When clouds were newly formed
Editor’s note Q
&
A
WITH JEFF WENDT
Listen in on a tech conversation today. If it’s not about
December 2008
Twitter, chances are it’s about cloud computing. Now
Michael King
Vice President, Global Education
take a one-year step back in time. Here’s what two well-
IBM
informed people told us that our readers could expect.
Please give
a tangible
Were they skilled prognosticators? You decide.
example of
one of the
benefi ts of
‘cloud
August 2008 computing.’
Chad Kainz
Th e ability to increase services to academic
users while at the same time reducing
Senior Director for Academic Technologies costs. A good example is the computer
University of Chicago lab at North Carolina State University,
where applications no longer reside on the
In the early 1990s, Ian Foster (University of Chicago) desktop machines. Th erefore those ma-
and Carl Kesselman (University of Southern California) chines require no upgrades or updates and
published Th e Grid: Blueprint for a New Computing In- very little support. Th e ‘dumbed-down’
fr astructure, in which they describe computation shared desktops are served by a fraction of a ‘server
over the internet in a manner similar to electric power in the clouds.’
distribution. One of their points is that computational
cycles, like electricity, should be available on the grid as a How might cloud computing affect
commodity for all to use. the productivity of offi ce workers
Like electric power distribution and its fabric of regional power grids, in higher education?
there are multiple computational grids that adhere to a core set of standards It enables broader collaboration, even
but vary greatly on access rules, scale, scope and size. Despite the variety, beyond campus boundaries. Collabora-
one thing has remained the same. Grid-based computation is built upon a tion seems to boost the productivity of
notion of shared and commoditized resources. The scientific community knowledge workers, and it’s referenced
and those involved in high-performance computing adopted the grid as the in a greater and greater number of best
solution to a new generation of problems. From high energy physics to ge- practices.
nomics, grid computing has played an important role in large-scale shared Bluehouse is a browser-based collaboration
research. ‘cloud service’ for use by people with simi-
Now, what if one could harness today’s knowledge and mastery of grid com- lar interests and objectives. Interestingly,
puting, and scale it up further—or down—or scale it in any manner one wants? Bluehouse provides wonderful opportuni-
What if a user doesn’t care where servers are located or who owns or operates ties to explore and discuss best practices.
them? What if a user just wants to run a service, not the infrastructure?
As you probably know, we’re already beyond the What if stage on that one. How might cloud computing af-
For example, do you know or care where all those Google maps are located? Or fect the productivity of academic
where the bookshelves are that hold Wikipedia’s many volumes? Th e technology personnel?
infrastructure has been pushed out of sight—into a cloud. Th e faculty at NC State no longer spend
Networking may be wispy cirrus clouds in computing’s near future. Th e grid any class time struggling with incompat-
may be altocumulus clouds. My forecast is that clouds won’t be limited to data ible or non-functioning desktop machines.
technology. Clouds will reshape the way we deliver services on campus.
TC
Th ey’re very happy about that.
TC
32 T
oday’s
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ampus subscribe at no charge at
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