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Dr. Michael D. Featherstone

Introduction to e-CommerceWhat the Heck is Cloud

Computing?

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Cloud Computing

There are several different uses of the term “Cloud Computing” today. This probably causes a great deal of the confusion.

1.Common applications available on Web.

2. Vast ‘server farms’ of Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft.

3. Computing as a ‘Utility’ (Utility Model of Computing)

There are some subtle distinctions between these.

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Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing is important because it is TRANSITIONAL and/or TRANSFORMATIONAL.

That is to say it represents a ‘New paradigm’ in computing. It is another one of those pesky ‘Punctuated Equilibriums’ we mentioned during the first week of the class.

As such, it will have a huge impact on:

1.The way enterprises (business and education) use computers

2.The way we use computers as individuals.

3.The design of computers themselves.

4.Computer software such as operating systems and applications.

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Cloud Computing

This is not the first ‘punctuated equilibrium’.

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Utility Model and Cloud Computing

Burdens Wheel c. 1851 “the Niagara of Waterwheels”

500 hp

Manufactured energy for his plant, which allowed him to manufacture goods. The company was able to expand efficiency and productivity. It produced more horseshoes, rail spikes, with fewer workers and in less time.

And so other manufacturers followed his model.

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Utility Model and Cloud Computing

Then came a ‘Paradigm Shift’ (or is it a ‘Punctuated Equilibrium?).

An entirely new way of providing power which would have a dramatic impact on business and society.

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Utility Model and Cloud Computing

When Edison began to generate electricity it was Burdens model which early adaptors chose to employ:

Each factory had its own staff of engineers who would keep the dynamos turning in order to provide electrical power for each particular location. Sound familiar yet?

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Utility Model and Cloud Computing

Edison’s business model was to encourage a large growth in the number of utility providers, and to use his companies to sell them the equipment they would need.

In 1889 Edison consolidated his many companies the Edison General Electric Company and after a merger with Thompson-Huston in the 1890’s it became known as General Electric, for decades considered one of America’s best managed companies.

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Utility Model and Cloud Computing

Samuel Insull championed a slightly different idea, that of huge central generating facility which served a much larger area.

The cheap power pumped out by electric utilities didn’t just change how businesses operate. It set off a chain reaction of economic and social transformations that brought the modern world into existence.

Electricity became an inexpensive utility.

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The Cloud

Shift Happens

Many believe (me included) we are now at the beginning of a huge paradigm shift similar to that which occurred at the turn of the 19th Century.

The new ‘network reality’ for business.

Until recently, enterprises have felt the necessity to have their computing needs managed by (an often huge) internal IT (information technology) department managed by a chief technology officer (CTO).

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Cloud Computing

Today, a similar revolution is under way. Hooked up to the Internet’s global computing grid, massive information-processing plants have begun pumping data and software code into our homes and businesses.

This time, it’s computing that’s turning into a utility. FOR EXAMPLE… companies can now pay a single fee to use an internet service and employees can access their applications and store their data on the service providers Web servers.

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Cloud Computing

In March 2001, when Google was serving about 70 million pages a day, its computing system had about 8'000 servers; by 2003 that number had grown to 100'000. Today "the best guess is that Google has more than 500'000 servers spread over at least 25 locations around the world". For comparison, Microsoft's Internet activities currently use some 200'000 servers.

In a recent Fortune article David Kirkpatrick puts the number of Google servers around the world at one million and confirms that Microsoft is also investing billions in infrastructure. Kirkpatrick quotes Microsoft's Ray Ozzie: "Just think about where there are windmills, dams, and other natural power sources around the world: that's where you're going to see server farms".

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Cloud Computing - Enterprise

Some ‘Enterprise’ companies providing cloud computing services.

Google Without a doubt 'the elephant in the cloud' -Google filed as long ago as February 2006 a provisional patent application with 91 different numbered claims that arguably makes it clear that Google has a multi-year lead in cloud computing.

Microsoft See the article Microsoft to Google: Get off My Cloud

IBM ‘Computing as a utility

Amazon it single-handedly brought Cloud Computing to the very forefront of public awareness by using Web services to provide what it called "resizeable compute capacity in the cloud." EC2 runs within Amazon's proven network infrastructure and datacenters and allows customers to pay only for what they use

HP As long ago as 2009, HP announced its "HP Cloud Assure" offering, a SaaS offering designed "to help businesses safely and effectively adopt cloud-based services."

Oracle

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Cloud Computing - Individuals

If you:

•Use Facebook

•Use YouTube

•Use eBay

•Use a smartphone app

•Use Google Drive or Google +

•Use Skype

•Use any internet based applications

You are computing in the cloud

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Cloud Computing

You don’t have store the application software on your computer, as you do with MS Word, or Excel, or PowerPoint.

Nor do you store the data on your computer, as you do with those applications.

You don’t need a complex operating system which knows how to store data on your disk drive… in other words, you don’t even need a disk drive.

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Cloud Computing

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Cloud Computing

This means we don’t need the same kind of device to ‘compute’ as we did before the Web.

We move from this…

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Cloud Computing

To these.

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Cloud Computing

And we move from this…

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Cloud Computing

To these.

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Thank you for your attention

This Concludes Today’s Presentation