Google is making an effort which is their biggest potential game changer since Gmail. Fiber as a Service (FaaS) will slowly make a change to the ISP marketplace since Google can afford to compete on it’s own terms.
Category: Technology
Did you hear about the university professor signed up for a cloud service and unknowingly left his department on the hook for two years of service beyond his grant….or the university who had more than 500,000 student records (social security, addresses and grades) hacked? Cloud computing poses special demands upon Universities who can no longer employ the same procurement process used to acquire computers and software since the 1980s.
Are you aware that today many Universities (and K12 School districts) use a popular email marketing program that sells contact information of students to vertical marketing firms who in turn re-sell them to other marketing and product companies?
Today’s aggressive marketplace and the business of cloud services has radically changed the procurement process. Many of us have a fiduciary duty to protect data of our students, research and institutions. Regardless of how students freely give away their data on Facebook, our institution will still be held responsible to protect all of our institution’s data.
My views on the impact of Cloud Computing in Higher Education have been slowly evolving. This past May I was given an incredible opportunity to further my learning by participating in an Engineering & Technology Short Course with the UCLA Extension.
Remember those “must-take classes” in college? UCLA’s Contracting for Cloud Computing Services is one on my list of those opportunities you cannot afford to ignore. My advice: Find your way to UCLA.
Again, I hope this can help as many people as possible understand the lessons taught in class. Due to the nature of the beast they are in no specific order. They are all top level concerns:
BACKGROUND
For over a generation traditional desktop PC vendors focused on features and price. Since the late 1980s schools established trust in vendor’s products to conduct business, educate students and store student data. From floppy disks to magnetic tape all data was stored locally on campus.
Today’s globalized internet marketplace is radically different when compared to the modem era of computing. The cloud computing model represents a number of fundamental shifts including Software as a Service(SaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) are well established.
And although it’s a bit ahead on the radar we should not overlook the quickly emerging SuperComputer as a Service. While there is no standard acronym, there are established vendors like SGI’s Cyclone, Amazon’s Cluster Compute, IBM’s Watson, and with forthcoming merge between PiCloud and D-Wave‘s quantum computing….more options for High Performance Computing will be available to many smaller, lean and aggressive institutions.
These new services are directly tied to the “consumerization” of technology: advanced technologies at affordable price points. As a result the new focus is around access. The shift to mobile computing via netbooks, smartphones and tablets is well underway, yet many school’s do not have a sufficient wireless infrastructure. Students, faculty and administrators are today carrying a laptop, smartphone and probably an iPad. Schools are struggling to to handle bandwidth demands of so many devices in concentrated areas around campus, from the Student Union to the ResHalls.
IMHO the tipping point with Cloud computing and digital devices is the convenience of access. Today many diverse schools have a campus community that simply demands anytime/anywhere access to data. And it’s no longer just email and web. Its BIG data from data base research to the delivery of HD media. For better (or for worse) society has become trained to demand mobile solutions that easily integrate into the app economy and their mobile lifestyles.
Categories
BMW, iPad & mobile hotspots
Pleased to see BMW has launched a design solution supporting iPads. Its just not the mount (which does rotate by the way) on the back of the driver’s seat.
BMW’s mobile hotspot technology, a branded MiFi solution that allows any devices in the car to connect to the Internet on the road. And with the addition of Apple’s Siri solution being integrated onto the steering wheel …. well I’m interested to see what happens when iOS6 ships with Siri support on iPads.
Explore the power of network visualisation to help navigate our complex modern world. Enjoy!
Milwaukee radio station 620am WTMJ broadcast a segment regarding ebooks last week. I finally got around to blogging about it today. The segment was titled: Will printed books remain relevant in the future? Book/library aficionado/blogger Paul Everett Nelson joins WAN at 4:34pm.
While the discussion was simple and well targeted to their audience there is certainly more to this story. I understand the limited time allocated to radio segments — its Milwaukee’s WTMJ – not NPR.
My own experience and love of reading drew me to think deeper about the discussion of the publishing industry and their new demand to charge libraries unbeliveable fees.Some believe the publishing industry has been decimated in the internet age like the music industry. Not sure that I completely agree with this statement. A well run publishing business should be able to make significantly more profit from selling ebooks. But in order to be successful the publishing industry must cannibalize itself.
One of the points of discussion is a rather draconian sales policy ebook publishers have demanded. They are changing their Terms by actually charging libraries to repurchase (at full price no less) any ebook checked out more than 25 times. Yes you read that correctly – publishers plan to force every library that checks out an ebook 25 times to re-purchase the ebook at full price.
When exactly did those same publishers force those same libraries to purchase additional hardback copies of their books at full price after they were checked out 25 times? Never, since the idea is just asinine.
Imaging a cable company requiring you to purchase a new cable package after watching 25 TV shows. Yep – now you know how stupid — or simply greed — is driving this decision.
Ever see a stack of 500 books on a shipping pallet? Consider all the costs for print, assembly and shipping. Add costs to distribute those books to bookstores and big box resellers….that is an expensive and time consuming process. Oh yea…want it fast? — then pay extra for overnight shipping. Remember those books are only available during business hours.