Posts Tagged ‘cloud computing’

Google Apps: Government Version Available Thursday, July 29th, 2010

Google Apps is an office suite that includes the traditional word processing, spreadsheet and other documents, plus email, calendar and instant messaging. It is a Web application, meaning that the user does not have to purchase any hardware or software. It also means that the user can access the application from anywhere over the Internet, with a guarantee of 99.9% uptime.

Google says that the suite supports access of information over mobile phones, thus making employees more productive. They can access their email, calendar and instant messages using Blackberry, iPhone, Windows Mobile, Android and other phones.

The applications can be customized to meet the technical, branding and business requirements of individual organizations.

Security features include spam and inbound mail filtering, filtering of outbound mail to prevent sensitive information going out, custom sharing rules that determine how broadly employees can share documents and SSL connections, among others.

Google has announced that a new version of the Apps suite specifically designed for government customers is now ready. The major difference of this version from the standard one is the higher level of security. The company had to provide for the “enormous amount of controls” needed as per Federal Information Security Management Act before getting a certification.

Read the news at CNET News.

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Cloud Computing with iPad: the Cetrom Example Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

A press release from Cetrom Information Technology shows how the company has met customer expectations quickly. The company is an Application Services Provider providing many applications including Microsoft Office and QuickBooks under the Software as a Service (SaaS) model. SaaS falls under the category of cloud computing that also covers providing IT infrastructure, computing platforms and data storage space on an “as needed” basis from the Internet cloud.

Many of Cetrom’s customers are among the group of avid fans that Apple manages to create for all their new releases. And these fans were delighted to find that they could continue to use many of the cloud computing applications from the new Apple iPad. Cetrom’s business owner customers could thus evaluate business applications immediately on the iPad.

Apple iPad sales are expected to be in the range of five to ten million units by the end of 2010 and this large user base will need a wide range of applications that will work on the device. Developers have already started working on applications that will work on iPad. It is in this context that Cetrom’s service becomes significant.

By making cloud computing applications accessible “anyhow” (through the iPad in this case), in addition to anywhere and anytime, Cetrom has shown how companies can respond to customers quickly. The iPad was released only last month. Read their news release at EarthTimes

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How the U.S. Government Plans to tap Cloud Computing for Better Governance Sunday, April 11th, 2010

The Chief Information Officer of U.S. President presented the government plans to leverage cloud computing for doing its business in a way that uses taxpayer dollars in a more responsible manner. Cloud computing is expected to deliver (i) economic gains, (ii) environmental benefits and (iii) greater ability to provide services on demand according to the CIO.

The CIO compared cloud computing to centralized water supply. Whereas in a bygone era every house had its own private well, these days households get their water by turning on the water tap. Each household can use just the quantity of water it needs, making the unused water available to others.

Similarly in cloud computing, computing resourcs are available on tap. Networks, servers, storage and application software all are on the Internet, available to those who need it. You save money because you don’t have to install everthing at your premises (and then underutilize the installed computing resources). Instead, you pay only for what you use of the shared computing resources.

Just like invididuals and prive businesses, governments can also benefit by tapping cloud computing technology. The U.S. government spent over $76 million for more than 10,000 systems to support more than 300 million Americans. Government data centers now exceed 1,100, more than double what it was a decade ago.

Much of the IT infrastructure is redundant and also leads to high consumption of energy, expected to exceed 12 billion kWh in 2011 if things do not change. Despite the heavy spending, skilled workers and vital funds are underutilized. The results are unimpressive.

Read the full remarks of the CIO at: Government Computer News website.

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Cloud Computing can Unleash the Potential of Your Employees Friday, April 2nd, 2010

Traditionally, businesses bought servers and software that were installed in their offices. Both servers and software cost money up front. Additionally, staff had to be trained not only in using the system but also in maintaining the equipment and software.

And once operations started, various other issues appeared. Data and applications had to be backed up to recover from inevitable data loss situations of many kinds. Equipment and system crashes had to be monitored and attended to in a timely manner. You needed a whole department of expensive IT people to attend to everything.

Cloud computing saves you all this trouble. You work out an arrangement with a service provider for what you want, and the servers and systems you want will be available in minutes. You can upload your applications to the new servers and start operations.

You can go further by looking for a vendor who offers software as well as servers on the cloud. The combo will save you the time spent on uploading, installing and configuring the software. Instead, you just start using the software in minutes. And you will automatically get to use the latest version of the software without even being aware of it.

Compare this to the earlier scenario where you had to wait for your IT department to get and install the servers, configure them and arrange staff to make everything operational while you waited (and probably soon lost your enthusiasm for the whole project). Few managers will be willing to take on the hassle and go for new ideas in such an environment.

Done right, organizations care release the creativity and potential of their employees by going in for cloud computing. Capacities and capabilities will take on an entire new dimension under cloud computing. And doing it right means getting to know cloud computing and what it can do, and then starting to use these to meet your particular needs.

Just who in your organization will attend to this task? Or will you ignore the dramatic new potential of cloud computing?

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Retraining IT Technicians to Help the Elderly use Telehealth Technology Thursday, April 1st, 2010

The Health and Wealth Care Initiative for Vermont and New Hampshire is seeking a $1.75 million grant, which it will match with $750,000, under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to retrain IT workers. These will be people who are familiar with older computer systems, who will now be trained to work with “cloud computing” where applications and data reside on the Internet instead of on local computers.

The retrained IT workers will then act as mentors to elderly people helping them use telehealth systems. Telehealth systems link patients to their healthcare providers over the Internet. Digital devices can transmit patient data to the healthcare provider and patients receive guidance and treatment remotely.

The retrained IT workers will help the aged to use devices like the Apple iPad that combines a phone and computer. Elderly patients living in rural areas can benefit greatly from the new initiative, its proponents argue. It will also create new employment opportunities to IT workes whose skills might be outdated.

One incidental benefit claimed for the initiative is that patients are more honest in answering health questions over the computer as against face-to-face consultations with their physicians.

Read the news at fosters.com

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U.S. Government and Cloud Computing Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

The U.S. Chief Information Officer said the government wanted to put data such as health-care pricing information on the Web. Private companies like Microsoft, Google and Amazon are offering databases and programs through Web servers, helping users save on local storage.

By adopting the same strategy, US government can help save on U.S. storage needs and cut expenses. The government had spent over $500 billion in the past decade on data centers and other technology initiatives. This has led to duplication of stored data and applications, to huge increase in costs and to high consumption of energy.

The CIO of U.S. government is advocating cloud computing in government. Cloud refers to the Internet, and cloud computing involves moving data and applications from local user servers to Web servers managed by Web service providers. Google and Microsoft have introduced government-focused clouds to tap the potential market.

If the government embraces cloud computing it could signal that this option is a secure option, and more businesses could opt for the solution. Global spending on cloud computing is expected to top $44 billion in 2013, according to IDC.

Cloud computing can also help government employees to collaborate better and be more productive, and lead to dramatically reduced government costs.

Read about the initiatives at BusinessWeek.

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Security of Cloud Technologies Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

Google and others are promoting cloud computing, under which applications and data are stored on the Internet cloud. For clients of cloud computing such as users of Google Apps, this provides the opportunity to focus on their core business instead of worrying over information technology incidentals such as installing and configuring software, upgrading it and attending to data security and backup issues.

Cloud computing service providers will attend to all the incidental issues. Users simply start using the application they want, which can be in as quick as a few minutes. Users can also access the applications and data from anywhere with an Internet connection.

However, users have not yet got all that comfortable with entrusting their data to the cloud service providers. A recent Data Management Healthcheck 2010 survey by BridgeHead Software reports that only 6.5% of the respondents reported having used the cloud to store their data.

The healthcare industry will have to cope with huge volumes of data as it adopts IT more aggressively. Cloud storage of the data can save huge amount of headache typically associated with managing such data volumes. The data must be stored safe from unauthorized access, backed up regularly to ensure that a copy is available in case the original is lost and quickly reconstructed in case a data loss incident occurs.

The major concern of survey respondents about cloud storage was regarding the security and availaibility of the data. The data generated by the industry is highly confidential and the companies are committed to protecting patient data.

Despite such concerns, experts anticipate that the cloud will increasingly be the preferred destination for data storage, backup and archiving. Read the story at: eHealthServer.

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Emerging Trends in Information Technology Saturday, March 6th, 2010

Cloud Computing: With the increasing ease of accessing resources on the Internet, a new trend is emerging to use computing resources available on the Internet “cloud” instead of installing needed software on local machines. Even data storage can be moved to this cloud saving on expensive and difficult-to-manage local storage media. Dedicated service providers on the cloud can relieve computer users from the tedium and costs of tasks that are only incidental, such as software upgrade, data backup, disaster recovery and more.

Virtualization: Virtualization stands for a host of things in the computing world. The essence of virtualization is separating functionality from the underlying physical resource. For example, a computer user typically uses a physical computer to do various computing tasks. However, because the CPU of the computer does work extremely faster compared to the human user, it is possible for several users to use the CPU of a single machine without any apparent degradation in the computing service they receive. A virtualized system makes it possible for multiple users to use such underutilized physical computing resources.

Information Security: Instead of just virus attacks, businesss data is exposed to varied kinds of threats these days. Compliance requirements, preventing unauthorized access to data, theft of data during transmission over the Internet and denial of service attacks are examples of issues that have an impact on information security. Vulnerabilities can occur in hardware, software or during communication. Data losses can cripple businesses as business data is unique. In such a context, the approaches used to ensure confidentiality, integrity and availability of data are undergoing qualitative changes, including adoption of third-party online data storage, security verification of vendors, encryption of data and focused attention on business continuity issues.

Social Media: Social media such as networking sites and blogs are of interest not only to marketers who want to use these to communicate with prospective customers but even to job applicants who might find their applications rejected because of some inappropriate posts they made on their online profile. The media is new and few people know how to use it effectively and safely.

Communication: Communication is one area where practically everybody in modern societies have seen the results of progress. E-mails, live chats, VOIP, Video conferences, Webinars and social media mentioned above are all transforming the way we communicate. And technologies like text-to-voice and voice-to-text can help visual and hearing challenged persons to live more satisfying lives.

A visit to a reputed information technology exhibition is one way interested persons and organizations can get a better idea of the developments and the opportunities they offer for business.

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