Cloud Computing

I guess having heard these terms you will think that the topic of today’s post is whether or environment. But I have to disappoint you J it is a new notion of the software somewhere in the cloud. Two decades ago the main delivery system of software was University or school computer labs. And then it came to the students own computers. But nowadays that is going to change as teaching and learning involves the use of computational tools through software applications virtually. In cloud computing the Internet is the one that provides computational service. The applications aren’t installed in the personal computers but are used directly from the cloud. It is simple, easy and the important thing that it is accessible for all operation systems (Windows, Macintosh etc.). Accidentally I remembered Freidman’s idea that the “world is flat”. Everything is becoming accessible and the whole information is being shared in the cloud. So that’s kind of a new twist on outsourcing. Now we don’t know where is that outsourced system, it maybe everywhere or somewhere in the cloudJ.

There are two types of clouds: public and private. Though private clouds play not so much role in general, they are important in teaching and learning. Today many Universities have started to move their students’ e-mail services into public cloud environment (e.g. Gmail and Google Apps in general).

 There is a whole host of challenges. Risk management is key, particularly if institutional data is being held in the cloud. In other words you move your personal information, your identity to the cloud where everybody has access to it. Also strategies need to be employed to manage not only risk but also those situations when a cloud service provider suddenly and unexpectedly stops delivering services.

No doubt that cloud computing is the future but now we still have a chance to choose whether to use it or not or to what extend we should use it.