and networks, you have also hired the programmers to develop and maintain the software, system administrators to administer the huge infrastructure and other required support staff.

The same scenario is repeated in all companies that need to search the Web for information, meaning that there are millions of such setups, each of them consuming huge amounts of energy and also creating huge amounts of e-waste, not to mention competing for the hard to find skilled programmers and system administrators.

Ridiculous scenario, you might comment. Why should all these companies develop and run their own search engines when they can simply access Google, Bing or Yahoo!

That is cloud computing for you. You use a service from an Internet (cloud) provider instead of setting up the whole infrastructure yourself.

Even when the service is not free, i.e. you have to pay for using the service, the total cost is likely to be dramatically less if you obtain the service from such a provider who serves a large number of customers requiring that service. The provider has dedicated (and constantly updated) infrastructure and staff for providing the service. And you pay only for what you use, which will be negligibly lower than what you will spend if you organize the service in-house.

And our planet earth will benefit because energy consumption and e-waste generation is far less.

Read about issues raised by cloud computing at Connecticut Law Tribune Website.

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Posted in cloud computing, environment, information technology | 1 Comment »

Information Technology Skills in Demand: The Trend Tuesday, October 12th, 2010

What IT skills will be most in demand in tomorrow’s world?

Universities are exploring the possibility of using the new generation’s fascination with smartphones to advantage. One university is handing out iPads to freshers to research whether and how these can be used for better education delivery. Another university is thinking of co-opting students to develop mobile applications for education.

In Estonia, citizens will be voting through their smartphones.

And of course, much of the Web surfing and e-mail has moved to smartphones.

One can hence conclude that a major skill in demand will be the skill to develop applications for mobile devices and deliver information through them. According to 2010 IBM Tech Trends survey, software professionals expect that application development for mobile devices will surpass all other platforms by 2015.

Another trend noticed by the IBM survey is that cloud computing will overtake traditional on-premise computing. This means a requirement for cloud computing specialists.

Another in-demand skill will be the ability to use social media effectively. Social media like Facebook and Twitter reach a vast audience and businesses will naturally be interested in using this reach to market their products and services effectively.

Business analytics skill to identify what is going on is another critical skill that will be in demand. Much more information is now available through media such as the Web and persons skilled in working with the new analytic tools will find themselves in high demand.

Read about the survey findings at PR Newswire.

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Posted in cloud computing, education delivery, information delivery, information technology, mobile web, smartphone applications, trends | No Comments »

How exactly should Companies go about Using Cloud Computing? Sunday, October 10th, 2010

Cloud computing is the current hot topic in information technology. In essence it involves doing much of the computing work on the Internet “cloud” rather than locally. This can have a significant cost impact as organizations can reduce their spends on:

* Hardware such as servers and application software
* Upgrading from older versions of software to latest versions
* The time involved in planning, implementing and testing additions to the IT functionality
* Training and retraining staff involved in maintaining the hardware and software with each major change

Under full-fledged cloud computing, the vendor will provide the servers, software and storage while users will need only work at their local “terminals” entering data and doing other work. All software will be upgraded to latest versions by the vendor. Users pay only for what they use.

In actual practice, such complete shift of computing to the cloud is rare. Also, most companies and other users are already using cloud computing to some extent without even being aware of it.

In this fluid situation, few users have a clear idea of how to tap the full potential of the cloud computing development. While the term “cloud” computing might give way to another newly coined word in due time, the underlying technology and practices will be in use for a long time.

The Cloud Computing Fundamentals Report discusses all the issues involved such as its impact on business, selecting the particular model of cloud that meets your needs best and best practices for deployment and management.

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Posted in best practices, cloud computing, information technology, innovation | 1 Comment »

Cloud Computing Market in India Monday, September 27th, 2010

The computer revolution started with desktop applications, i.e. software tools that resided on individual desktop computers. The accounting application resided on the accountant’s desktop; the inventory application on the storekeeper’s desktop; and so on. The computer-based applications speeded up the work of recording transactions, and also provided analytical reports more elaborate than what people could prepare by hand.

Then came local area networks that linked the different departmental computers to a central server and it was possible to link the accounting and inventory applications to eliminate duplicate data entry where these occurred. Such centralization of data also enabled one department to access details maintained by anther department, e.g. the production manager could check inventory availability of a particular material in the store from his desktop.

And when the Web appeared, it was possible to integrate applications across the globe. A global corporation could review the progress of a project being executed at the other end of the globe (provided project progress details are being entered in a timely manner into the system).

In all the above scenarios, the businesses have to set up the infrastructure on their own, including hardware and software. They also had to hire staff to operate the hardware and to work with the software. Not only did these cost money but also time; months are typically needed before a new system can be made operational.

Enter cloud computing and the scenario changes dramatically. Software, hardware and staff could all now be hired by the hour at low rates, instead of spending huge sums of money on hardware, software and hiring/training staff. Latest equipment and software versions, operated by experienced staff, become available from dedicated providers who focus on providing cloud computing services. Users pay only for the services they use, instead of setting up an elaborate infrastructure to meet every possible requirement, however infrequently they arise.

The market for cloud computing services is potentially huge as business organizations come to realize the numerous advantages of this option compared to setting up their own infrastructure. A report on Cloud Computing Market in India looks at all the issues involved.

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India, China and Cloud Computing Friday, September 17th, 2010

India has gained a strong reputation in software and services while China’s strength is in computer hardware manufacturing. Until now the two activities, services and manufacture, could proceed somewhat independently and prosper. However, with the arrival of cloud computing, the scenario is likely to change in a significant manner.

Cloud computing involves providing service from the Internet cloud to the clients, and require expertise in both hardware and software, as well as delivery of services. China’s expertise in hardware, and India’s familiarity with the service clients and their requirements, could be combined to become a force in the new market for cloud computing services. However, this requires India and China seeing each other as partners rather than as competitors.

A competitor mentality could see China trying to develop software and services skills, involving acquiring necessary language skills as well as being able to work in the client culture. This is going to take a long time. And similar time periods will be involved if India tries to develop the manufacturing infrastructure and skills.

Wasting that kind of time in a field where things are changing fast, instead of working together combining each other’s strengths, will be missing a great opporunity, says the author of the article India and China, Tech Frenemies in The Wall Street Journal.

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