Technically Speaking: Computing in the Cloud
by David SmallenVice president
Information technology
Opinion Contributor
dsmallen@hamilton.edu
In my last article I suggested ways in which we could reduce Information Technology costs at Hamilton by changing the way we provide general purpose computing resources and printing. In this column I want to suggest that in some cases we can provide IT resources less expensively by thinking differently about the way we use the Internet. Providing access to computing resources by using the Internet is called computing in the cloud. This terminology comes from the visual representation of the Internet as a complex blob (the cloud).
We all use cloud computing. We search for things using Google. We purchase things from Amazon. We maintain personal e-mail accounts at services such as Google, HotMail, Yahoo and AOL. We share photos with others on Flickr, our videos on YouTube and our personal thoughts on Facebook. These are all examples of using Internet computing resources. In many of these cases the resources are provided for free, or minimal charge, based upon our willingness to accept advertising.
We now have a task force investigating providing college e-mail services in the cloud. Google is one organization that provides a suite of applications to colleges for free. These are known as Google Apps and include: e-mail, storage, web pages, calendaring, document and spreadsheet applications, instant messaging and more.
It currently costs Hamilton over $30,000 per year for hardware and software to provide these services ourselves, exclusive of the staff time devoted to keeping this critical service reliable. There would be no change in our e-mail addresses (e.g., dsmallen@hamilton.edu) and students would be able to keep their accounts for life – changing the address to something like jdoe@alumni.hamilton.edu when they graduate.
There would be no advertising during the time a person was employed or a student at Hamilton. The main motivation for Google is to get customers for life. The benefit for Hamilton is to save money and provide access to enhanced and integrated services. The first customers for this service were large universities who found that providing e-mail reliably was very difficult and expensive. More recently several small liberal arts colleges have moved their e-mail to Google or other similar organizations.
Another way to look at cloud computing is that it is a form of outsourcing, that is, contracting with others to provide a service that we need rather than providing it ourselves. We already outsource the repair of campus computers (to VITEC Computer Repair) and the care of our telephone system (to TAG).
Our Internet connection is provided by Time-Warner, and the repair of our campus network electronics is contracted to Cisco. We have always considered outsourcing as a viable way to pay someone for a service that would be more costly to provide ourselves, or for which we could not provide timely, cost-effective alternatives. The main difference with Google Apps is that Google proposes to provide the service for free.
What other cloud resources are emerging? An intriguing one is access to High Performance Computing (HPC) resources. HPC resources include very fast computers, massive storage, specialized software, high speed networking and advanced expertise. We currently have HPC resources in our chemistry, physics and biology departments. In the future, we will consider purchasing HPC resources from other institutions and organizations (such as Amazon).
There are now companies that will run course management systems (e.g., Blackboard) on their computers and charge you an annual fee for doing so and providing support to faculty and students using the system. Consortia of colleges and universities are working out agreements to collectively support important applications, with one institution hosting the application and others providing the necessary expertise to answer questions.
Basically, any application that can be run on our own computers could potentially be housed by a company in the cloud with our access being provided through our Internet connection. There certainly are questions to be answered before using cloud resources such as: Will we have to increase the speed of our Internet connection if more of the things we use are located off-campus? How do we assure the reliability of these resources when they are not under our control?
Cloud resources provide additional ways in which we can think differently in these difficult financial times. It is crucial to use these technologies as we look to the future.