Essential Cloud Computing Skills
Teaching Uses of Google Translate API
Cloud Computing offers a range of resources for enhancing teaching and learning process. For long, I have been using an assorted set of cloud computing tools, blogs, docs, custom search engine and more and integrating them into my teaching process. They have empowered me. For instance, course home blogs helped me reach out students outside of class hours; while Google Forms helped me collect student related data.
Ravindra Dastikop via kwout
Recently I discovered another interesting resource: Google Translate API. This tools helps teachers much further and now learners can read lessons posted by teacher in their own languages. I specialize in cloud computing and run a dedicated blog for sharing cloud computing information from beginners through intermediate to advanced users. Until now, this blog was available only in English. Now using the translate API, it is made available in Hindi, Kannada, Telugu, Tamil , Gujarati and Bengali in addition to many foreign languages. You may see them here
An Indian Perspective on Cloud Computing
Here is an interesting posting on " An Indian Perspective on Cloud Computing " by Joshua J. Romeroin IEEE.
“The cloud has flattened IT the way networks flattened the world,” said Cisco’s Vice President of Engineering Vivek Mansingh, during the panel discussion at the first-ever Cloud Computing in Emerging Markets conference. Held on 11 and 12 October in Bangalore, India, the new IEEE event focused on how countries like India can harness the distributed nature of cloud computing to fuel economic growth, build new businesses, and even help close the digital divide. Conference speakers focused on the unique challenges that cloud providers need to consider in India, as well as opportunities that don’t exist in more established markets.
IMPROVING INFRASTRUCTURE
One of the most obvious challenges embracing cloud computing in emerging markets is the lack of dependable infrastructure. With the grid subject to intermittent power outages, data center operators are forced to rely on expensive diesel fuel to run backup generators. And to have access to data anytime, anywhere, dependable networks are a prerequisite.
One of the most obvious challenges embracing cloud computing in emerging markets is the lack of dependable infrastructure. With the grid subject to intermittent power outages, data center operators are forced to rely on expensive diesel fuel to run backup generators. And to have access to data anytime, anywhere, dependable networks are a prerequisite.
Some companies are using these infrastructure challenges to spur new innovation. For example, at IBM’s Bangalore office, a small group of employees have added rooftop solar panels to provide high-voltage DC power to their own data center. In established markets, such solar installations might take a decade or more to pay for themselves. But in India, where diesel power continues to go up in cost and solar power is subsidized, the solar system can pay for itself in only four to five years, according the IBM team.
Other groups are looking at ways to harness the excess capacity of existing computing resources. During the oral presentations, a team from IIIT Delhi university reported its progress on transforming the idle capacity of the school’s computer lab into a private cloud.
BUSINESS ADOPTION
Because they’ve solved many of the infrastructure challenges already, large businesses are likely to be the first to embrace the cloud, said several conference speakers. Unlike smaller businesses, most large companies in India already use IT, and it’s relatively easy for them to embrace the cost savings and efficiencies that cloud-based systems offer. The market for cloud computing in India already doubled between 2009 and 2011, according to Pari Natarajan, CEO of Zinnov Management Consulting. He expects private clouds for large businesses to make up the bulk of Indian cloud computing growth, at least in the next few years. One advantage that such companies have over their more established counterparts is that they don’t have legacy infrastructure to transform, said IBM fellow Stefan Pappe. “They can decide more quickly to adopt these new strategies,” he said. IEEE Chief Information Officer Alexander Pasik echoed that point, saying that inertia and corporate culture make it harder for established IT departments to fully embrace the cloud.
Because they’ve solved many of the infrastructure challenges already, large businesses are likely to be the first to embrace the cloud, said several conference speakers. Unlike smaller businesses, most large companies in India already use IT, and it’s relatively easy for them to embrace the cost savings and efficiencies that cloud-based systems offer. The market for cloud computing in India already doubled between 2009 and 2011, according to Pari Natarajan, CEO of Zinnov Management Consulting. He expects private clouds for large businesses to make up the bulk of Indian cloud computing growth, at least in the next few years. One advantage that such companies have over their more established counterparts is that they don’t have legacy infrastructure to transform, said IBM fellow Stefan Pappe. “They can decide more quickly to adopt these new strategies,” he said. IEEE Chief Information Officer Alexander Pasik echoed that point, saying that inertia and corporate culture make it harder for established IT departments to fully embrace the cloud.
State of India Cloud Computing- 1: Factors for Adoption
In a recent report titled the India Cloud Market Overview, the International Data Corporation (IDC)stated that the Indian cloud market has grown by 70 percent last year (2012), and is expected to exhibit a 50 percent growth rate for the next three more years. It is said that the Indian cloud market is rapidly maturing and seeing new entrants and investors, even though public cloud still lags way behind the private cloud due to a number of factors.
Factors Affecting Public Cloud Adoption in India
Like with any emerging market, the biggest challenge for public cloud computing in India is the lack of dependable infrastructure. In some areas of the country, the grid is still subject to intermittent power outages, which means data center operators will have to contend with downtimes and possible loss of service and data, or be forced to rely on diesel fuel to run backup generators, which can be very impractical when it comes to operational costs.
Another challenge that’s slowing down the rate of public cloud adoption in India is disparity between urban and rural residents, between uneducated and educated people, and between people who don’t have access to technology and people who do. It’s true that cloud computing offers advantages or benefits that extend beyond the context of businesses, but until people who don’t really have much to do with technology start to feel its benefits, the adoption of public cloud will remain limited to large businesses who have faith in the technology.
One of the cloud’s key benefits also end up having an unintended side effect in India, as its ability to boost the growth of an organization has helped widen the gap between large businesses and SMEs – with large businesses being more savvy and able to adopt the cloud for their operations, while small enterprises are unable to adopt the cloud and remain stagnant.
The future looks bright, nonetheless, as some of the more progressive companies in the country have used the problems with infrastructure as an encouragement to spur new innovation. For example, IBM’s Bangalore office has solved problems with the inconsistent power grid and the high cost of diesel-based generators by installing rooftop solar panels that provide direct current power to their own data centers. In a lot of established markets, solar installations may not be worth their upkeep costs at such low volumes but in India, where diesel power is on the increase and solar power is subsidized, the solar system ends up paying for itself in as little as four years.
Other companies also become creative in avoiding or solving the increased cost of cloud computing brought forth by a weak infrastructure, such as the IIIT Delhi University, which uses the idle capacity of their school’s computer lab as a private cloud. Source
Cloud Computing: Towards a Definition
Cloud computing is a type of service network that provides computing resources for users on-demand. These resources are composed as services by cloud service providers and delivered to the user, called the consumer. Cloud Computing services are broadly classified into three major categories namely Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) where user is provided with storage, computation, networks and more of such hardware resources; Platform as a Service(PaaS) where user is provided with an environment to develop, test and deploy applications and services; and Software as a service (SaaS) where user is provided with a complete software package. A cloud computing system uses the Internet and open to general public is called the Public Cloud. On the other hand, a cloud computing system built by an organization and restricted to insiders such as employees or partners is called a private cloud. A combination of private and public cloud constitutes a hybrid cloud. Service providers establish data center to build and deliver services.
Roots and Routes of Cloud Computing: Conceptual Origins of Cloud Computing
Conceptual Origins of Cloud Computing of can be traced to the following pioneers and development. Since the early days of networking, it appears that cloud computing was seen as the end goal of many computer pioneers in the 1960s, or, at least, the goal of the early experiments that would eventually become the Internet.
There are three main figures commonly cited as laying the conceptual framework for cloud computing: John McCarthy, JCR Licklider, and Douglas F. Parkhill.
McCarthy first proposed in 1957 that time sharing of computing resources might allow companies to sell excess computation services for maximum utilization of the resource. He even imagined that computation might be organized as a utility.
Licklider, a programmer at the Advanced Research Projects Agency, highlighted some of the promise and challenges in cloud computing in a 1963 memo to those he described as the "Members and Affiliates of the Intergalactic Computer Network." Specifically, he talked about the ability to send a problem to a network of computers that could then pool their resources to solve it, and the need to establish a shared language to allow the computers to talk to one another.
In 1966 Parkhill published "The Challenge of the Computer Utility," which identified many of the challenges facing cloud computing, such as scalability and the need for large bandwidth connections. He also initiated a comparison with electric utilities. So cloud computing's origin are as old as at least 5 decades
Geting Creative on the Cloud: Innovative Engineering Student Project
The web and the Cloud computing provide fertile ground for students and entrepreneurial projects. The ability to use API and create mashup is in the vogue. In this project Jeevan Dongre, Vijaykummar Sali use GAE- the PaaS offer from Google to design and develop a very useful and innovative project
Cloud Computing's Holy Grail: Its Definition
Definitions of cloud computing are easy to find, but a single, authoritative definition is hard to come by. Perhaps the best work in this area was done by Böhm, et al.
By compiling characteristics of 17 different scholarly and industrial definitions, the authors identified five primary characteristics of cloud computing allowing a definition such as: "Cloud computing is a service that delivers scalable hardware and/or software solutions via the Internet or other network on a pay-per-usage basis." (Emphasis indicates essential definition elements). Source: The Evolution of Cloud Computing
MarkMeLive: An Innovative Engineering Project
API'(Application Programming Interface)'s allow a developer to build application on the resources created by others. In this final year project, Prathvi Palekar (2010) and project team used two well known APIs- Google Maps and Facebook Friends to create what then called " AlumniMaps". But this can be used anyone- individual or institutions to see how their friends have spread over the globe.
Currently Prathvi Palekar is setting up his own entrepreneurial venture in Mysore
Markmelive via kwout
Lab-as-a-Service: Building a Bio-Cloud
Transcriptic is a startup that’s trying to let grad students and researchers conduct their experiments over the web. The company offers a lab-as-a-service product and hopes to take some of the economics from the cloud and apply them to scientific research.
Transcriptic, a startup trying to bring the concepts from the cloud and collaborative consumption to biology has raised a $1.2 million seed round from a broad group of investors including Google Ventures and FF Angel, and private investors Mark Cuban and Naval Ravikant, the founder of AngelList. The round includes more than 60 individuals and $150,000 brought on via SecondMarket.
Transcriptic, which was founded earlier this year, has built out a biological testing lab using robotic equipment that researchers use to prepare samples. What’s cool about this is Max Hodak, the company’s founder, is trying to take expensive and proprietary equipment, hack it so people can program the machines via the web and then offer the results as a service to academia.
Building a bio-cloud
In biology labs around the country graduate students spend their days filling test tubes and testing samples. It’s boring work and something that well-funded companies in the pharmaceutical industry automate or outsource. But the equipment used in automating those processes are hundreds of thousands of dollars and generally out of range for biology departments. So are the services of outsourcers that sometimes work on behalf of the industry.
So Hodak created what he calls a cloud for biology, but what is really more of a collaborative consumption model aided by open source software and robotics, than an on-demand cloud. In a Menlo Park, Calif. lab Transcriptics owns several large pieces of used testing equipment such as centrifuges, incubators and high-powered microscopes that it purchased for roughly 10 cents on the dollar whose software it has reverse engineered. The company then wrote new software that controls the machines and can run common biological operations such as closing plasmids with other options coming later. For complete story read here
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