Week 19: Cloud Computing

Introduction

When cloud computing was being planned, it's scalability was probably one of the most things that was considered. Since it was created in recent years, the internet growth was one of the things that were happening pretty fast at the time and still is. This means that cloud computing had to be developed to support a huge number of users and traffic. In this post I will discuss some features, problems & the future of cloud computing.

Features

Application Programming Interface - Cloud computing systems provide an API that enables machines to interact with these systems

Cost - Usually these type of systems don't require the users to pay a whole fee and purchase the hardware etc, instead with cloud computing most of the company's have arranged that the users pay a monthly fee( service fee)

Location independence -Allows users to access the application/system from everywhere in the world with an internet connection.

Tenancy - allows the users to share resources & costs between each other

Scalability - by providing dynamic resources through an automatic procedure.

Maintenance -is much simpler because of centralized system & applications do not need to be installed on the computer of every user.

Problems

Privacy - Some users have concerns about storing their data on a system which is not owned by them.

Open API Standards - API's that are released by these systems, are well documented but the interface is not standard throughout all the systems.

Security -Since these systems could be accessed by the public they are more vulnerable to hackers.

Availability - many companies switching to a cloud based computer system are concerned about the the system's availability meaning that they have no control over when the system is online or offline although cloud based systems have their teams to back them up.

Bandwith - Since all the data in online, users now have to download the data in order to use use it thus using more bandwith.

Cloud Computing Model

My 2 Cents

During the class discussion we discussed how companies are switching to cloud based systems for daily operations. The most popular move that companies do is to move the email systems to a cloud based system for several benefits. Many companies are really skeptic to move to a cloud based system but it's were the technology is going & most of them understand that it's a must do in order to keep up to date. My opinion on this matter is that most maintenance issues are eliminated once the switch is made since the system is them maintained by the company providing the cloud service. Because of this and other issues, costs are also lowered especially in the short run. I believe that people should switch to a cloud based system for these main reasons: 

 - Accessibility : Can Be Accessed From Everywhere

 - Costs & Maintenance : Cut costs & eliminate maintenance

 - Centralized & up-to-date data : Data is always updated upon in order to have an updated version of all the data

Also if you make a decision to switch to a cloud based system, make sure you get regular backups of your data in case the system decides to die on you.

Week 18: Social Networking

Introduction

Social Networking has been around for quite some time before the Internet even existed. This was through the form of Bulletin board systems where users used to upload/download files & share messages between each other. It has evolved a lot throughout the years & is now one of the largest markets in the world where Facebook is the top company that is making the most money over the Internet. The best thing about this? It's community based so people help it to grow without even needing adverts and marketing.

Modern Social Networks

Hi5
LinkedIn
Tumblr
Flickr
Twitter
Facebook
Google+

Social Media

Google+

I decided to write on Google plus social network for the simple reason that it is new & quite promising I must say. It is still in beta so I got an invite for a beta account in order to use it. We decided to try it all together in the classroom & I very much compare it to facebook but much more customizable& fast. For example your friends could be separated into different "circles" which are sections where you put your friends & family. For example I put all my classmates & teachers into a circle named School so I can identify & be able to only share some of the stuff with them. We also made use of the "Hangout" which is a nice feature in google+ involving video conferencing between 2 or More persons. It's fast as well since there's no flickering with the videos. I also think that their "stream" is pretty much Facebook's Wall so it's quite intuitive if you have used facebook before.

Social Media Marketing
As Facebook caught on we can see many local company's using facebook to market their products & services. For example radio stations are making use of facebook to communicate with their listeners & companies are making competitions using the Like button in order to market their company. People using facebook are loving this and seem to be enjoying this new experience. This revolution will keep on going and I think that we will see some major changes in the upcoming years which will also change how the population perceives the Internet.

Conclusion
As the web technology keeps improving day by day so do web applications. More entrepreneurs keep seeing the profit potential of the Internet and are competing with loads of small & large companies. Mark Zuckerberg showed us that with the Internet there's no limitations & at his young age he made more money with facebook than what google made. As mentioned earlier, I believe that we are going to see some major changes going on very soon and companies will need to adapt to these changes in order not to fall back and loose their market.