Cloud Computing an Emerging Technology Changing Ways of Libraries Collaboration
Content
Cloud Computing an Emerging Technology: Changing Ways of Libraries Collaboration Shazia Khan Research scholar DLIS,AMU,Aligarh U.P. India.
[email protected]
Saima Khan Research scholar DLIS, AMU, Aligarh U.P. India.
[email protected]
Surraya Galibeen Research scholar DLIS, AMU, Aligarh U.P. India.
[email protected]
Abstract Cloud computing is a new technique of computing that is extensively used in today’s’ industry as well as society. It is a contemporary model and one of the latest computer industry buzzwords. Cloud computing brings the revolutionary changes in the world of ICT because of its potential benefits such as reduced cost, accessible anywhere anytime as well as its elasticity and flexibility. This paper will throw light on what cloud computing is? Its benefits and risks, architecture of cloud computing and how far this model is beneficial for Libraries. Keywords: Libraries. Cloud Computing, ICT,
terminology it is the ability to use resources and tools through the Internet without really owning or being near them. The only prerequisite is to be able to access them. The term 'cloud' is used to indicate the whole of computing services accessible via the Internet. It is an all-encompassing description of the complex internetconnected networks that exist in datacenters all over the world that power services and applications behind the scenes. (www.pccomputing.com.au). As a metaphor for the Internet, "the cloud" is a familiar cliché, but when combined with "computing," the meaning gets bigger and fuzzier (www.infoworld.com). In recent years the term „‟cloud computing” has been vital in the world of Information Technology. Cloud computing are changing the way information technology is implemented in organizations today, transforms a way we design, build and deliver applications and the architectural considerations that enterprises must make when adopting and using cloud computing technology[http://webobjects.cdw.com (http://webobjects.cdw.com).Cloud computing is rather a new approach to the use of shared computing resources, a substitute to having local servers handle applications. A large number of compute servers and other resources are group together and offers their combined capacity on an on-demand and, pay –per- use basis. The end users usually do not have any idea where the servers are positioned; they just
Introduction Thrust of human being for „new‟ goes on increasing, we look after for more and more, for better and we are always on the watch for the 'next best thing' when it comes to technology and the Internet. Certainly no one can uncertain that the next generation of the Internet i.e. Web 2.0 has had a theatrical influence on how people interrelate and connect with each other both from an individual standpoint and a business one. Another emerging concept that has the weight to change how we perform tasks is taking place before us as well, and is acknowledged as cloud computing. In simple
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International Research: Journal of Library & Information Science |Vol. 1 No. 2, Dec. 2011
only login there to their required application and start working. (www.rpath.com) Cloud computing, a new technology is basically originates to serve up the high-tech industries and corporate enterprises which are encouraged to implement various stateof-the-art information technologies to improve their business operations because of rigorous market competition and a vividly changing business. Libraries now-a-days are changing to information enterprises hence How do these remain unaffected by the new technology (Cloud computing) which is serving a lot to the firms and hightech industries with its beneficial applications and services. Adopting Cloud computing to the libraries can promote them in its core areas such as Technology, Data hosting archives, Information and Community. The Concept of Cloud computing Cloud Computing, the hottest buzzword in IT ,the conception can be traced back to the days when mainframe application(clientserver based) are in existence in 1960‟s when idea of „utility computing‟ was coined by John McCarthy (MIT computer scientist and Turing award winner). John McCarthy opined that "computation may someday be organized as a public utility"; indeed it shares characteristics with service bureaus. At that time, storage and CPU was very expensive and the mainframe pooled both types of resources and served them to thinclient terminals. Utility computing ended up becoming something of a big business for companies such as IBM. The concept was simple: that computing power could be broken down as a metered service for businesses much like how the power and telephone companies operated for their customers. With the advent of the PC revolution, which brought mass storage and cheap CPUs to the average corporate desktop, the file server gained in popularity
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as way to enable document sharing and archiving. True to its name, the file server served up storage resources to clients in the enterprise, while the CPU cycles needed to do productive work with those resources were all produced and consumed within the confines of the PC client. (www.mastertheboss.com) In the early 1990s, the budding Internet changed how computers could be used a nd how information could be disseminated. I nternet had enough computers attached to it that academics began thinking seriously about how to connect those machines together to create massive, shared pools of storage and compute power that would be much larger than what any one institution could afford to build. This is when the idea of "the grid" began to take shape. Grid computing is of higher degree to utility computing. (www.mastertheboss.com) The term "grid" is misinterpreted as a synonym for "cloud" as they both are made up with the addition of lots of computers connected. However they are two different things: In fact, they are both used to economize computing by maximizing existing resources. (www.mastertheboss.com) However, the difference between the two lies in the way the tasks are computed in each respective environment. In a computational grid, one large job is divided into many small portions and executed on multiple machines. This characteristic is fundamental to a grid; not so in a cloud. (www.mastertheboss.com) Chellappa gave the first academic definition of the term Cloud Computing in 1997 and later on in 2007 the term cloud computing came into popularity and was
International Research: Journal of Library & Information Science |Vol. 1 No. 2, Dec. 2011
first used in the context when Kevin Kelly opined that "eventually we'll have the intercloud, the cloud of clouds. (en.wikipedia.org) After the dot-com bubble, Amazon played a key role in the development of cloud computing by modernizing their data centers with new Cloud Architectures. In 2007, Google, IBM and a number of universities embarked on a large-scale cloud computing research project. (en.wikipedia.org) In early 2008, Eucalyptus became the first open-source, AWS API-compatible platform for deploying private clouds. In early 2008, OpenNebula, enhanced in the RESERVOIR European Commission-funded project, became the first open-source software for deploying private and hybrid clouds, and for the federation of clouds. ( en.wikipedia.org) Architectural layers of Cloud computing The two most significant components of cloud computing architecture are known as the front end and the back end. The front end is the part seen by the client, i.e., the computer user. This includes the client‟s network (or computer) and the applications used to access the cloud via a user interface such as a web browser. The back end of the cloud computing architecture is the cloud itself, comprising various computers, servers and data storage devices. (en.wikipedia.org) The architecture of cloud computing grouped into three categories and these are software as a service, platform as a service, and infrastructure as a service. Software as a Service (SaaS) Software as a service provides a complete, turnkey application which is offered as service on demand. Here users sign up for services and use it without any
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worry about where, How, and by whom the compute cycles and storage bits are provided. A single instance of software runs on the cloud and services multiple end users or client applications. The most extensively known example is salesforce.com. Google Apps also offering basic business services including email and word processing. Services like Quicken online, various search engines, social networks, Wikipedia, encyclopedia Britanica on the Internet are also falls into this category. (http://webobjects.cdw.com) Platform as a service (PaaS) PaaS puts in a nutshell a layer of software and provides it as a service that can be used to build higher –level services. Platform as a service provides a full or partial application development environment that users can access and utilize online, even in collaboration with others. This is the newest entry where an application platform is offered to developers in the cloud. Developers write their application to a more or less open specification and then upload their code into the cloud where the application is run, typically being able to scale up automatically as usage for the application grows. Examples are Mosso, Heroku, GoogleApp engine, Engine Yard, Joyent and Force.com(sales Force platform).The service being sold is the machinery that funnels requests to an application and makes the application tick.( http://webobjects.cdw.com). Infrastructure as a service (Iaas) Infrastructure as a service delivers basic storage and compute capabilities as standardized services over the network i.e. Internet. Amazons‟ EC2, Eucalyptus, Go Grid, Right Scale and Linode are examples of IaaS. Developers and system administrators obtain general compute, storage, queuing and other resources and run
International Research: Journal of Library & Information Science |Vol. 1 No. 2, Dec. 2011
their applications with the fewest limitations. This is the most powerful type of cloud in that virtually any application and any configuration fits the Internet can be mapped to this type of service.( http://webobjects.cdw.com) The above is the architecture of cloud computing looking at these different types of clouds it is pretty clear that they are geared towards different purposes and that they promise to take some of the pain away from dealing with the raw infrastructure. Characteristics of Cloud Computing: Cloud computing have following characteristics 1. Availability of large computing infrastructure on need basis: Cloud vendors bring emergence of infinite computing infrastructure availability. Organizations acquire these on need basis. The advantage is that organizations do not need to set up servers for their requirements. 2. "Pay-per-use" billing model is used in Cloud Computing. Cloud billing model are very different from traditional IT billing techniques. Typical billing models include per user billing, per GB billing or peruse billing (i.e. an organization is billed on each usage of the computing service).
buying it. In some sense cloud computing means hiring the computing resources instead of buying them. 5. Services are available from any location. 6. Cloud computing can be ordered online without detailed formal contracts. (http://www.thecloudtutorial.com) Infrastructure models of cloud computing There are mainly three basic service models of cloud computing: Public Cloud: IT resources offered as a service and shared across multiple organizations, managed by an external service provider. Public clouds provide a way to reduce customer risk and cost by providing a flexible, even temporary extension to enterprise infrastructure. (http://www.thecloudtutorial.com) Private Cloud: IT resources dedicated to a single organization and offered on demand Hybrid Cloud: a mix of private and public clouds managed as a single entity to extend capacity across clouds as needed. (http://www.mastertheboss.com) Benefits To understand the benefits of cloud infrastructure it‟s useful to look at two constituencies, users and IT/service providers. Users:
3. Cloud computing typically does not involve long-term commitment to use the computing infrastructure. The vendor does not enforce longterm usage of services. 4. Cloud computing does not comprehend any eloquent capital expenditure for the organization. In cloud computing organizations just use the computing services without
154
Anywhere/anytime access to data; Improved reliability and security of data (relative to laptop storage); Wider access to free software supported by advertising; Software that‟s up-to-date with less malware.
International Research: Journal of Library & Information Science |Vol. 1 No. 2, Dec. 2011
IT/Service Providers:
Lower costs for proof-of-concept and one-offs; Shared infrastructure costs (e.g. electricity and real estate); Lower CAPEX; Improved utilization and peak management; Outsourcing of infrastructure maintenance; Separation of application code from physical resources.
Risks
Technology risk, security and privacy concerns – most computer crime is internal or from negligent and unintentional acts;
Libraries and the clouds Libraries are also not left blank with the emerging technology i.e. cloud computing. Many enterprises are implementing cloud computing as a new technology model for ICT infrastructures and services. cloud computing allows libraries to avoid locally hosting multiple servers and equipment and constantly deals with hardware failure, software installs, upgrades and compatibility issues and this is possible because processes get simplified and libraries save time and money. ICT related headaches of libraries get reduced by the introduction of this technology. Furthermore it can concurrently make workflows simpler and permit the libraries to make available improved end-user customer services with highly developed library find means and assist them online through a large network of collaborating librarians globally who can answer
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Visibility, separation, and control visibility into the operations and performance of shared services, logical and physical separation of data and services across subscribers, and control performance to meet audit and compliance requirements; Difficulty of separating applications from storage; Concerns about loss of control and exit strategies, especially when writing applications to proprietary APIs; Subscription OPEX, which over time can be more expensive on a TCO basis; Risks of service provider viability; Risk that management, performance, and reliability will not be as controllable as today‟s computing models. (http://wikibon.org) accurate queries and be available 24/7 all year round .Infrastructure alone is not enough, we change the ways libraries collaborate. There are other substantial benefits as well, like combining underutilized systems into a cloud computing environment, thus reducing carbon emission footprints and making libraries forerunners of a greener and healthier enjoyable planet. (Ahmed Patel, Ali Seyfi, Yiqi Tew & Ayman Jaradat 2011) The issues of storage, network security, operating system upgrades hardware costs and all of the various sundry activities associated with maintaining a local computing infrastructure are pushed out to the service provider. Also the cost of purchasing individual or bulk licenses for software products is mitigated because the application in centrally installed and utilized. Now it is the time, libraries adopt cloud computing to reduce costs spent on infrastructure part so that can focus efforts in other
International Research: Journal of Library & Information Science |Vol. 1 No. 2, Dec. 2011
areas that were previously prohibited. (Fox 2009)
cost
users available in Library Thing. (Fox 2009) Reed Elsevier Reed Elsevier is a service provider for scientific information working with hospitals to provide point in time information to medical technicians as they need the information. It is capitalizing on the cloud computing model. There is the possibility to place monographic and article content or even technical manuals so that technician and other medical personnel can get assistance exactly when they need it. This utilizes the cloud computing model in the way that computers and other devices used in the medical profession can be tied into the data and application provided by Elsevier from anywhere. (Fox 2009)
Some live examples where Libraries are adopting Cloud Computing OCLC OCLC Online Computer Library Center is a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world's information and reducing the rate of rise of library costs. In a sense OCLC has been functioning as a cloud computing vendor. They provide cataloguing tools over the Internet and allow member institution to draw on their centralized data store. This centralized database allows for the sharing of catalog records between libraries and greatly reduces the time spent in cataloging incoming material. (Fox 2009)
WorldCat is another example of cloud computing architecture drawing on the union catalog infrastructure they have built up over the years. Library Thing It is one of the sites that combine aspects of social networking and Cloud computing is Library Thing, originator of which is Tim Spalding. Library Thing offers services which are just like social networking site, authorizes people to contribute information and suggestion about books and allows them to interconnect globally to share interests. This site also contributes web services for libraries after paying a nominal fee it allows libraries to draw on the vast database of recommendation and other
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Amazon and Google These are among the leading enterprises also providing solutions for libraries by having partnerships between library automation vendors. Amazon has been developing for years a large web services architecture and they now offer hosting services for data which are priced at gigabytes-month and CPU hour rates. We basically pay what we actually use. Google for years is working for the dissemination of information also taking interest in library solutions, going to implement “APP Engine” which provides a hosted service for application within their server farms and on massive and highly redundant storage system. IBM are showing curiosity in the world and has begun developing an infrastructure known by the name “Blue Cloud”. (Fox 2009)
International Research: Journal of Library & Information Science |Vol. 1 No. 2, Dec. 2011
Kindle and Mobile Me services In the electronic book arena Amazon is providing some reading services with „Kindle‟. If one have wireless connection, can purchase and read a rapidly growing list of books and periodicals from the Kindle no matter for the location. With this service largest text can be downloaded in seconds Another like service is “Mobile Me” provided by Apple computing. The concept is distributed calendaring and messaging no matter what device you are using. Modifications made via one device are instantly reflected on all of the devices and computers that are tied into “Mobile Me”. This has many applications in the library world foe e.g. with the library acting as the gatekeepers, institutions could provide mobile access to say, a list of articles to their students simply by selecting them and giving them a code which would bring up the lists of articles from a vendors‟ cloud. The same cloud works for preprint archives, data archives and digital object repositories. (Fox 2009)
and extensive document metadata from documents crawled from the web across computer and information sciences and related fields. Cloud computing are particularly attractive choices of CiteSeerx as it offers information retrieval systems, particularly digital libraries and search engines, a wide variety of options for growth and reduction of maintenance needs and encourages efficient resource use. The dynamic and elastic provisioning features of a cloud infrastructure allow rapid growth in collection size and support a larger user base, while reducing management issues. (Bhuvan Urgaonkar,Pradeep Teregowda & Lee Giles 2010). DuraCloud – DuraSpace A hosted service and open technology to help organizations and end users effectively utilize public cloud services. Built upon existing cloud services. The service can work on Amazon, Atmos, Sun, Rackspace, and other cloud services.LOCKSS in the cloud based on DuraCloud. (http://surferblue.wordpress.com) Chronopolis Project – designed primarily as a preservation storage system.Chronopolis Tools also monitors files and does auditing. (http://surferblue.wordpress.com) TerraPod – digital video library. It allows you to outsource upload and data creation to the creators of the content. (http://surferblue.wordpress.com) Conclusion Cloud computing is an entirely new form of computing which many enterprises such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Amazon, Zoho, and salesforce are adopting for infrastructure solutions. Cloud computing is attracting enterprises and now libraries due to number of reasons. The concept is that it shifts the bulk of the responsibility for
SeerSuite Seer suite was developed as a result of extensive research and development with the goal of enabling efficient dissemination of scientific information and literature. SeerSuite refers to a collection of open source tools that provide the underlying application software for creating academic search engines and digital libraries such as CiteSeerX etc. (Bhuvan Urgaonkar,Pradeep Teregowda & Lee Giles,C 2010). CiteSeerx is an application instance of seersuite, a framework for building digital libraries, repositories and search engines. This provides autonomous citation indexing,
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infrastructure support out to another vendor and basically outsources all data centers and software support to a company that specializes in web-based computing. Cloud computing is a payper-use model to facilitate on-demand access to configurable and trustworthy resources through its architectural layers such as Infrastructure as a service (IaaS), Platform as a service (PaaS) and Software as a service (SaaS).Cloud computing have various benefits such as the reduced cost, ease of maintainance, sharing of resources, etc.It is just renting of services instead of buying them.
Instead of having many advantages, several difficulties must be overcome for cloud computing to be used on a large scale; the first one is the standardization of services offered by cloud vendors. Another obstacle is the limited support to relational database offered by current cloud solutions; the later difficulty to be overcome is the privacy of data located in a cloud. Once all of these difficulties will be surmounted, cloud computing will have the possibilities to be a massively used paradigm. (Giordanelli & Mastroianni 2010).
References 1. Cloud computing-How will it affect you[online].Available from:http://www.pccomputing.com.a u/resources/article.aspx?id=cloudcomputing-how-will-it-affectyou&category=computers-andtechnology[Accessed 6 June 2011] 2. Cloud computing/What cloud computing really means[online]. Available from: http://www.infoworld.com/d/cloudcomputing/what-cloud-computingreally-means-031[Accessd 8 June 2011]. 3. Introduction to cloud computing architecture:white paper [Abstract][online].(June 2009).Available from: http://webobjects.cdw.com/webobjec ts/media/pdf/Sun_CloudComputing. pdf[Accessed 8 June 2011]. 4. Application architecture for cloud computing: white paper[online]. Available from: www.rpath.com/.../white_papers/WP _ArchitectureForCloudComputing.p df [Accessed 7 June 2011]
5. In the Cloud computing- a beginners’ tutorial[online]. Available from: http://www.mastertheboss.com/webinterfaces/299-cloud-computingtutorial.html [Accessed 8 June 2011] 6. Cloud computing[online].Available from: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_comput ing [Accessed 8 June 2011]. 7. Cloud computing:seeding the cloud[online].Available from: http://wikibon.org/wiki/v/Cloud_co mputing:_Seeding_the_cloud [Accessed 9 June 2011] 8. Ahmed Patel, Ali Seyfi, Yiqi Tew, Ayman Jaradat, (2011), „Comparative study and review of grid, cloud, utility computing and software as a service for use by libraries‟, Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 28,no. 3, pp.25 - 32 9. Fox,Robert(2009) „Digital libraries:the systems analysis perspective Library in the clouds‟.OCLC systems & services:International digital library perspectives, Vol.25, no.3 ,pp.156-
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161.Available at: DOI 10.1108/10650750910982539 10. Bhuvan Urgaonkar,Pradeep Teregowda & Lee Giles,C(2010).Cloud computing: A digital library perspectives[online].Available from: http://clgiles.ist.psu.edu/pubs/ICCC2 010-cloud.pdf [Accessed 8 June 2011].http://surferblue.wordpress.co
m/2010/06/26/cloud-computing-forlibrary-services/ 11. Giordanelli,R.& Mastroianni,C, (2010).The cloud computing paradigm:characteristics,opportuniti es and research issues[online].Available from: http://grid.deis.unical.it/papers/pdf/R T-01-2010-CloudSurvey.pdf
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International Research: Journal of Library & Information Science |Vol. 1 No. 2, Dec. 2011
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
[email protected]
Saima Khan Research scholar DLIS, AMU, Aligarh U.P. India.
[email protected]
Surraya Galibeen Research scholar DLIS, AMU, Aligarh U.P. India.
[email protected]
Abstract Cloud computing is a new technique of computing that is extensively used in today’s’ industry as well as society. It is a contemporary model and one of the latest computer industry buzzwords. Cloud computing brings the revolutionary changes in the world of ICT because of its potential benefits such as reduced cost, accessible anywhere anytime as well as its elasticity and flexibility. This paper will throw light on what cloud computing is? Its benefits and risks, architecture of cloud computing and how far this model is beneficial for Libraries. Keywords: Libraries. Cloud Computing, ICT,
terminology it is the ability to use resources and tools through the Internet without really owning or being near them. The only prerequisite is to be able to access them. The term 'cloud' is used to indicate the whole of computing services accessible via the Internet. It is an all-encompassing description of the complex internetconnected networks that exist in datacenters all over the world that power services and applications behind the scenes. (www.pccomputing.com.au). As a metaphor for the Internet, "the cloud" is a familiar cliché, but when combined with "computing," the meaning gets bigger and fuzzier (www.infoworld.com). In recent years the term „‟cloud computing” has been vital in the world of Information Technology. Cloud computing are changing the way information technology is implemented in organizations today, transforms a way we design, build and deliver applications and the architectural considerations that enterprises must make when adopting and using cloud computing technology[http://webobjects.cdw.com (http://webobjects.cdw.com).Cloud computing is rather a new approach to the use of shared computing resources, a substitute to having local servers handle applications. A large number of compute servers and other resources are group together and offers their combined capacity on an on-demand and, pay –per- use basis. The end users usually do not have any idea where the servers are positioned; they just
Introduction Thrust of human being for „new‟ goes on increasing, we look after for more and more, for better and we are always on the watch for the 'next best thing' when it comes to technology and the Internet. Certainly no one can uncertain that the next generation of the Internet i.e. Web 2.0 has had a theatrical influence on how people interrelate and connect with each other both from an individual standpoint and a business one. Another emerging concept that has the weight to change how we perform tasks is taking place before us as well, and is acknowledged as cloud computing. In simple
151
International Research: Journal of Library & Information Science |Vol. 1 No. 2, Dec. 2011
only login there to their required application and start working. (www.rpath.com) Cloud computing, a new technology is basically originates to serve up the high-tech industries and corporate enterprises which are encouraged to implement various stateof-the-art information technologies to improve their business operations because of rigorous market competition and a vividly changing business. Libraries now-a-days are changing to information enterprises hence How do these remain unaffected by the new technology (Cloud computing) which is serving a lot to the firms and hightech industries with its beneficial applications and services. Adopting Cloud computing to the libraries can promote them in its core areas such as Technology, Data hosting archives, Information and Community. The Concept of Cloud computing Cloud Computing, the hottest buzzword in IT ,the conception can be traced back to the days when mainframe application(clientserver based) are in existence in 1960‟s when idea of „utility computing‟ was coined by John McCarthy (MIT computer scientist and Turing award winner). John McCarthy opined that "computation may someday be organized as a public utility"; indeed it shares characteristics with service bureaus. At that time, storage and CPU was very expensive and the mainframe pooled both types of resources and served them to thinclient terminals. Utility computing ended up becoming something of a big business for companies such as IBM. The concept was simple: that computing power could be broken down as a metered service for businesses much like how the power and telephone companies operated for their customers. With the advent of the PC revolution, which brought mass storage and cheap CPUs to the average corporate desktop, the file server gained in popularity
152
as way to enable document sharing and archiving. True to its name, the file server served up storage resources to clients in the enterprise, while the CPU cycles needed to do productive work with those resources were all produced and consumed within the confines of the PC client. (www.mastertheboss.com) In the early 1990s, the budding Internet changed how computers could be used a nd how information could be disseminated. I nternet had enough computers attached to it that academics began thinking seriously about how to connect those machines together to create massive, shared pools of storage and compute power that would be much larger than what any one institution could afford to build. This is when the idea of "the grid" began to take shape. Grid computing is of higher degree to utility computing. (www.mastertheboss.com) The term "grid" is misinterpreted as a synonym for "cloud" as they both are made up with the addition of lots of computers connected. However they are two different things: In fact, they are both used to economize computing by maximizing existing resources. (www.mastertheboss.com) However, the difference between the two lies in the way the tasks are computed in each respective environment. In a computational grid, one large job is divided into many small portions and executed on multiple machines. This characteristic is fundamental to a grid; not so in a cloud. (www.mastertheboss.com) Chellappa gave the first academic definition of the term Cloud Computing in 1997 and later on in 2007 the term cloud computing came into popularity and was
International Research: Journal of Library & Information Science |Vol. 1 No. 2, Dec. 2011
first used in the context when Kevin Kelly opined that "eventually we'll have the intercloud, the cloud of clouds. (en.wikipedia.org) After the dot-com bubble, Amazon played a key role in the development of cloud computing by modernizing their data centers with new Cloud Architectures. In 2007, Google, IBM and a number of universities embarked on a large-scale cloud computing research project. (en.wikipedia.org) In early 2008, Eucalyptus became the first open-source, AWS API-compatible platform for deploying private clouds. In early 2008, OpenNebula, enhanced in the RESERVOIR European Commission-funded project, became the first open-source software for deploying private and hybrid clouds, and for the federation of clouds. ( en.wikipedia.org) Architectural layers of Cloud computing The two most significant components of cloud computing architecture are known as the front end and the back end. The front end is the part seen by the client, i.e., the computer user. This includes the client‟s network (or computer) and the applications used to access the cloud via a user interface such as a web browser. The back end of the cloud computing architecture is the cloud itself, comprising various computers, servers and data storage devices. (en.wikipedia.org) The architecture of cloud computing grouped into three categories and these are software as a service, platform as a service, and infrastructure as a service. Software as a Service (SaaS) Software as a service provides a complete, turnkey application which is offered as service on demand. Here users sign up for services and use it without any
153
worry about where, How, and by whom the compute cycles and storage bits are provided. A single instance of software runs on the cloud and services multiple end users or client applications. The most extensively known example is salesforce.com. Google Apps also offering basic business services including email and word processing. Services like Quicken online, various search engines, social networks, Wikipedia, encyclopedia Britanica on the Internet are also falls into this category. (http://webobjects.cdw.com) Platform as a service (PaaS) PaaS puts in a nutshell a layer of software and provides it as a service that can be used to build higher –level services. Platform as a service provides a full or partial application development environment that users can access and utilize online, even in collaboration with others. This is the newest entry where an application platform is offered to developers in the cloud. Developers write their application to a more or less open specification and then upload their code into the cloud where the application is run, typically being able to scale up automatically as usage for the application grows. Examples are Mosso, Heroku, GoogleApp engine, Engine Yard, Joyent and Force.com(sales Force platform).The service being sold is the machinery that funnels requests to an application and makes the application tick.( http://webobjects.cdw.com). Infrastructure as a service (Iaas) Infrastructure as a service delivers basic storage and compute capabilities as standardized services over the network i.e. Internet. Amazons‟ EC2, Eucalyptus, Go Grid, Right Scale and Linode are examples of IaaS. Developers and system administrators obtain general compute, storage, queuing and other resources and run
International Research: Journal of Library & Information Science |Vol. 1 No. 2, Dec. 2011
their applications with the fewest limitations. This is the most powerful type of cloud in that virtually any application and any configuration fits the Internet can be mapped to this type of service.( http://webobjects.cdw.com) The above is the architecture of cloud computing looking at these different types of clouds it is pretty clear that they are geared towards different purposes and that they promise to take some of the pain away from dealing with the raw infrastructure. Characteristics of Cloud Computing: Cloud computing have following characteristics 1. Availability of large computing infrastructure on need basis: Cloud vendors bring emergence of infinite computing infrastructure availability. Organizations acquire these on need basis. The advantage is that organizations do not need to set up servers for their requirements. 2. "Pay-per-use" billing model is used in Cloud Computing. Cloud billing model are very different from traditional IT billing techniques. Typical billing models include per user billing, per GB billing or peruse billing (i.e. an organization is billed on each usage of the computing service).
buying it. In some sense cloud computing means hiring the computing resources instead of buying them. 5. Services are available from any location. 6. Cloud computing can be ordered online without detailed formal contracts. (http://www.thecloudtutorial.com) Infrastructure models of cloud computing There are mainly three basic service models of cloud computing: Public Cloud: IT resources offered as a service and shared across multiple organizations, managed by an external service provider. Public clouds provide a way to reduce customer risk and cost by providing a flexible, even temporary extension to enterprise infrastructure. (http://www.thecloudtutorial.com) Private Cloud: IT resources dedicated to a single organization and offered on demand Hybrid Cloud: a mix of private and public clouds managed as a single entity to extend capacity across clouds as needed. (http://www.mastertheboss.com) Benefits To understand the benefits of cloud infrastructure it‟s useful to look at two constituencies, users and IT/service providers. Users:
3. Cloud computing typically does not involve long-term commitment to use the computing infrastructure. The vendor does not enforce longterm usage of services. 4. Cloud computing does not comprehend any eloquent capital expenditure for the organization. In cloud computing organizations just use the computing services without
154
Anywhere/anytime access to data; Improved reliability and security of data (relative to laptop storage); Wider access to free software supported by advertising; Software that‟s up-to-date with less malware.
International Research: Journal of Library & Information Science |Vol. 1 No. 2, Dec. 2011
IT/Service Providers:
Lower costs for proof-of-concept and one-offs; Shared infrastructure costs (e.g. electricity and real estate); Lower CAPEX; Improved utilization and peak management; Outsourcing of infrastructure maintenance; Separation of application code from physical resources.
Risks
Technology risk, security and privacy concerns – most computer crime is internal or from negligent and unintentional acts;
Libraries and the clouds Libraries are also not left blank with the emerging technology i.e. cloud computing. Many enterprises are implementing cloud computing as a new technology model for ICT infrastructures and services. cloud computing allows libraries to avoid locally hosting multiple servers and equipment and constantly deals with hardware failure, software installs, upgrades and compatibility issues and this is possible because processes get simplified and libraries save time and money. ICT related headaches of libraries get reduced by the introduction of this technology. Furthermore it can concurrently make workflows simpler and permit the libraries to make available improved end-user customer services with highly developed library find means and assist them online through a large network of collaborating librarians globally who can answer
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Visibility, separation, and control visibility into the operations and performance of shared services, logical and physical separation of data and services across subscribers, and control performance to meet audit and compliance requirements; Difficulty of separating applications from storage; Concerns about loss of control and exit strategies, especially when writing applications to proprietary APIs; Subscription OPEX, which over time can be more expensive on a TCO basis; Risks of service provider viability; Risk that management, performance, and reliability will not be as controllable as today‟s computing models. (http://wikibon.org) accurate queries and be available 24/7 all year round .Infrastructure alone is not enough, we change the ways libraries collaborate. There are other substantial benefits as well, like combining underutilized systems into a cloud computing environment, thus reducing carbon emission footprints and making libraries forerunners of a greener and healthier enjoyable planet. (Ahmed Patel, Ali Seyfi, Yiqi Tew & Ayman Jaradat 2011) The issues of storage, network security, operating system upgrades hardware costs and all of the various sundry activities associated with maintaining a local computing infrastructure are pushed out to the service provider. Also the cost of purchasing individual or bulk licenses for software products is mitigated because the application in centrally installed and utilized. Now it is the time, libraries adopt cloud computing to reduce costs spent on infrastructure part so that can focus efforts in other
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areas that were previously prohibited. (Fox 2009)
cost
users available in Library Thing. (Fox 2009) Reed Elsevier Reed Elsevier is a service provider for scientific information working with hospitals to provide point in time information to medical technicians as they need the information. It is capitalizing on the cloud computing model. There is the possibility to place monographic and article content or even technical manuals so that technician and other medical personnel can get assistance exactly when they need it. This utilizes the cloud computing model in the way that computers and other devices used in the medical profession can be tied into the data and application provided by Elsevier from anywhere. (Fox 2009)
Some live examples where Libraries are adopting Cloud Computing OCLC OCLC Online Computer Library Center is a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world's information and reducing the rate of rise of library costs. In a sense OCLC has been functioning as a cloud computing vendor. They provide cataloguing tools over the Internet and allow member institution to draw on their centralized data store. This centralized database allows for the sharing of catalog records between libraries and greatly reduces the time spent in cataloging incoming material. (Fox 2009)
WorldCat is another example of cloud computing architecture drawing on the union catalog infrastructure they have built up over the years. Library Thing It is one of the sites that combine aspects of social networking and Cloud computing is Library Thing, originator of which is Tim Spalding. Library Thing offers services which are just like social networking site, authorizes people to contribute information and suggestion about books and allows them to interconnect globally to share interests. This site also contributes web services for libraries after paying a nominal fee it allows libraries to draw on the vast database of recommendation and other
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Amazon and Google These are among the leading enterprises also providing solutions for libraries by having partnerships between library automation vendors. Amazon has been developing for years a large web services architecture and they now offer hosting services for data which are priced at gigabytes-month and CPU hour rates. We basically pay what we actually use. Google for years is working for the dissemination of information also taking interest in library solutions, going to implement “APP Engine” which provides a hosted service for application within their server farms and on massive and highly redundant storage system. IBM are showing curiosity in the world and has begun developing an infrastructure known by the name “Blue Cloud”. (Fox 2009)
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Kindle and Mobile Me services In the electronic book arena Amazon is providing some reading services with „Kindle‟. If one have wireless connection, can purchase and read a rapidly growing list of books and periodicals from the Kindle no matter for the location. With this service largest text can be downloaded in seconds Another like service is “Mobile Me” provided by Apple computing. The concept is distributed calendaring and messaging no matter what device you are using. Modifications made via one device are instantly reflected on all of the devices and computers that are tied into “Mobile Me”. This has many applications in the library world foe e.g. with the library acting as the gatekeepers, institutions could provide mobile access to say, a list of articles to their students simply by selecting them and giving them a code which would bring up the lists of articles from a vendors‟ cloud. The same cloud works for preprint archives, data archives and digital object repositories. (Fox 2009)
and extensive document metadata from documents crawled from the web across computer and information sciences and related fields. Cloud computing are particularly attractive choices of CiteSeerx as it offers information retrieval systems, particularly digital libraries and search engines, a wide variety of options for growth and reduction of maintenance needs and encourages efficient resource use. The dynamic and elastic provisioning features of a cloud infrastructure allow rapid growth in collection size and support a larger user base, while reducing management issues. (Bhuvan Urgaonkar,Pradeep Teregowda & Lee Giles 2010). DuraCloud – DuraSpace A hosted service and open technology to help organizations and end users effectively utilize public cloud services. Built upon existing cloud services. The service can work on Amazon, Atmos, Sun, Rackspace, and other cloud services.LOCKSS in the cloud based on DuraCloud. (http://surferblue.wordpress.com) Chronopolis Project – designed primarily as a preservation storage system.Chronopolis Tools also monitors files and does auditing. (http://surferblue.wordpress.com) TerraPod – digital video library. It allows you to outsource upload and data creation to the creators of the content. (http://surferblue.wordpress.com) Conclusion Cloud computing is an entirely new form of computing which many enterprises such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Amazon, Zoho, and salesforce are adopting for infrastructure solutions. Cloud computing is attracting enterprises and now libraries due to number of reasons. The concept is that it shifts the bulk of the responsibility for
SeerSuite Seer suite was developed as a result of extensive research and development with the goal of enabling efficient dissemination of scientific information and literature. SeerSuite refers to a collection of open source tools that provide the underlying application software for creating academic search engines and digital libraries such as CiteSeerX etc. (Bhuvan Urgaonkar,Pradeep Teregowda & Lee Giles,C 2010). CiteSeerx is an application instance of seersuite, a framework for building digital libraries, repositories and search engines. This provides autonomous citation indexing,
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infrastructure support out to another vendor and basically outsources all data centers and software support to a company that specializes in web-based computing. Cloud computing is a payper-use model to facilitate on-demand access to configurable and trustworthy resources through its architectural layers such as Infrastructure as a service (IaaS), Platform as a service (PaaS) and Software as a service (SaaS).Cloud computing have various benefits such as the reduced cost, ease of maintainance, sharing of resources, etc.It is just renting of services instead of buying them.
Instead of having many advantages, several difficulties must be overcome for cloud computing to be used on a large scale; the first one is the standardization of services offered by cloud vendors. Another obstacle is the limited support to relational database offered by current cloud solutions; the later difficulty to be overcome is the privacy of data located in a cloud. Once all of these difficulties will be surmounted, cloud computing will have the possibilities to be a massively used paradigm. (Giordanelli & Mastroianni 2010).
References 1. Cloud computing-How will it affect you[online].Available from:http://www.pccomputing.com.a u/resources/article.aspx?id=cloudcomputing-how-will-it-affectyou&category=computers-andtechnology[Accessed 6 June 2011] 2. Cloud computing/What cloud computing really means[online]. Available from: http://www.infoworld.com/d/cloudcomputing/what-cloud-computingreally-means-031[Accessd 8 June 2011]. 3. Introduction to cloud computing architecture:white paper [Abstract][online].(June 2009).Available from: http://webobjects.cdw.com/webobjec ts/media/pdf/Sun_CloudComputing. pdf[Accessed 8 June 2011]. 4. Application architecture for cloud computing: white paper[online]. Available from: www.rpath.com/.../white_papers/WP _ArchitectureForCloudComputing.p df [Accessed 7 June 2011]
5. In the Cloud computing- a beginners’ tutorial[online]. Available from: http://www.mastertheboss.com/webinterfaces/299-cloud-computingtutorial.html [Accessed 8 June 2011] 6. Cloud computing[online].Available from: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_comput ing [Accessed 8 June 2011]. 7. Cloud computing:seeding the cloud[online].Available from: http://wikibon.org/wiki/v/Cloud_co mputing:_Seeding_the_cloud [Accessed 9 June 2011] 8. Ahmed Patel, Ali Seyfi, Yiqi Tew, Ayman Jaradat, (2011), „Comparative study and review of grid, cloud, utility computing and software as a service for use by libraries‟, Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 28,no. 3, pp.25 - 32 9. Fox,Robert(2009) „Digital libraries:the systems analysis perspective Library in the clouds‟.OCLC systems & services:International digital library perspectives, Vol.25, no.3 ,pp.156-
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161.Available at: DOI 10.1108/10650750910982539 10. Bhuvan Urgaonkar,Pradeep Teregowda & Lee Giles,C(2010).Cloud computing: A digital library perspectives[online].Available from: http://clgiles.ist.psu.edu/pubs/ICCC2 010-cloud.pdf [Accessed 8 June 2011].http://surferblue.wordpress.co
m/2010/06/26/cloud-computing-forlibrary-services/ 11. Giordanelli,R.& Mastroianni,C, (2010).The cloud computing paradigm:characteristics,opportuniti es and research issues[online].Available from: http://grid.deis.unical.it/papers/pdf/R T-01-2010-CloudSurvey.pdf
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