Cloud+Computing

=**Cloud Computing**= Sunday, December 4, 2011 <>

Special guest lecture by Professor Majd Sakr, Carnegie Mellon Qatar

Topic overview:
Earlier in the course we looked at the Software as a Service (SaaS) model for delivering IS capabilities. Cloud computing builds on the ideas of SaaS and extends them to a much broader set of capabilities. In today's class we will look at the key elements of the cloud computing model, the core underlying technologies that have helped it grow so dramatically as a computing paradigm over the past decade, and some of the key business implications of moving your company's IS operations to a cloud model. FInally, we will explore some ways in which this new computing paradigm creates new business opportunities (and risks!).

By the end of today's class you should be able to:
 * Identify the core technological advances that have made cloud computing technically and economically viable over the past decade and that will continue to make it a more and more compelling model for acquiring IS capabilities.
 * Explain how these technologies work together to enable cloud computing
 * Understand and explain when the location of data and computation is a critical design factor, and when it is not.

**Preparation for class:** Prior to class you need to read the following articles from ACM Queue magazine and Knowledge@Wharton:
 * [Creeger09] Mache Creeger, Cloud Computing: An Overview, ACM Queue magazine, June 2009.
 * []
 * [[file:Cloud Computing Overview - ACM Queue.pdf]]
 * [K@W09] No Man is an Island: The Promise of Cloud Computing. Knowledge @ Wharton, April 1, 2009
 * []
 * [[file:No Man is an Island - The Promise of Cloud Computing.pdf]]

In addition to the required reading, I encourage you to look around a bit on the web to get more information about Cloud Computing, Server Virtualization Technologies, Software as a Service, Infrastructure as a Service, and 'On Demand Computing'. There is a lot of information on these topics available on the web and in the popular technology press. I encourage you to spend some time exploring what you can find on the topic.

**Reference materials:**
Slides:

**Pre-class exercise:** In preparation for class today, identify how one business is using cloud computing technologies, either to provide a service for consumers or businesses, or making use of cloud computing technologies to run their business more effectively. Briefly name and describe the business and the way that they are using the technologies. Your answer should be about one paragraph in length.

[Bob Monroe] Google's gmail service provides e-mail services to consumers and businesses. This is a cloud computing application because the mail is stored, delivered, and accessed through Google's cloud infrastructure (servers, networks, etc.). End-users access gMail either through a web browser or through an application on a mobile device. Google offers gMail as a way to increase their web traffic, which allows them to display more advertisements. Because Google gets a commission each time that somebody clicks on an ad that they display, gMail is an effective tool for Google to increase their advertising revenue.

[M Hammad Abbasi] Dropbox offers cloud computing storage. Cloud computing is a very important aspect of Dropbox's business model because users who sign up for Dropbox get 2GB of cloud storage for all their data (which can be expanded to 8GB through games or to 50GB through subscription). Users can have a 'Dropbox folder' which functions like any other folder on their desktop, but once any file is stored on the folder, Dropbox syncs it with its cloud storage so if there any other Dropbox folders across multiple PCs, they are also synced. In addition, because Dropbox offers cloud storage, it can track changes in files and keeps a copy of the last ten changes to a file.

[Firas Bata] InterContinental Hotels Group is moving more towards cloud computing. As a matter of fact, they are in the process of moving their CRM system to a public cloud. It's using public cloud infrastructure for application development and testing. This will decrease the costs of the business, considering that very little storage space and computing power is required to run the CRM. In addition to the decrease in costs, this will make the CRM system available to all the InterContinental hotels around the world.

[Dua'a Althabatah] Social networking like: Facebook provides services to individuals and businesses. Facebook is a cloud computing application because the messages, posts, notes, status and pictures are stored, delivered and accessed through Facebook cloud infrastructure, which is the the servers and the network. People can use Facebook from their web browsers or they can download Facebook as an application on their smart phones. Facebook is a helpful tool for businesses where it can be a marketing tool that will help them advertise their products.

[Nasser Al-Khori] In the social media platform, Twitter has tailored could computing to eliminate unneeded information and has the most advance could computing system. Twitter allows users to "tweet" and stay connected to see major updates from others in real life time. Additionally, Twitter uses could computing to appeal to users desires— which is basically to communicate and stay on top of events and updates, every minute—on other users they choose to follow. Furthermore, Twitter has transformed into an extremely important tool in the fields of broadcasting and news exchange, almost all news agencies and media outlets have verified twitter accounts that users can follow to stay up-to-date. Moreover, Twitter has also been a benefit to CRM to many businessess. Through Twitter a business allows customers and employees to stay updated on whats going on, from big major news, to smaller updates. In turn, the business can pay attention to employees and customers news and updates.

[Layal Al-Alami] Digital signage application that marketing department of CMUQ uses to post the posters, videos and news on the TVs around campus. The software that they use is a CISCO application, that is on the cloud. You dont have to install the application, because it is hosted on the CISCO servers, therefore, the marketing department only purchases a license for multiple users. In order to use it, you have to login and you have access to the whole system.

[Amal Osman] IBM uses cloud computing and provide cloud consulting to other businesses to help them reduce cost and complexity, create new service delivery models, and drive business innovation. IBM cloud consulting services provide the experience and proven cloud strategies companies need to evaluate and assess, their strategies, and implementation.

[Al-Jawhra Al-Mana] Google use cloud computing to provide a photo sharing service to its users, Picasa is a software that was created by Ideallab and owned by Google. The application can be downloaded for free or used online to upload pictures. Picasa web albums provides the user with 1GB of free storage which makes it easy for the users to organize, edit and create online photo albums to share with family and friends.

[Fatima Abdulla]: Amazon use cloud computing for improving the functionality of the services they provide. Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud( Amazon EC2) is a web service that provides compute capacity in the cloud. It helps to make the computing process easier for developers, along with lots of benefits such as it could be used with other Amazon Web Services, it's secure, reliable, and also completely controlled.

[Orkhan Rustamzade] : SalesForce is one of the leading cloud-computing companies. They provide cloud-computing services to all kinds of business sectors. At SalesForce companies subscribe annually and can use wide range of applications on their private "clouds" which in turn is very secured and reliable. Other features include chatting, app exchange, library and many-more. A lot of companies started using cloud-computing as it’s faster and more reliable than having servers and maintaining them. Companies such as Dell, NBCUniversal and American Red Cross use the SalesForce cloud-computing.

[Ayah Abujarbou]: Apple uses iCloud as a cloud storage and a cloud computing service for to help its customers and Apple ID holders. iCloud allows users to share images, photos, backup and securely store the information on their devices and also provides them with an easy way to access their information no matter which of their Apple devices they are using. This service makes it easier for Apple users to keep all their devices updates without them needing to keep syncing it every time they decide to use it.

[Maryam Al-Thani] The New York Times provides users with access to all public domain articles from 1851-1922. This is just one example of cloud computing technology at the NYT; these articles and photos are stored and accessed over The New York Times' servers and networks. Users are able to access these documents and photographs through the NYT server on a web browser. These articles are considered primary sources and users can use such articles and images in their research. The NYT makes profit out of the advertisements on its website and online content.

[Hussain Hejji] Microsoft has established this a service 4 years ago called Windows live skydrive, in which it uses cloud computing for online file hosting services for their customers. This service allows users to upload files to a cloud storage and then access them from a Web browser. The service offers 25 GB of free personal storage. This service is fully integrated with their Hotmail services and require a windows live ID to access it. Customers using this service will be able to upload pictures and documents along with other types of data to the cloud in order to be shared with their friends and family. This service made it better for their customers to share their personal information and share with those they want. Microsoft is also now working more to make it a better and more fun service.

[Walied El Hag Ali]: AT&T uses what is known as a Synaptic Hosting computing service. This is a pay-for-what-you-use service which allows its customers to buy virtualized servers in the AT&T cloud and make use of them instantly. Customers using this service will acquire lots of benefits such as improved performance, since the service allows them to avoid procurement delays. It also cost effective since the costumers won't have to worry about building their own data infrastructures.

[Fatima Al-Khayat] OpenDrive offers many online services for users. The ranges of services that OpenDrive is offering are online storage, online backup, file syncing, online collaboration, online file sharing and file Hotlinking. OpenDrive is a cloud computing system as that offer for users to store, backup, sync and share documents, music and pictures through a cloud infrastructure. People can use OpenDrive services by creating an account that allows them to access and use these services and features. In addition to that, users can download an app called “OpenDrive Drive” that enables users to drag and drop or even modify files in the drive and it will immediately be uploaded in the users account. This new drive can be found in My Computer.

[Maryam Al-Subaie] Cloud computing’s vast potential has encouraged the banking industry to embrace this technology. The UK’s Barclays is an example of a bank that heavily invests in private cloud initiatives to run their internal operations more effectively. The cloud architecture is used to store and run file transfers, such as money transactions and data on the 50 million customers in the countries that Barclays operates in – offering greater flexibility and agility to the bank.

[Mohammed Hadi Takiddin] E-bay is using cloud computing in a form of a Flash storage device which basically makes them store the data and the information of the customers. E-bey use a very advanced cloud computing technology that enables them to store a huge amount of data and information of the customers output. The company uses cloud computing infrastructure including servers and network. Plus, the most critical cloud computing device that the company is using is the storage capability.

[Ahmad Al-Sarraf] Panda Security announced its free Cloud Antivirus product. This product helps users to keep their data in Panda’s cloud instead of user’s PC. Cloud Antivirus includes security tools for home users and enterprises in which it detects all the malwares that damage the IT systems such as: spam, hackers and network intrusion. If they detect any kind of malwares, Panda Security collects virus data using the Collective Intelligence cloud technology to keep the Cloud Antivirus database continuously up to date.

[Nahan Arif] Google Calendar and Google Docs use cloud computing technology. The users create a Google account to access, create, share and manipulate information on their calendar or documents. Google stores these information on servers, networks etc. Storage and quick accessibility gives Google an edge on revenue since they gain revenue on a 'per click' basis. These shared calendars and docs are reliable and can be public and/or private so security is not an issue. Cloud computing makes Google much more efficient and effective.

[Jevika Shetty] Flickr is a great example that uses cloud computing services. It is offers an archive spot for photos where people from all around the world can upload and store their photos, share photos albums and even change and control the amount of information they are willing to display or provide to other users of Flicker. Apart from easy storage and quick access, Flickr also assures data security as we know that our photos are always available at our Flicker account even if we lose all the photo data in our laptop or if the USB device where the photos were stored, crashes.

[Abdullrahman Al-Muftah] Police departments are a great example of how cloud computing technology is used. One example of how cloud computing is widely used in police departments, is the storing and accessing of information; whether it be crime scene details, murder cases, etc. Employees who work at the police department are able to access any and all of the information that is made available through this cloud computing service. This example is extremely useful as it makes the research of convicted felons an easier process.

[Mohammed Kamal] The Qatar exchange is a good example of a cloud computing technology. All the companies report their stock prices to the Qatar exchange and the information is stored in the database of the website. Qatar exchange then displays this information in the live market browser in the website. All users who have accounts can access this stock information and make decisions whether to buy or sell a share.

[Mohammed Al-Rawahi] RehabCare Group, founded in 1982, has grown to be the third largest supplier of acute care rehabilitation services in the U.S. Its staff includes 11,000 physical, occupational, and workplace therapists providing services to patients in 1,270 care facilities in 42 states. It's now running its own custom-built software on the iPod Touch, which it delivers through Apple's App Store. It syncs data using servers and software provided by a third-party vendor, Casamba, with which it co-developed the software. RehabCare also gives therapists Google's cloud-based e-mail and productivity suite, Google Apps, for which it pays $50 a year per user, instead of buying Microsoft Office. [Nijat Ibrahimov] SalesForce introduces number of business solutions for small and big scale companies which work on cloud computing. One of of these interesting products that they offer is The Social Enterprise which connects customers and employees like in social media. Now using this technology customers are just as likely to look for company on Facebook as they are visit corporate website. Internally, company will be more productive when they can easily collaborate with their colleagues online. [Khadeejah Al-Husseiny]Youtube is a good exapme that uses could computing services where the videos are saved in a server with google. Users can access their videos and other users videos. Any user can upload new videos and store them and share them with people all over the world, people can comment on other peoples videos like them. [Aisha Al Zaman]Enomaly provides a software called Elastic Computer Platform (ECP). This software is used to manage resources which help in guaranteeing a particular quality-of-service for each customer. According to Brodkin, ECP "integrates enterprise data centers with commercial cloud computing offerings, letting IT pros manage and govern both internal and external resources from a single console, while making it easy to move virtual machines from one data center to another." [Haya Al-Mannai] Facebook uses cloud computing to allow its users to be connected and see any updates from other Facebook users. In addition, Facebook uses could computing to allow its users to stay on top of events and updates them every single minute. It plays an important role in term of advertising and broadcasting news and events which make it easier for people and organizations to keep on touch and update each others about any new event or advertise for any new product.

[Hamsa M Al-Massri]

Linkedin networking website provides services to individuals and businesses. It is a cloud computing application because the information of the individual or the company is stored, delivered, and accessed through servers and networks. End-users access this networking website using web browser or through a smart phone app. Linkedin uses this website as a way to increase their web traffic, which allows more relations suggestions by the website, because the company gets commission linking an individual's resume with a company, which helps increasing the revenue incrementally.

[Najla Al-Madhadi]: Qatar Airways is using cloud computing as a way to allow both customers and the people working at Qatar Airways to check the reservations and confirm them in an easy and time consuming way. Cloud computing allows the customers to check the dates of the flights they want to travel on. In addition, having a website that uses cloud computing allows Qatar Airways as a profitable organization to have more noticeable advertisements of the sales and special offers they offer for their customers from time to time as a way to increase their web traffic and online transactions. Therefore, Qatar Airways can generate more profit when people visit their website for making reservations or checking flights' dates and see an attractive advertisement by chance. Of course, the company has its own servers that allow end-users to access and check any useful reservation information.

[Patrick Steinhagen] Apple is using cloud computing in its iCloud services. This offers the opportunity for apple users with multiple devices to store their content in the cloud and seamlessly carry apps, music, pictures etc. from one device to another. This is a fairly unique approach because of the fact that apple is making the service directly available to clients rather than using cloud computing for its internal processes. The result is that customer retention is increased because of the ability of users to transfer their content, as well as making products such as applications more attractive, because they can be viewed and used on multiple devices.

[Mughees Ahmed]

Skype is a great example that demonstrates cloud computing. It enables users to communicate via online video conferencing and by sending instant messages. Skype is offered to users through cloud computing, the technology that allows businesses to run online applications without having to install the software. Like any other application maintained through cloud computing, Skype has the same capability.

[Sara Al-Mannai] Ford is using cloud computing with their new hybrid cars that can identify the shortest or more fuel efficient routes that can save the drivers from using more fuel when they can use less. Partnering with Google, Ford will provide the cars with a special device that can track and analyze the driver's driving behaviors collected from computing clouds from Google to help them choose the best route they can take to cut down on the cost and consumption of fuels.

[Laura Jaber] Microsoft HealthVault is a web-based platform that allows users to save, update, store and share health, medical and fitness information. The information can be shared with doctors, family members or friends if one wished to show others. It is a great way to save all of your medical records in a safe place where your information is protected, and well trusted. It's main competitor which also uses cloud computing is Google Health, which announced that it will be discontinued in January 2012 and told its customers to move their files to Microsoft HealthVault.

[Noor Al-Mohannadi]: Zoho is a cloud computing document-sharing service, it is a web-based online office suite that allows users to save and edit document online. Users can create documents and share them online, also multiple users can edit the document simultaneously.

[Dalia Saleh Hassan]: Facebook can be considered as a company that uses cloud computation. That is because its customers can be able to store send and exchange information through cloud infastrusture including network, servers and storage devices. Also, facebook stores a lot of information that are related to advertising such as: the data of the company that wants to advertise on Facebook.

[Jim Briggs]: Cloud.com is a venture based start-up that develops an open source cloud orchestration software product for the implementation of public and private cloud computing environments.There software Cloud-Stack is designed to make it easier for service providers and enterprises to build, manage and deploy laaS offering similar to Amazon EC2.

[Anas Ali Chaudry]:

Cloud computing is used in CMUQ where the university uses cloud computing for storing data as back up. The students, staff and faculty use the computers available in the university for the normal daily usage. The cloud computing is used to store the data as backup the users of the computers store on their machines. This is done so that in any case of emergency or crash of data, the cloud computing is used to back up the data.

[Mohammed Al Ahmadani]:

Cloud computing is now becoming a very important part of operations in financial services firms. An example of this can be seen in Citi Group where they are using cloud computing to make their internal processes more efficient by running running file transfers such as money transfers for the millions in about one hundred countries they operate in.

[Meshail Al Misnad]: NASDAQ is an American stock exchange and is one of the largest in the world after the New York Stock Exchange. Due to the huge demand for market data which people use to analyze companies and markets, NASDAQ has used cloud computing to serve the public. It has taken a vast store of its public market data and made it available and accessible for everyone through cloud computing. This is an example of a company which used cloud computing to serve customers and businesses. However, it is important to note that NASDAQ is using cloud computing services for cloud storage.

[Fatima Fikree]: One of the most powerful and active aerospace and aeronautics organizations in todays world is NASA, which is an American organization. NASA has released a program titled 'Nebula' which is basically an open-source cloud computing service. Nebula serves to help NASA in many different ways, one of its main goals is to aid their business processes. Engineers and scientists continually require additional data processing and Nebula is provided as an alternative to constructing additional data centers which are very costly. On the side, Nebula also allows complex data sets to be shared with external individuals and organizations.