Applications' of Cloud Computing in Academic Institutions

Transcription

1 Applications' of Cloud Computing in Academic Institutions Muhammad Mannir Ahmad Getso University of East London Kuala Lumpur Malaysia Riyaz Ahmed A. H. School of Engineering & Computing Sciences FTMS College, Technology Park Malaysia Bukit Jail, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Abstract Cloud Computing is becoming an adoptable technology for many of the Organization, Companies and Educational Institutes with its dynamic scalability and usage of virtualized resources as a service through the Internet. It will become a significant impact on the educational Institutes in the future. Cloud computing is an excellent alternative for educational institutions which are especially under budget shortage in order to operate their information systems effectively without spending any more capital for the computers and network devices. Universities take advantage of available cloud-based applications offered by service providers and enable their own students. lecturers to perform business and academic tasks. In this paper, I will review what the cloud computing infrastructure will provide in the educational arena, especially in the universities where the use of computers are more intensive and what can be done to increase the benefits of common applications for students and teachers, and how to developed the system that can be work in any time of cloud like private cloud, public cloud, and hybrid cloud. Keywords: ICT, Cloud Computing, Higher Education, Security, IaaS, PaaS, SaaS. 1. Introduction In this era of Information Technology, the term Cloud Computing has been an important term in the world of Information Technology (IT). Cloud computing is a recent concept that is still evolving across the information technology industry and academia. Several definitions have evolved so far, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, defines cloud computing as a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. Three typical kinds of cloud computing services are: Processing Clouds that provide scalable and mostly affordable computing resources that run enterprise programs, which is also sometimes known as Infrastructure as a service (IaaS), Storage Clouds that offer an alternative to local file systems also known as a Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Application Clouds also called Software as a Service (SaaS), that allow a thin client to interact with services that are completely hosted on an external infrastructure. Similarly, cloud may be hosted and employed in different fashions, depending on the use case. state the use or deployment type of cloud computing as; Private Clouds: this is typically owned by the respective enterprise and / or leased. Functionalities are not directly exposed to the customer, though in some cases services with cloud enhanced features may be offered this is similar to (Cloud) Software as a Service from the customer point of view. Example: ebay, Public Clouds. Organizations may use cloud functionality from others, respectively offer their own services to users outside of the company. Providing the user with the actual capability to exploit the cloud features for his / her own purposes also allows other enterprises to outsource their services to such cloud providers, thus reducing costs and effort to build up their own infrastructure. As noted in the context of cloud types, the scope of functionalities thereby may ISSN: Page 65

2 differ. Example: Amazon, Google Apps, Windows Azure. And Hybrid Clouds. Though public clouds allow enterprises to outsource parts of their infrastructure to cloud providers, they at the same time would lose control over the resources and the distribution / management of code and data. In some cases, this is not desired by the respective enterprise. Hybrid clouds consist of a mixed employment of private and public cloud infrastructures so as to achieve a maximum of cost reduction through outsourcing whilst maintaining the desired degree of control over e.g. sensitive data by employing local private clouds. There are not many hybrid clouds actually in use today, though initial initiatives such as the one by IBM and Juniper already introduce base technologies for their realization. This paper addresses various aspects of computing requirements in general, and as applied to university settings in specific, and will attempt to tie these aspects to typical decision criteria to move to cloud computing, such as cost and unsteady and inadequate power supply. The paper concludes with a set of recommendations and plans for future work. 2. Literature Review Many of the previous work in the field of cloud computing technology have been in the areas of new technologies, general explanation of the cloud technology, differences among similar technologies, security requirements and the future expectations in these emerging environments. While Banerjee (2009) provides an overview of technological researches performed in HP labs, and a cloud-scale intelligent infrastructure attracts, smart environments like utility computing, smart data centers, pervasive computing, automation, virtualization and intelligent networks already penetrate many spaces of our daily live (Klein & Kaefer, 2008). Cloud computing is an emerging application platform and aims to share data, calculations and services among users. The methods to model it with the challenges like user interface, task distribution and coordination issues are explained and evaluated in (Lijun, Chan, &Tse, 2008). Grossman et a1, (2009) developed a cloud-based infrastructure which had been optimized for wide area, performance networks and supported necessary data mining applications. Cloud computing infrastructures accelerated the adoption of different technological innovations in academia and its facilities and resources could be accessed by the colleges as on demand. Praveena& Betsy, (2009) provided a comprehensive introduction to the application of cloud in universities. Delic& Riley (2009) assessed the current state of the Enterprise Knowledge Management and how it would turn into a more global, dependable and efficient infrastructure namely cloud computing. They discussed architectural technologies and related applications. The basic features of cloud computing are presented and compared with the original Grid Computing technology (Aymerich, Fenu&Surcis, 2008). They introduced new services that will replace many types of computational resources currently used. In that perspective, they also consider that grid computing will play a fundamental role in defining how cloud services will be provided. SaaS, the software deployment service provided by the Internet Service Providers (ISP) and the carrier companies is expected to change the current system architecture of the organizations and thus is accepted as another innovation for the network society (Hirata et a1, 2008). In the software-as-a-service (SaaS) cloud model, service providers supply the hardware and software products and interact with the user through a web portal. Services can be anything from Web-based to inventory control and database processing (Newton, 2009). Cloud provides the opportunity of flexibility and adaptability to use the computing resources on-demand. Contrary to having only one service provider, different providers use different interfaces to their compute resources utilizing varied architectures and implementation technologies for customers. Although this creates a management problem, a ISSN: Page 66

3 common architecture facilitates the management of compute resources from different Cloud providers in a homogenous manner (Dodda, Smith & van Moorsel, 2009). Mitchell (2008) provided an overview of existing learning architectures, and raised questions about how educational institutions are managing the cloud computing resources. He also brought reasonable explanations for the challenge of indexing web resources for optimum discoverability by students and educators. After this brief literature review providing the context from the infrastructure, application and services aspect of cloud computing, this paper focuses on the educational usage of the cloud services and how it will support these virtual services in a secure manner. We will also look for the answers of its benefits to higher education institutions and different educational uses. Based on the literature review and analysis of the current cloud computing service provisions and applications in institutions, we also introduce cloud computing to educators and help them to gain a better understanding of the conception of cloud technology and its impact on teaching and learning in the Institutions. Figure 1: Architecture for dynamic resource allocation using education information Figure 2: Cloud Computing cost reduction 2.1 Cloud Categories IaaS Infrastructure-as-a-Service like Amazon Web Services provides virtual server instances with unique IP addresses and blocks of storage on demand. Customers use the provider s application program interface (API) to start, stop, access and configure their virtual servers and storage. In the enterprise, cloud computing allows a company to pay for only as much capacity as is needed, and bring more online as soon as required. Because this pay-for-what-you-use ISSN: Page 67

4 model resembles the way electricity, fuel and water are consumed; it s sometimes referred to as utility computing PaaS Platform-as-a-service in the cloud is defined as a set of software and product development tools hosted on the provider s infrastructure. Developers create applications on the provider s platform over the Internet. PaaS providers may use APIs, website portals or gateway software installed on the customer s computer. Force.com, (an outgrowth of Salesforce.com) and GoogleApps are examples of PaaS. Developers need to know that currently, there are not standards for interoperability or data portability in the cloud. Some providers will not allow software created by their customers to be moved off the provider s platform SaaS In the software-as-a-service cloud model, the vendor supplies the hardware infrastructure, the software product and interacts with the user through a front-end portal. SaaS is a very broad market. Services can be anything from Web-based to inventory control and database processing. Because the service provider hosts both the application and the data, the end user is free to use the service from anywhere Public and Private Cloud A cloud can be private or public. A public cloud sells services to anyone on the Internet. (Currently, Amazon Web Services is the largest public cloud provider.) A private cloud is a proprietary network or a data center that supplies hosted services to a limited number of people. When a service provider uses public cloud resources to create their private cloud, the result is called a virtual private cloud. Private or public, the goal of cloud computing is to provide easy, scalable access to computing resources and IT services. The Main purpose of this project is to developed the Portable and Embedded Cloud Information System that it can run on any Environment, you can host the system on Google Cloud App Engine, you can also host the System on Amazon, or any public cloud, private cloud or hybrid cloud, you can even host the system on your own cloud, and the system is very ISSN: Page 68

5 portable and light, you can even host it on Mobile Phone Operating system like android using Jetty Server, and the System can run standalone on any Desktop Computer, Windows Operating System of Linux Operating System. 3. Result, Analysis and Nterpretation of Data 3.1 Educational Usage of Cloud Computing The Cloud delivers computing and storage resources to its users/customers. It works as a service on demand policy. Cloud computing is a new business model wrapped around new technologies like virtualization, SaaS and broadband internet. Recent interests offered new applications and elastic scalability with higher computing parameters. So that, these positive effects have shifted to outsourcing of not only equipment setup, but also the ongoing IT administration of the resources as well (Open Grid Forum, 2009). The results of a survey that have been completed in 2009 by Gartner analysts about the IT trends (especially cloud computing) show that it is being used more in the areas of finance and business when compared to other sectors (Gartner, 2009). Results are shown as a pie chart and the labels on each different slice represent different industrial sectors and services. The / is used to separate different sectors with the same percentage Cloud usage Many technologies that were previously expensive or unavailable are now becoming free to anyone with a web browser. This is true for all web sites, blogs, video sharing, music sharing, social sharing, collaboration software, editing/presentation and publishing, and computing platforms in the cloud. Students are already using many of these technologies in their personal lives. In the professional world, the trend of discovering and using technologies in our personal life is called consumerization. This means we should demand and consume the required services. Our education system should take advantage of this same trend, which will both enrich our student s technology enabled education, and importantly, reduce the budget impact in academic institutions. University management should identify and leverage emerging technologies that are cost-effective, and strive for the broadest feasible and equitable access to technology for students and staff. The need for hardware and software isn t being eliminated, ISSN: Page 69

6 but it is shifting from being on-premises to being in the cloud. All that is needed is a cheap access device and a web browser, broadband in the schools, perhaps wireless hotspots. 3.3 Proposed System The System I will offer in this study, should easily meet the needs of the administrative staff (student affairs, finance and accounting, purchasing and procurement, etc.) and education, training and research related needs of students and academic staff who work especially in the educational institutions.. Infrastructure scales up and down quickly to meet demand. System should able to run on any type of cloud Private cloud, Public Cloud, Hybrid Cloud, Own Cloud, and the system should able to run on standalone, the system should ale to embedded the server and database, no need for configuring server or database, the system will be click and run on any type of Operating system. 3.1 Screenshots of the System running on different System running on Google Cloud App Engine ISSN: Page 70

7 Systems running on Amazon Cloud Services 4. Conclusion System running on Intranet Server Cloud computing as an exciting development is a significant alternative today s educational perspective. Students and administrative personnel have the opportunity to quickly and economically access various application platforms and resources through the web pages ondemand. This automatically reduces the cost of organizational expenses and offers more powerful functional capabilities. There will be an online survey to collect the required data for the use of cloud computing in the universities and other governmental or private institutions in the region. This will help us review the current status and probable considerations to adopt the cloud technology. Beginning with the outsourcing of service seems attractive. The gradually removal of software license costs, hardware costs and maintenance costs respectively provides great flexibility to the university/corporate management. From the points of advantages provided by cloud, there is a great advantage for university IT staff to take them away the responsibility of the maintenance burden in the university. Cloud provides instant global platforms, elimination of H/S capacities and licenses, reduced cost, simplified scalability. Adopting cloud network redundancy eliminates disaster recovery risks and its high costs. There can always be new tools and applications to improve IT features. There are of course some disadvantages too. The cloud computing services needed to deliver the majority of IT services needed by customers do not yet exist. There are still problems and constraints with application offerings, service-level agreements, more importantly security issues. All of the cloud providers do not have the same capability for their technological levels. ISSN: Page 71

8 5. Future Work In the future I want to developed a systems that can be embedded in any types of hardware and devices, example you can communicate with your system via Instant Voice Response, or via Normal Mobile SMS Message, you can communicate with the System by sending command via sms message, and the command will execute by the system and reply you instantly, and also the system can run on TV, via Chrome cast device. References [1] Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud. Retrieved from [2] Armbrust, Michael, Armando F. Above the Clouds: A Berkeley View of Cloud Computing." [3] Technical Report No. UCB/EECS , Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California at Berkeley [4] Creeger Mache. Cloud Computing: An Overview." ACM Queue, Association for Computing Machinery [5] Sims, K. IBM Blue Cloud Initiative Enterprise Cloud Computing [6] Praveena, K., & Betsy T. (2009). Application of Cloud Computing in Academia. IUP Journal of Systems Management, 7 (3), [7] Sclater, N. (2009). Cloudworks, elearning in the Cloud, ISSN: Page 72