The+Cloud+Technology

//**Something close to all teachers hearts............**// Cloud Computing has been changing how most people use the web and how they store their files. It’s the structure that runs sites like Facebook Amazon and Twitter and the core that allows us to take advantage of services like Google Docs and Gmail. But how does it work? First let’s understand what the term "cloud" refers to. The concept ofthe cloud has been around for a long time in many different incarnations in the business world. It mostly means a grid of computers serving as a service-oriented architecture to deliver software and data. Most websites and server-based applications run on particular computers or servers, ours do here at school. What differentiates the cloud from the way those are set up is that the cloud utilizes the resources from the computers as a collective virtual computer, where the applications can run independently from particular computer or server configurations. They are basically floating around in a “cloud of resources”, making the hardware less important to how the applications work. With broadband and WiFi internet, the need to have the software run on a computer is becoming less and less essential. A lot of the software that education uses nowadays is completely web-based. The cloud takes advantage of that to give education greater flexibility and mobility. The transition from being a computer being “personal” and something you put “software on” so you could use it, to a world where resources are shared is creeping up on us slowly and quietly. Very many people have already transitioned to using a cloud environment for most of their time in front of the computer without even realizing it. Of course most of us still use Microsoft Office or another word processor that was installed on our computers, but even this type of normal productivity software is now available in an online version that can be used instead of installing it on your PC. The possibility of being able to access your data and software wherever and whenever you need it makes this transition very appealing to most people. Are there problems with this concept? Of course there are. If for some reason the internet goes down, then acess to data goes down as well.

[|Google Docs]