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Towards Knowledge in the Cloud A research paper by Davide Cerri and et.al Abstract. Knowledge in the form of semantic data is becoming more and more ubiquitous, and the need for scalable, dynamic systems to support collaborative work with such distributed, heterogeneous knowledge rarises. We extend the “data in the cloud” approach that is emerging today to “knowledge in the cloud”, with support for handling semantic information, organizing and finding it efficiently and providing reasoning and quality support. Both the life sciences and emergency response fields are identified as strong potential beneficiaries of having ”knowledge in the cloud”. Here is the complete paper

Werner Vogels Werner Vogels, CTO and VP of Amazon Web Services, joined Amazon in 2004 as director of systems research, coming from a computer science research post at Cornell University. In Holland, he had been a student of some of the leading minds in computing. The late  Jim Gray , a Turing Award winner "for seminal contributions to database and transaction processing research and technical leadership in system implementation," was a proctor for Vogels' defense of his PhD thesis at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. At Vrije, Vogels' advisers included Andrew Tannenbaum, who wrote standard textbooks on operating systems as well as the code for the Minix operating system, and Henri Bal, a specialist in large, parallel systems. He became Amazon CTO early in 2005 and later that year was named VP. He's had a vision of a new type of distributed system, one that relied on inexpensive parts but could scale out infinitely, making the Amazon Compute Cloud ela

Increasingly, educational institutions and state entities handling student data are hiring outside  companies to perform cloud computing functions related to managing personal information. Daniel J Solove recommend the following points to be considered in discussions with contractors  The Benefits. The benefits of cloud computing are that outside entities might be more sophisticated at managing personal data. These entities may be able to manage data more inexpensively and effectively than the educational institution could do itself. In many cases, cloud computing providers can provide better security than the educational institutions can. The Risks The risks of cloud computing are that educational institutions no longer have as much control over the personal data. They must rely on the cloud computing provider to have the appropriate practices and policies to ensure that data is properly maintained, handled, used, or disclosed.

Here is an interesting write up on one of today's hot topics: Data Scientist from TextRadar   In “ Dresner’s Point: Data Scientists Have Keys to the Kingdom ,” Howard Dresner discusses the role of the data scientist and brings together comments from a recent Twitter conversation on the topic. The author argues that we clearly do not have enough data scientists given current technology challenges and that it may be easier to train a business person and transform that individual into a data scientist rather than training a technologist with the necessary business skills. Communication skills seem to be at the heart of this perspective: A data scientist needs more than business analysis, data analysis and communications skills. Such an individual also will need a really deep understanding of the company’s business because consequences definitely will arise from the scientist’s queries and insights. It could even lead to completely transforming a company. The article co

Big data has been hugely topical in the last few years. It has been highly publicised that all types of organisations are experiencing a data explosion, which is putting strain on IT departments to manage and store this vast amount of data. Big data, has therefore, been a significant driver of cloud adoption as companies struggle with how to store, manage and protect this data. It is critical for organisations to have instant access to these large quantities of data, to successfully achieve their business objectives. However, this is a major challenge for companies, along with effectively analysing this data. Cloud computing enables companies to overcome these challenges, and it could be argued that cloud computing is in fact increasing the demand for real-time business insights, due to data being accessed and consumed through various devices anywhere, at any time. The capability of cloud alongside the sheer power of big data analytics represents a fascinating fusion of two i

A recent study by the  Cloud Security Alliance  (CSA) and the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) revealed that changing government regulations, plausible exit strategies, and international data privacy are the most pressing concerns of business enterprises about to the viability of Cloud Computing adoption. The study, published as “ Cloud Market Maturity ,” draws on responses from 250 cloud users in 50 countries, provides unique insight into the future of en-mass cloud adoption by contemporary global business enterprises. Other points of contention about the cloud include questions of legality, contract solvency, fundamental data ownership, stability of providers, cloud integration with local systems, provider’s credibility, and industry testing and assurance policies. for complete story read here 

Connectivity goes to next level with Bring Your Own Device ( BOYD). A study confirms that BYOD a global phenomenon. "We found that it is not simply about device usage, but freedom and innovation. It empowers employees to innovate using the tools with which they are most comfortable-how and when they want to work. BYOD also implies new challenges in security. The proliferation of these mobile devices in companies is a fact of life, and this means IT needs to change the way it manages devices. This growth in mobility affects data security, access control, platform maintenance, application support, and much more." Here is the complete story from TOI Many  IT companies  are encouraging  BYOD  (bring your own device) to work. According to an industry survey, firms feel that with techniques like desktop virtualization their earlier concerns like data theft and network problems have been addressed and therefore they are adopting the idea of employees bringing their own devices

The large amount of buzz around cloud computing has prompted many engineering colleges in India to begin a discussion around setting up a Cloud Center of Excellence within their campus.  This appears to be an imperative, not only because these institutes need to train the workforce of tomorrow, but also because it promises to solve some of the resource constraints they face, as well as increase the level of collaboration they seek with other universities. Here is an interesting article by IBM professional What aspects of cloud computing should students get practical experience with and how should colleges structure this? What is the minimum infrastructure needed to set up a “lab” in which students can get this experience? Cloud computing is a new paradigm which requires business and IT to get on the same page – to have a common agreement on a final objective and to then align the IT deployment to meet this end. In an academic context, many students dream of writing an appli

For Xu Di, a 25-year-old Beijing resident, teaching her father, 57, how to use the computer was always a difficult job. "When I told my father how to copy and paste on the computer, he copied on his office computer and tried to paste on his home computer. When he found nothing was pasted, he blamed me for failing to teach him clearly," Xu said.  However, cloud computing made a big difference to Xu's life, and her father's. Cloud computing is using computing resources, either hardware or software, that stores and delivers data as a service over the Internet. With a Chinese cloud client-side application such as Evernote or Jinshan Kuaipan, copying from your office computer and pasting when you get home is possible. "Photos, videos, contacts what you need to do is just register an account, and you can open anything you need, anytime, on any of your computers and your phones," Xu said. However, Xu is just one of the Chinese computer users who ta

Cloud computing is said to be a game changing technologies in the recent history of computing. Unfortunately, due to its young age, cloud companies don’t have yet any process that allows for a set procedure on how to investigate or go about cloud issues. Due to this absence, they have no means of ensuring the robustness and suitability of cloud services when it comes to supporting investigations of criminal activity. Introduction Cloud computing technology has shown massive game-changing potential akin to the ones exhibited by other significant computing technologies such as mainframes, PCs, minicomputers, and even smartphones. It has the ability to radically alter the way information technology services are created, accessed, and manage. The 2009 F5 cloud computing survey has recently revealed that 66% of IT managers from their sample have dedicated budgets for the cloud, with 71% expecting cloud computing budgets to grow larger over the next two years. On the other hand,

Cloud computing  is changing everything about our world from how we work to how we   manage our health.  Here is a live example on how cloud computing is transforming a   leading auto manufactures Toyota The chief information officer for Toyota's U.S. arm, says that the automaker's adoption of cloud technology—Internet-based computing, served up through websites and apps—has freed up his staff to work on more meaningful projects. Last month, Toyota  freed up more of its  team from desktop-support drudgery  when Toyota signed a massive deal with Microsoft Office 365 , its cloud alternative to Exchange email and  Microsoft  Office desktop software. The deal took more than two years, but in the end Toyota is ditching IBM's  Lotus  Notes and putting its entire worldwide workforce of 200,000 employees on Office 365. For complete details read here 

An engineering college connects projects to industry challenges  A few School of Engineering and Applied Science courses are enabling Penn students to join the exclusive ranks of those who create internet applications at companies like Google and Facebook. The courses — Scalable and Cloud Computing, open to undergraduates, and Internet and Web Systems, open to seniors and graduate students — provide the chance to work on the technologies utilized by these top internet companies, which for most is a very difficult task because of the complex science and expensive resources involved. By providing students with remote access to the large-scale data resources of technology companies, these offerings are unlike traditional computer science courses, which typically only utilize in-house resources. “You need special techniques to work at systems of such large scale — like the way you program a computer the size of a football field is very different from the way you program a single

Cloud-based services may be a darn sight cheaper than on-premise alternatives, but over time, costs can escalate. Cloudability , the startup with a service to monitor the costs of your company’s cloud-based infrastructure, has launched its analytics tool. This enables anyone within the organization to continuously improve the way they are using cloud tools, and ensure that spending for these services does not go unmonitored. Startups with lean budgets can sign up for free and Cloudability will pull up invoice and billing data (not estimated data, as is the industry norm) from cloud vendors like Amazon Web Services and Rackspace. The product has been in beta for over a year and is used by 4,000 customers, ranging from tiny startups to larger businesses. Cloudability offers a free service, but enterprises will need to fork over in excess of $50 per month to manage multiple cloud accounts. It has come as a surprise to the founders that the enterprise service is growing f

As cloud computing continues to soar sky high as an efficient and effective means of storing and transmitting data, legal practices are beginning to make use of the technology to streamline the way they do business. A professional has answered a few of the concerns our legal clients have raised when it comes to switching over to a cloud computing service and assessed the benefits of merging to the cloud. For complete story see here 

Here is a speech on the nature of cloud development by an IBM expert  This shift toward applications that begin life in the cloud has changed the way that businesses need to develop, Carr said. He explained that while cloud is certainly about moving or using "systems of records" applications such as SAP, enterprise resource planning, and human resource management systems in the cloud, newer "systems of engagement" applications have a completely different application-development life cycle. "There's a new class of tools. There's a lot of buzz about Hadoop, big data, PHP. Not what I typically see in big enterprises. Ruby, Python; these are all sort of these new scripting tooling that a new generation of developers are using to get things done." He said that previously, a company might have a developer team of about a hundred people to produce such a product, but when looking at a system of engagement today, a small team of developers does the

Once upon a time, Amazon was a dot-com-era technology company best known for selling books. Then, in 2003 and 2004, Amazon wanted to streamline its internal process between the programmers and the hardware engineers. It was a move that many other companies were taking, but an Amazon engineer had a brilliant idea: Why not use the same project to design an application that could rent chunks of Amazon’s computing facilities to customers? On August 24, 2006, the public beta of Amazon’s “Infrastructure as a Service” (IaaS). And so, the ability to rent computing capacity managed by someone else was born. It was a gamble that has, so far, paid off. Amazon includes IaaS revenue in a larger unit called Amazon Web Service, which includes other cloud products. That, in turn, is under a part of the financial reports that includes non-cloud  products called “other.” Besides Amazon Web Service, Amazon’s other revenue includes non-retail activities, such as marketing and promotional activities, c

The cloud allows professionals in any industry to extend their desktops with greater mobility, enhanced capabilities and more computing power – ultimately enabling them to do things they were never able to do before . While storage is an easy entry point into the cloud, we envision designers and engineers using the cloud for more refined capabilities such as high performance rendering, design optimization. simulation and collaboration that were once the exclusive domain of organisations with access to local high-end computing resources. Using the cloud for collaboration and compute-intensive tasks is not only easy to incorporate into one's workflow, but it will help to reduce costs and increase productivity.

Education Clouds: Cloud Computing West 2012 Conference from Gigi Johnson

Here are three tips from an expert    to teachers who intend to use Twitter as part their teaching process.  1. Spend your early time on Twitter following important educational hashtags: One of the things that teachers new to Twitter often misunderstand is that following individuals isn’t the only — or even the best — way to access useful information in the service. Instead, consider using  Twitter’s search tool  to follow conversations organized around hashtags. Educators have embraced hashtags — unique identifiers that start with the # sign — as a way to efficiently share information with each other. Elementary school teachers add #elemchat, principals add #cpchat and math teachers add #mathchat to the ends of their messages to make the content they are sharing easy for everyone to find. Searching for the hashtags related to your field — a process facilitated by retired teacher librarian Jerry Blumengarten, who maintains  an exhaustive list of educational hashtags  on his

Last week, Antioch University  announced  its intention to allow students to take credit-bearing classes based on some of the courses offered on  Coursera . Until now, online courses have been used primarily in one of two ways: as MOOCs (non-credit-bearing classes open to anyone), and within the academic institutions producing these classes, to support a “ flipped classroom ” model for their own registered students. The Antioch model reflects a third paradigm, in which one institution uses courses produced by another as the basis for a credit-bearing class. In this model, the online content is generally “ wrapped” with some face-to-face class time by a local instructor, who can facilitate discussion, answer questions, ensure that  more details here 

The Cloud is expanding the reach and ability of users around the world, and Charles Border is an enthusiastic advocate of the cloud in education and beyond. He is preparing his students to create cloud systems that allow users all over the world to take advantage of many different types of applications and data sets without specialized equipment or software.

Deborah Lemon shares how she uses a private Facebook group to teach Spanish fully online and in a blended format. I must say, I was impressed and inspired! I've found myself thinking long and hard about some of the examples she shared in the Hangout. Deborah's point, to me, is that Facebook allows for her to seamlessly and fluidly interact with her students but also, and perhaps more importantly, the students can spontaneously stream their lives and experiences through their feed updates, functioning as authentic assessments. As Deborah explained to me, this type of fluid connection to students is essential when teaching a foreign language.   For example, (you'll see this in the video) Deborah showed a video of a student who set up her smartphone phone and recorded herself interacting with customers at her place of employment -- using the spanish skills she had just learned in class. Deborah likens the video clips that the students share in the Facebook microblog

We live in a world where demands are increasing and supplies are shrinking. Secondly even the available resources are not always optimally used.  In many institutions, there is a too much demand for classroom/labs on particular time of the day or in a particular semester and less or no demand on the other times or semesters. In my own college, I have seen no class room is being occupied during the afternoon or no session is held in a lab for entire semester.  With the idea of on-demand provision of resources, cloud computing can over come these challenges and thus help institution optimize their resources.  Optimal use of resources:  In a world that is filled with problems that revolve around classrooms being too small for the number of students belonging to a particular class, use of cloud computing as means to educate them formally is definitely welcome. Not only do the lecturers not have to worry about cramming students into a small class but with the help of this technology,

To ensure transparency, prevent third party interference and leakage of question papers during examination, the  Karnataka State Law University  (KSLU), Hubli, is planning to upload question papers on cloud computing instead of physically sending question paper bundles to colleges.  But in this process of setting the question papers by college staff, printing and transporting the question papers, there are several opportunities for leaking the question papers by the printing press staff, college staff or transporters. In many cases, it was found that printing press staff and transport staff leaked the question papers allegedly in collusion with college staff.  To plug these leaks, KSLU has now decided to upload the question papers of all subjects on cloud computing 20 minutes before the exam. Colleges can then download the question paper, take a print out and make photocopies of it for distributing it to the students.  See here for more details

Web 2.0 is one of the most prominent business models for information systems available today. It brings together technology and social networks, and the interactivity that creates business value. Like business even education can also benefits from it.However, today the ability of educators to use , create content and communicate on the web is limited by complexity and sophistication of the range of web 2.0 tools available. Some of the challenges teachers face in using web 2.0 tools are Most of teachers find web 2.0 tools confusing and frieghtening Many tools exists and teachers do not have time nor expertise to discover, identify and use best tools to meet their specific teaching needs. ( Maths teacher needs different tools that the one who teacher social studies) Most students are well versed with web tools and communication. They use and communicate easily and openly using web 2.0 tools. There is a technology gap between teachers and students and it is growing . These we

Security as a Service (SecaaS or SaaS) is a cloud computing model that delivers managed security services over the Internet. SecaaS is based on the Software as a Service (SaaS) model but limited to specialized information security services. The   new report , prepared by the   SecaaS Working Group , provides guidance for best practices on “how to evaluate, architect and deploy cloud-based SIEM services to both enterprise and cloud-based networks, infrastructure and applications,” it said.

“Potential cloud users worry about two things about information protection in the cloud – protecting it from other tenants and protecting it from the cloud provider,” Neil MacDonald, vice president and fellow at IT research firm Gartner, said in a statement. “Encryption is one protection option; however, when the encryption keys are used, data is at risk at that point. A solution that works completely in the cloud, yet is able to keep the keys protected in memory would help reduce the scope of a possible breach entry point.” The  Virtual Private Data  (VPD) cloud-based data encryption solution uses a homomorphic key-encryption approach and encrypts the entire data layer