Musical Flying Robots

Playing the James Bond theme... It is sort of disorienting to think how clever we are becoming.

Top 10 Internet Service Providers

1. Earth Link
2. AOL
3. Comcast
4. MSN
5. NetZero
6. Verizon
7. AT&T
8. Juno
9. Qwest
10. ISP.com

News

 

 

By RAR

So now we have all watched the Microsoft "To the Cloud" commercial, where a couple stranded in an airport kills time by accessing recorded videos from their home computer via Windows Live. For them "the cloud" is a thing that transports them from their present reality to some place conveniently distracting, and like most convenient distractions in modern life this one is on line. The "cloud", for all practical purposes, is "the Internet", but more specifically certain types of application programs offered from Web sites on the Internet. Calling using the Internet "going to the cloud" sounds a lot more romantic, but while the branding is a marketing confection the reference is to a specific type of Web-based software that resides on line and usually independent of the user's computer. (Some cloud computing software does require some installation on the user's C drive.) The graphic explanation above came from Wikipedia.

Skip to "What Can the Cloud Mean for You?"

Microsoft has been at the forefront of "cloud computing", which encompasses any subscription-based or pay-per-use service that is delivered in real time over the Internet. If you and your kids have been playing Xbox LIVE to participate in multiplayer gaming, you have been visiting "the cloud" for some time now thanks to Microsoft's innovations, though they have tons of company on this frontier of Web-based enterprise. Facebook comes to mind, for the social network is all in "the cloud". Sony is there with their PlayStation. Apple is building a $1 billion data center in Maiden, North Carolina for their iCloud products, which gives one some idea of the anticipated server capacity requirement for services as robust as those imagined for the Cloud, which comes with huge retrieval and storage demands. Google, Amazon, even stuffy old Hewlett Packard, have committed to this much-hyped vision for how computing power will be utilized in our daily lives: beyond the firewalls of our personal computers and local area networks.

Software as a Service: At the heart of cloud computing is the "Software as a Service (SaaS)" model, under which a single application, designed as a multitenant architecture, provides some combination of packaged services. The management is largely server side, meaning that IT groups and/or Managed Service Providers (MSP) handle all of the maintenance and operations details while the users, who pay fee for service or transaction charges, benefit from the functions provided without having to own the program application.

SaaS has made early inroads into the corporate world with products that handle basic non-critical human resources functions, such as time sheet recording and management of employee files. Customer Relationship Management (CRM), the concept in use by sales forces to capture data about their clients and their purchase histories, has been an early offering from the SaaS era. Backup and Storage services have also been early providers of services.

The table below provides an overview cloud computing services with examples of providers currently available.

Early players in the SaaS industry include the following companies and you can use the links provided to go directly to their SaaS sites.

The list above was compiled by the SaaS Chronicles Web site, which is an excellent source for information on the SaaS industry.

Cloud computing is a "next wave" concept in which the vision is a bit out ahead of its current capabilities.

Where Linklider, Berners-Lee and Cailliau had envisioned a network infrastructure and a means for accessing documents, the promise of cloud computing is tied to the promise of integrating free standing cloud computing applications. This is the new frontier that has not yet been civilized. At present, cloud computing is provided in a range of stand alone service offerings, but aggregator and integrator software is coming into the marketplace and it won't be long before going to the cloud may mean functionalities heretofore unimagined.

Cloud computing, at its ultimate, is the dream of many powerful applications working efficiently in unison in a virtual environment to produce deliverables we may not have even thought of yet. So here we are in the realm of the visionary entrepreneur, for the combined power of Internet technology, human knowledge, and entrepreneurial imagination is about to reveal a remarkable new level of information sharing and management.

What Can "the Cloud" Mean for You?

For energy efficiency, the cloud means that data center facility managers may be able to reduce the number of servers that they must operate, along with the amount of energy used to cool their server environments. While that may not sound like a big deal, it has been projected that by 2020, given current practices, 15 percent of total global emission of greenhouse gas (GHG) will come from Information and Communication Technology (ICT) solutions. In 2011 alone, US data centers consume twice the amount of power that they consumed the previous year.

Large companies adopting the cloud can reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions by 30 percent, and small business up to 90 percent. For example, a shift in IT management that moves applications off in-house servers and to 1,000 cloud servers would cut carbon emissions in that sampling by 50 percent. That is equal to the  carbon emissions produced by 261 homes or 444 cars traveling down the highway. It would represent a carbon offset equivalent of planting 5,810 trees.

For consumers, the cloud means that you can use free Apps from Google to develop and share documents, rather than buying the Microsoft Office Suite. That is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of describing the alternative universe being opened to consumers, and the options this provides through the delivery of Apps.

On the service side, cloud computing offers customer relationship management capabilities to businesses that have the potential to deliver more efficient and effective services.

Among the consumer savings and benefits are those derived from the "Smart Meter" technology that allows utility customers to monitor the energy usage in their homes to reduce overall consumption and to help them schedule usage at the most affordable times of the day.

For businesses, cloud computing means lower overheads and potentially greater efficiencies. This is already happening: companies operate without having to own servers; they use Google for their email, Salesforce.com for sales, marketing, support and billing; hosted accounting software; Skype for audio and visual communications; and Google spreadsheets and docs for resource scheduling and business planning.

As important as any of that is that is that cloud computing allows companies to have consultants strategically placed throughout their service areas and to manage their activities using the same means used to manage personnel and resources in the home office. That is huge!

Cloud computing is redefining the role of the Chief Information Officer (CIO), the IT professional whose once managed only the IT infrastructure but who now becomes a manager of multi-platform internal and external services. A recent Society for Information Management (SIM) study revealed that the average life of a CIO in a major corporation is only 4.4 years, and they offer this amusingly pitiful explanation of the usual employment arc:

“The first year as CIO is the honeymoon. The second year is about strategy and planning, and the third year is about implementing. In the fourth year they (the higher-ups) figure out that the execution isn’t going that well, and in the fifth year, you start looking for your next job.”  

Another study conducted by IDG Research Services on behalf of CA Technologies quizzed 200 IT managers in the U.S. and Europe to learn that most see their value to their organizations being derived in the immediate future by their management of  the IT supply chain. Services that were once managed in house by other department heads will become the province of the CIO as those services are moved to cloud-based delivery.

Security has been and will continue to be a big problem for cloud-based services, which has prompted some businesses to try in-house cloud environments.

For software developers, the advent of cloud computing offers an entirely new market that has found an immediate niche for enterprise-class applications. NetSuite Inc., for instance, is providing a SuiteCloud development platform, which has been embraced by many of the top enterprise-class companies (e.g., Ariba, Citrix Systems, Concur, Yammer, Callidus Software) and independent software developers (ISVs) (e.g., SuiteApps).

NetSuite's SuiteCloud is a comprehensive offering of cloud-based products, development tools, and services designed to help customers and commercial software developers take advantage of the significant economic benefits of cloud computing. The complete SuiteCloud offering includes NetSuite's multi-tenant, always-on SaaS infrastructure; the NetSuite Business Suite of applications for Accounting/ERP, CRM and Ecommerce; and comprehensive development tools to create cloud-based business applications on top of NetSuite.

For casual users, the Apple iCloud, only announced in the past week (June 6, 2011), allows users to store music, photos, applications, documents, iBooks and contacts. It serves Apple's email servers and calendars and provides each account holder with 5GB of free storage. Purchased music, apps and books and the Photo Stream service will not reduce this free space. Any music files purchased via iTunes are automatically downloaded to any registered devices, e.g. iPods, iPhones and computers. When a user registers a new device all iTunes content can be automatically downloaded. Apple is also offering a subscription service called iTunes MatchFor , which allows customers to scan and match tracks in their iTunes music library, including tracks copied from CDs or other sources, with tracks in the iTunes Store. Apple will let customers download up to 25,000 tracks in 256 kbps AAC file format that match tracks in any audio file format in the customers' collection. Any music that is not available in the iTunes Store must be uploaded to iCloud, though which formats are allowed to be uploaded is unclear.

Apple's iCloud commitment has some kinks to work through, particularly around the Apple Lossless (ALAC) audio format, which current users of iTunes software may already have chosen to use for all or some of their collections for quality reasons. The issue is the controversial "Digital Rights Management" (DRM) coding put in place to protect copyright material from file sharing. In announcing the iCloud, Apple said that 128kbps AAC files from the iTunes music store with DRM will automatically be converted to the 256 kbps non-DRM versions for free, but iCloud support for the ALAC files is "up in the air" as of this date.

Music is an enormous driver of cloud computing services, and while Apple iCloud is about to swamp the market there are currently alternatives available that offer impressive benefits.

The hottest of these is the free music streaming service Spotify. The service offers a large music library of mostly new artists and some unique benefits, such as the ability to play all night - handy for a party where requests for certain tracks might otherwise exceed the range of your personal library - and for musicians to upload their tunes.

CONCLUSION: Depending upon how it is managed, the cloud may be nothing more than an advanced business model for goods and services promoted, sold and distributed on line where the operation can be tightly controlled by the provider. Or perhaps it will be more: a spicket that can be opened to receive a better quality of life through integrated control of our calendars, resources, perhaps even our environment. (5-12-11)

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Computing Basics

Under the Hood

In computing, data is defined in various ways depending upon its use and purpose, but it is always the most primitive form of some qualitative or quantitative variable or set of variables.

Data is brought together, through processing, to be formed into useable Information.

The table below discusses aspects of computing in terms of Fine and Coarse grain characteristics. Fine grain stuff takes place behind the scenes, within the operations of a computer system. Coarse grain level stuff is that with which we interact directly: program applications, hardware, infrastructure. If you are having a hard time understanding how cloud computing works, this table is provides definitions and context for the discussion above.

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BACKGROUND:

Definition of: enterprise networking from the Encyclopedia at www.pcmag.com 

The networking infrastructure in a large enterprise with multiple computer systems and networks of different types is extraordinarily complex. Due to the myriad of interfaces that are required, much of what goes on has little to do with the real data processing of the payroll and orders. An enormous amount of effort goes into planning the integration of disparate networks and systems and managing them, and, planning again for yet more interfaces as marketing pressures force vendors to develop new techniques that routinely change the ground rules.

Application Development/Configuration Management
There are a large number of programming languages and development tools for writing today's applications. Each development system has its own visual programming interface for building GUI front ends and its own fourth-generation language (4GLs) for doing the business logic. Programmers are always learning new languages to meet the next generation.

Traditional programming has given way to programming for graphical user interfaces and object-oriented methods, two technologies with steep learning curves for the traditional programmer.

Programming managers are responsible for maintaining legacy systems in traditional languages while developing new systems in newer languages. They must also find ways to keep track of all the program modules and ancillary files that make up an application when several programmers work on a project. Stand-alone version control and configuration management programs handle this, and parts of these systems are increasingly being built into the development systems themselves (see configuration management).

Database Management
Like all software, a database management system (DBMS) must support the hardware platform and operating system it runs in. In order to move a DBMS to another platform, a version must be available for the new hardware and operating system. The common database language between client and server is SQL, but each DBMS vendor implements its own rendition of SQL, requiring a special SQL interface to most every DBMS.

Database administrators must select the DBMS or DBMSs that efficiently process the daily transactions and also provide sufficient horsepower for decision support. They must decide when and how to split the operation into different databases, one for daily work, the other for ad hoc queries. They must also create the structure of the database by designing the record layouts and their relationships to each other.

Operating Systems
Operating systems are the master control programs that run the computer system. Single-user operating systems, such as Windows and Mac, are used in the clients, and multiuser network operating systems, such as Windows NT/2000, Unix and NetWare, are used in the servers. Windows is the clear winner on the desktop, but Windows and Unix compete with each other for the server side.

The operating system sets the standard for the programs that run under it. The choice of operating system combined with the hardware platform determines which ready-made applications can be purchased to work on it.

Systems programmers and IT managers must determine when newer versions of operating systems make sense and plan how to integrate them into existing environments.

Communications Protocols
Communications protocols determine the format and rules for how the transmitted data are framed and managed from the sending station to the receiving station. Exchanging data and messages between PCs, Macs, mainframes and Unix servers used to mean designing networks for a multiprotocol environment. Today, most enterprises have migrated their proprietary protocols (IBM's SNA, Apple's AppleTalk, Novell's IPX/SPX, Microsoft's NetBEUI) to the Unix-based TCP/IP protocol, which is the transport of the Internet.

LANs
Transmission from station to station within a LAN is performed by the LAN access method, or data link protocol, which is typically Ethernet. As traffic expands within an organization, higher bandwidth is required, causing organizations to plan for faster Ethernet connections (from 100 Mbps to 1,000 Mbps to 10,000 Mbps).

Repeaters, bridges, routers, gateways, hubs and switches are the devices used to extend, convert, route and manage traffic in an enterprise network. Increasingly, one device takes on the job of another (a router does bridging, a hub does routing). Over the years, vendor offerings have been dizzying.

Network traffic is becoming as jammed as the Los Angeles freeways. Network administrators have to analyze current network traffic in light of future business plans and increasing use of Web pages, images, sound and video files. They have to determine when to increase network bandwidth while maintaining existing networks, which today have become the technical lifeblood of an enterprise.

WANs
Transmitting data to remote locations requires the use of private lines or public switched services offered by local and long distance carriers and Internet providers. Connections can be as simple as dialing up via modem or by leasing private lines, such as T1 and T3. Switched 56, frame relay, ISDN, SMDS and ATM offer a variety of switched services in which you pay for the digital traffic you use. With Internet access, you typically pay a fixed amount per month based on the total bandwidth of the connection.

Laptop use has created a tremendous need for remote access to LANs. Network administrators have to design LANs with a combination of remote access and remote control capability to allow mobile workers access to their databases and processing functions.

Network Management
Network management is the monitoring and control of LANs and WANs from a central management console. It requires network management software, such as IBM's NetView and HP's OpenView. The Internet's SNMP has become the de facto standard management protocol, but there are many network management programs and options. For example, there are more than 30 third-party add-ons for HP's popular OpenView software.

Systems and Storage Management
Systems management includes a variety of functions for managing computers in a networked environment, including software distribution, version control, backup & recovery, printer spooling, job scheduling, virus protection and performance and capacity planning. Network management may also fall under the systems management umbrella.

Storage management has become critical for two reasons. First, there is an ever-increasing demand for storage due to the Internet, document management and data warehousing as well as increasing daily transaction volume in growing companies. Secondly, finding the time window in a 7x24 operation to copy huge databases for backup, archiving and disaster recovery has become more difficult.

Electronic Mail
Most earlier proprietary mail systems have given way to Internet protocol-based e-mail; however, some still remain within the enterprise. No matter which mail system is used, keeping the network safe from virus-laden attachments and preventing it from overloading because of spam is an ongoing challenge.

The Internet and Intranets
As if everything above is not enough to keep the technical staff busy, the World Wide Web came along in the mid-1990s with the force of a tornado, and nothing in the IT world would ever be the same. Today, the Internet sets many of the standards, and the browser has become an interface for accessing just about everything. Every component of system software from operating system to database management system, as well as every application on the market, was revamped in some manner to be Internet compliant. Today, almost every new application deals with the Internet in some manner.