Cloud Computing — Boon or Bane

Posted by Krish Sreedharan in Technology on August 28th, 2008

Google has in many ways, revolutionized the way most people look at the Internet. One of them is Google Applications, which allows “simple” documents such otherwise known as “Word” Documents and “Excel” Spreadsheets and “PowerPoint” presentations to be created, edited, stored and shared online — in the Internet “Cloud” so to speak. So what exactly is this “Cloud” all about ?

 

The Cloud has been the ubiquitous symbol of the Internet in Network Diagrams from the beginning. One of the possible reasons that the Internet is referred to as the “Cloud” is because like a real cloud, it has connections to pretty much everywhere … and it transfers information to and from various hosts connected to it either directly and/or indirectly. 

 

Typically, Cloud Computing would refer to the available computing power/storage which is not on the same physical network, but which is available for use online and is accessible from any place with a reasonably fast internet connection — reasonably fast since one needs to work at an acceptable pace. However, the emphasis of cloud computing is really not blazing speed. Its more about flexibility, adaptability and availability. How about accessibility, one might ask. That would depend on how good or bad the connectivity to the Internet is from that particular point of access.

 

Let me try to put this forth from a layman’s point of view. I create a document, which I intend to share with a few people. To do this, I would have to either copy the document onto some physical media — say a CD or a USB Dongle, or, I would have to email it across to the people with whom I want the document to be shared. But that’s not the end. Each of the readers is bound to put in his/her thoughts and also comment upon what’s already there. And this has to be shared among the rest as well … so pretty soon, it reaches a stage where there are multiple versions of the document and realistically, nobody knows which is the latest version. The bottom line is that was was meant to be a systematic creation of a document that incorporates the views of multiple creators, soon becomes a directionless tangle of ideas.

 

So, let’s try this the “Cloud Computing” way, using Google Apps as our tool of choice — the author creates the document, and he “shares” it with others who would be collaborating with him on this document. While sharing, he defines the access rights of each of the collaborators, whether they are allowed just to view or whether they are allowed to edit the contents of the document. As such there is only one copy of the document that is shared among the various collaborators and each one gets to see all the edits made by all the other collaborators in real time. In addition, if two or more collaborators are editing the same document, their edits are also visible to each other in near real time. The best part of the deal is that these users work from a Web Browser, which is available in pretty much every computer. They need not jump through hoops to install any special software to get this working.

 

So far, I have been going on about what is Cloud Computing and its time I got down to the crux of this blog post — it is a Boon or is it going to create more problems than it is going to solve. Let’s look at the pros and cons:

The Pros -

• It would allow seamless collaboration and also tighter control of the versions and the number of copies of a single document
• It saves a fair amount of licensing costs to the end-user (in terms of the requirements that the user would have to have licensed copies of all software required to create the document on his/her computer)
• It reduces the infrastructure cost (even a simple PC can be used to access the internet and create documents on the cloud)
• From an organizational perspective, it reduces the investment in High Performance Hardware which would otherwise be required to get the same job done within the organization
• For the mobile worker, it would allow creation/modification/sharing of working documents irrespective of location and hardware platform — access is possible from Desktops, Laptops, Palmtops, Mobile Phones and across multiple operating systems

The Cons -

• Accessibility, while normally taken for granted, can depend to a great extent, on the available connectivity at the point of access
• Creating/Storing/Sharing documents on a third party server hosted on the Internet may run foul of organizational policies related to storage of sensitive/critical information
• Use of weak passwords for access to such “hosted” application could compromise the integrity of the overall system
• System Upgrades, when they go wrong, can cut off access to such Cloud Computing Resources

Krish Sreedharan | Technology | 14 comments

Information Technology = Invisible Technology ?

Posted by Krish Sreedharan in Technology on July 29th, 2008

Some time ago, while I was chatting around with the rest of the group, a comment from one of them set me thinking — How would I want to experience Information Technology ? Should it be loud ? Should it be subtle ? Should I know that is really happening back there when I click a button ?

Just like in my previous post about the Blind Men and the Elephant, different people have different ideas on how Technology should work for them. Some of them would like to wear it on their sleeve, where it would be visible to all, while others could not be really bothered about IT as long as their their work got done and their targets were achieved.

The world is a mixed bag where different people would like to do things differently — in their own way. Some of the users of technology, who consider themselves tech saavy, would probably want Technology to play a “visible” role in their day to day life. However, there are others to whom technology is more a support service and such people, would normally want technology to play an active role, but from the background.

For most part, such people get turned off by technology. They consider technology as a force that could possibly curtail their natural tendencies. Intelligent use of technology, on the other hand, would make such people feel at home with adopting new technologies, for most part without even noticing technology playing a part in their lives.

At Comwerks, we believe that technology is one of the key drivers in what we do, but we would also like to believe that Information Technology = Invisible Technology: where technology delivers results from the background.

Krish Sreedharan | Technology | 14 comments

Technology – A case of the Blind Men and the Elephant

Posted by Krish Sreedharan in Technology on June 25th, 2008

Before I start off my rambling, I would like to narrate a short story. Once upon a time, 5 blind men wanted to see an elephant. So they all went to the zoo where, incidentally, there was one. The first man felt the trunk and exclaimed “The elephant is like a snake”. The second one felt one of the legs and said “The elephant is like a pillar”. The third felt the elephant’s ear and concluded “The elephant is like a large fan”. The fourth felt its huge body and decided that the elephant was “like a wall”. The fifth got the tail and said “it’s like a thick rough rope”.

In all, none of them had a clear idea of what the elephant really looked like. Each one perceived it to be something different. Their idea of what the elephant looked like was driven by their mental perception.

Technology is becoming a driving factor in today’s world. It cuts across geographies, industries, cultures and generations. There are very few areas in one’s life today where technology does not play a role. An extreme instance is sports – technology abounds whether it be a physical sport such as football or athletics, where the emphasis is on the capability of this wonderful natural machine know as the human body.

But despite its all pervasiveness, there is no single answer to the question “What is Technology?” – is it a driving force? Is it an enabler? Taken by itself, is it a means to an end? – Each individual would have a different answer. Just like the 5 blind men, each individual would define technology in the way he or she perceives it.

The depth to which technology influences their life would primarily drive this perception. For example, a teenager would equate technology with his computer, music player and the umpteen gadgets that he is the proud owner of – a businessman would define technology as something which makes him more efficient in business, a doctor would define technology as an aide to his knowledge and skills, and for some “gifted” souls in this world, technology means – well, nothing!!

We at Comwerks believe that Technology, if properly harnessed, is a great way to express ones-self. Having said that, we also believe that it is purely a means to an end.

We would like to know what Technology means to you!!

Krish Sreedharan | Technology | 6 comments