For a growing number of organizations worldwide, it’s a quick and affordable way to tap into infrastructure
as an Internet service. In addition, a
growing array of enterprise software
vendors, including Salesforce.com
and Freshbooks.com, exclusively provide cloud-based services for customers. And Apple and Blackberry make
it increasingly simple to store data
in the cloud and sync it with multiple
devices, including computers and
smartphones.
But the story doesn’t end there.
In India, Africa, and South America,
cloud computing allows organizations to connect and collaborate
through online applications such as
Google Docs. “Many people, including
college graduates, do not have access
to the latest hardware and software,”
says Venansius Barya Baryamureeba,
dean for the Department of Computing and IT at Makerere University in
Kampala, Uganda. What’s more, the
ability to dial into cloud resources allows organizations lacking an internal IT infrastructure to scale up and
compete more effectively.
In fact, the possibilities are limited only by creativity. In the southern Sahara region of Sahel, for example, farmers now use a cloud-based
trading system that disseminates
information about planting schedules, crop status, harvesting times,
and market prices through mobile
phones. In India, the Apparel Export
Promotion Council has developed a
cloud platform that provides computing services and enterprise software
to more than 11,000 of its members—
most of whom lack the capital and
resources to build their own IT infrastructure.
Some cloud initiatives link nations
and people in entirely new ways. For
example, U.S.-based CrowdFlower has
introduced a cloud labor service that
connects organizations searching for
temporary workers to refugees in Kenya. The iPhone app helps a business
outsource a basic task, such as finding phone numbers for marketing departments at various companies and
entering them into a spreadsheet. So
far, Kenyan workers have completed
more than 158,000 unique tasks.
These individuals earn as much as
U.S. $28 per week, about eight times
cloud computing
could “level
the playing field,”
says World Wide
Web foundation’s
steve Bratt,
“because
it breaks down
barriers to entry.”
more than they get from typical jobs
in a refugee camp.
Even more remarkable is how
clouds connect developers all over
the world to technology and markets
that would have been entirely out
of bounds in the past. The New York
Times recently reported that Wilfred
Mworia, a 22-year-old developer in
Nairobi, Kenya, built an iPhone app
using only an online iPhone simulator (iPhone service isn’t available in
Kenya), which he can sell all over the
world.
As geography becomes irrelevant,
further changes will occur, Baryamureeba notes. In fact, both developed
and developing nations will benefit
through cloud-based software as a
service model. “A software product
developed in the USA can be extended and supported by a developer in
another place, such as Uganda,” he
says. “And software can be purchased
at a lower cost by eliminating components that are not relevant to a developing country’s needs.”
Weathering change
What makes cloud computing so powerful is that it is based on a system of
modularity. The use of virtualization
and a cloud platform allows organizations to break down services and systems into smaller components, which
can function separately or across a
widely distributed network. Servers
can be located almost anywhere and
interfaces can be changed and cus-
Milestones
CS Awards
Mary Jane irwin and other
members of the Cs community
were recently honored for
their research contributions.
athena LectuReR
aCM’s Council on Women in
Computing has named Mary
Jane irwin, the evan Pugh
Professor of Computer science
of Pennsylvania state University,
the 2010–2011 athena Lecturer
for her outstanding research
contributions to computer-aided
design, computer arithmetic,
and computer architecture. The
award, which celebrates women
researchers who have made
fundamental contributions to
computer science, includes a
$10,000 honorium, provided by
Google inc.
nae 2010 memBeRs
The National academy of
engineering has elected 13
new members in the section
of computer science and
engineering. They are: andrei
Broder, Yahoo!; irene Greif,
iBM; Bill Gropp, University of
illinois at Urbana-Champaign;
Laura haas, iBM; Mike Jordan,
University of California at
Berkeley; Brewster Kahle,
internet archive; Tom Mitchell,
Carnegie Mellon University;
N.r. Narayana Murthy, infosys;
Larry Peterson, Princeton
University; Ben shneiderman,
University of Maryland; and
Mark Wegman, iBM.
2010 sLoan ReseaRch
feLLo WshiPs
sixteen computer scientists
were awarded two-year sloan
research Fellowships. They
are: david s. Bindel, Cornell
University; david M. Blei,
Princeton University; Luis Ceze,
University of Washington;
Constantinos daskalakis, Mi T;
Thomas L. Griffiths, University
of California, Berkeley; eitan
Grinspun, Columbia University;
Jason i. hong, Carnegie Mellon
University; Karrie Karahalios,
University of illinois at Urbana-
Champaign; Jonathan Kelner,
Mi T; C. Karen Liu, Georgia Tech;
rupak Majumdar, University of
California, Los angeles; amin
saberi, stanford University;
Ben Taskar, University of
Pennsylvania; Brent Waters,
University of Texas, austin;
Nickolai Zeldovich, Mi T;
and Li Zhang, University
of Wisconsin, Madison.
