Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Business Value of Cloud Computing Essay

The significant development of information technology over past few years has led to the increasing demand of resources, extra bandwidth and computational power. Small and medium business companies with their limited budget are finding themselves in the middle of balancing between its client/employee needs and maintaining efficient work environment. In today’s economy the answer for the above problem is ‘Cloud Computing’. Cloud computing offers software and hardware resources and in some cases human services over a distributed environment that can be shared and utilized on demand through internet. Business owners can use these resources as per their requirement even if that is for few hours a day or few days a month and have to pay only for that actual use. Thus this relatively new concept is becoming highly popular among IT organizations because of its flexibility and cost effectiveness. It is highly scalable and also can span quickly according to the requirements of individual organization yet still sharing the same resources. Classification of Cloud services: The broad concept of Cloud computing can be classified into the following categories: 1)Software as a Service (SaaS): In this classification traditional or custom made software applications can be served over the internet rather than purchasing the licensed version individually. For example companies like Salesforce.com which provide CRM software to various business owners, Google Apps (word processors, spreadsheet applications) etc which are commonly used. All these are relatively cheaper than purchasing licensed versions and installing them in the internal infrastructure. Here the provider is responsible for updating the product and troubleshoot in case of any issues. 2)Platform as a Service (PaaS): This service includes providing the entire framework and all necessary products to support an entire Software development life cycle (SDLC). Starting with Analysis going all the way through design, coding, testing and deployment of the end product. The leading providers of this service are Microsoft Azure platform, Google App Engine. A classic example is SharePoint application from Microsoft where users from different location can collaborate to develop a common application that can be customized and shared individually according to the requirement of each client. 3)Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): This classification focuses on renting storage equipments (servers and high end networking devices) as well as processing devices (CPUs) to clients who don’t wish to invest in buying dedicated devices as per their requirement. Companies are billed for these resources as per their actual use and can save lots of money. IaaS providers include Amazon S3 serving storage needs, EC2 for computation services and SQS for networking needs. The provider’s infrastructure is pre-setup and can scale up and down according the each client’s needs based on real-time situations. These resources can cater occasional peaks in the situations where there is sudden increase in data or can scale down when the data flow is less. Another small classification that can also be mentioned is of offering Peoples’ skills as a service, e.g. Programmers with knowledge of Cloud services can be provided per hour basis which can help organization in developing the application as well as integrating in the existing cloud services rented by the organization. This scales down cost of hiring a programmer and also benefitting by using his/her services to merge the application with the infrastructure. (Motahari-Nezhad, Stephenson, Singhal, 2009) Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon.com has quoted â€Å" if you run your services inside the company, utilization becomes an issue. It amortizes your cost over number of cycles. If you run services outside, on a public service, it is no longer an issue for you†. (Mache, 2009, p.55) This could be supplemented by Guy Rosen, CEO of Vircado. A starter firm in cloud computing, according to him Cloud computing can benefit a organization in many ways: 1)The company does not have to pay anything upfront, instead they are billed only for the services they use. This is a huge advantage of small organizations which have budget constraints and cannot afford large payments initially. Even in the annual balance sheet there would be no assets to declare, that could be a huge relief to accounting department. 2)Secondly if you don’t own huge infrastructure, the cost of maintaining it also comes down. There could be marginal savings in electricity which can be a significant factor in budgetory expense. 3)If the company recieves cloud services, they don’t have to worry about recruiting and maintaining IT personnel, they can concentrate on their core business goals without worrying about constructing server rooms, purchasing expensive software and maintainence contracts. (Rosen, 2010) Companies don’t have to worry about traffic or bandwidth, they even don’t have to worry about advertising on the internet by developing their web application inhouse. They can take help of SaaS and once deployed in the cloud they can wait till the time customers start hitting the webpage. Till then all the resources are not optimally utilized thus they have to pay only for that actual utilization. In a recent survey by Guy Rosen, he used market analytics vendor Quantcast to get the list of companies using cloud and their service provider. The results are displayed below in graphical format: Figure1. Adapted from â€Å"The business of Clouds† by G. Rosen, 2010, Crossroads 16(3), p 26. As per the graphic, Amazon EC2 is highest provider of cloud services hosting amongst sample of 500k. With more and more companies using cloud computing and the providers constantly adding services, businesses can save lot of money while the management can concentrate on achieving core goals.

Philip Gefter

In the world of art, the photograph has conventionally been used to establish original subjects that document and reflect cultures as accurately as possible. However, in Philip Gefter’s essay, â€Å"Photographic Icons: Fact, Fiction, or Metaphor†, Gefter points out that, â€Å"just because a photograph reflects the world with perceptual accuracy doesn’t mean it is proof of what actually transpired. (208)† What Gefter is telling us is that it is that the ordinary reality of the image is not what is important; the metaphoric truth is the significant factor. What makes photojournalism essential is that it helps show us how to view the world in an individualized way. It is, essentially, a public art, and its power and importance is a function of that artistry. From the war photography of Mathew Brady (who was known for moving dead bodies to create a scene) to Ruth Orkin (who directed a second shot to capture â€Å"American Girl in Italy†, when the first â€Å"real† shot was not to her liking), Gefter underscores that, although these shots are not the unedited version of life, this was life, just in a more appealing fashion. Gefter does not feel these photos are historically invalid. In fact, he believes that they are â€Å"proof of facts in real time, moments in history brought to the present. (208)† Seldom are photojournalistic efforts important primarily because of the â€Å"fact† of what they show; their informational value is minor. Such is the case of the 1956 United Press International photograph of Rosa Parks sitting at the front of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. For many years, we were led to believe that this photograph was taken on that famous day. It was not until many years later that Parks revealed that the photograph was taken over a year after the day she refused to give up her seat on the bus. The power of this photo resides in the image itself. In general, how much of the value we place on a photographic image is based on what’s actually in the photograph, and how much of it is based on what we’re told about the photograph? The photographer isn’t trying to cheat us by being deceitful in some way to history: Rosa Parks did start a revolution by sitting in the front of a bus while a white man sat behind her. The photograph is powerful enough to take us back to that famous day. It makes us feel as though we are stepping onto that bus, looking up to see a sight not seen before. Although it may not have been taken as the moment happened, it gives us an understanding. The manipulations that attended the creation of this picture are invisible, superficial elements. The amount of manipulation that will deprive a photograph of its value depends on the level of value we assign to it. We revere some photographs because they are images of a fact or time in history, others are compelling because they capture an aspect of the human condition, and yet others appeal to us because they point out to us something beautiful; it’s inspiring and exciting to be reminded that the world can be good and charming. All three of these perspectives ring true for the Parks photograph. She is an icon herself; her story is a force of history. She helped define human condition for an entire race of people and bolstered the Civil Rights Movement. And it is, without a doubt, a quiet, beautiful tale of a kind, demure woman who wanted change. As Gefter asserts, â€Å"Here is a staged document that has become a historic reference point (214-215)†, the power of this picture hangs on the basis that this is life. All photographs are subjective viewpoints. At the most fundamental level the photographer has decided where to position the camera, what is in or not in the frame, and when to take the shot. It is most certainly one of the reasons why not everyone who owns a camera is a photographer and not all photographers are the same. The real value of the art of photojournalism is its way of telling us the truth about that moment in time. Whether or not the photo was staged means little if it served its purpose. And the photo of Rosa Parks absolutely served its purpose; it invoked emotion and made us feel as if we were there. Sometimes fiction tells history truer than nonfiction. Photography is an art; it is an illustration of a point of view, or concept. Photography is story telling. Photography is history. Even if they were orchestrated, all of the photos Gefter discusses in his essay are historical documents. They represent a certain way of life, of thinking, a set of beliefs that the people that composed them held dear to them. Would anyone think less of a beautiful portrait just because the people in it posed for the artist? Art has a truth in itself. There are no lies in a work of art, because it is the observer who gives them value, meaning, and content. We need to be just more thorough to decipher the hidden truth. And that where lies most of the excitement of the beauty of a work of art; a brief look into past, in the development of the analysis of their hidden messages which are different for each and every one of us.