How they work: “The Cloud Computing (Part I)”

Cloud Computing!Most of us have got accustomed to using computers. The machines most of us love to love have greatly revolutionised the way we think and work; as if that wasn’t good enough, some clever chaps are busy working on taking computing to yet another tier! They have coined out a term known as “Cloud Computing” which simply combines computing and broadband internet into a computing environment. There is a spectacular change to Cloud Computing; this is not that, computers will be eliminated but a phenomenon where applications and files will be stored on a large, centralized Server on a Network. The end users can accesses their files using computers that are more are less sophisticated than today’s typical machines. For instance, one may only need a computer that can take him through the network to the server; such a computer would only require a rudimentary operating system (windows 2000, XP, Vista or Linux ), once it is connected onto the network, this will give it access to the server, the Server will host all the applications and storage capacity. The Processing capabilities, RAM, Storage, DVD, Blu-ray etc, will all be only on the Server. The use Open Source software does come in handy under the Cloud Computing. The Term “Cloud Computing” borrows credence of its name from the fact that it uses WANs (wide Area Networks) and the Internet. In his new book “The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google,” Nicholas G. Carr (a Computer industry writer and former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review) discusses the changes he sees in the future of computing. He takes the idea a step further in a posting on his “Rough Type blog”. He called out two hot technology companies, Google and Apple, and predicted that, they were on the verge of a partnership in which Apple would make very simple and cheap computers (like the iPAD) that users could carry around. This would influence the computing power of the vast data centres Google has been building capacity to hold the applications and the data for millions of users. Apple has been developing the hardware; the emergence of the likes of the iPAD renders credence to this theory. The idea of cloud computing is surely not a new one. Oracle’s Larry Ellison launched the “New Internet Computer” (NIC) company in 2000 to accomplish that goal. The concept is very simple; on your desk, you would have a very low-cost computer with just a processor, a keyboard and a monitor. There would be no hard drive or CD/DVD drive. It would be hooked up to the Internet and would link to a central supercomputer, which would host all of your programs and files. This idea, however, was ahead of its time. The NIC sold very poorly, probably due to a scarcity of broadband availability in the United States at that moment in time. However, at the turn of 2006, virtually 75% of Americans had broadband internet access both at home and in their workplaces. This turned the tables around such that cloud computing could become a reality. The million dollar question is; the Google capacity, combined with the Apple ingenuity, if they moved forward, can they build the cloud computer and if so, will anyone use it? eddie@afrowebs.com