This work is
licensed by Patrick
Crispen to the
public under the
Creative
Commons
Attribution-
NonCommercial-
Share Alike 3.0
license. All other
rights reserved.
Understanding "Cloud Computing": Is It
Really a Vast Silver Lining or Just a Bunch of
Water Vapor?
a presentation by
Patrick Douglas Crispen, Ed.D.
NetSquirrel.com
Happy Millennium!
• Pretend that it is early
November 2000.
• You have been tasked
with planning and
deploying an IT
initiative for your
classroom or school.
• Walk me through the
process.
Source: Time Magazine
What a Difference a Decade Makes
• Pretend that you have
a diminishing IT
budget.
• You have, again, been
tasked with planning
and deploying an IT
initiative for your
classroom or school.
• Walk me through the
new process.
Source: Time Magazine
A Few Popular Cloud Services
Our Goals
• Define “cloud computing”
• Discuss why cloud
computing is generating so
much hype in and out of
education
• Identify some obstacles that
need to be considered
• Demonstrate some existing
cloud services that may be
useful in your classroom
Source: FreeFoto.com
Pencils down!
• Instead of scribbling down everything I say, just
visit http://netsquirrel.com/ when you get home.
• This is my personal Web site and it contains free,
zipped copies of most of my PowerPoint
presentations – including this one.
• In return, though, I have one small favor to ask of
you … PLEASE SILENCE YOUR CELL
PHONE!
Clearing the air.
WHAT IS “CLOUD
COMPUTING”?
The Official NIST Definition
• Convenient, on-demand network access
• Shared pool of configurable computing
resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage,
applications, and services)
• Rapid provisioning
• Minimal management effort or service
provider interaction needed for release
Mell & Grance (2009)
Five Essential Cloud Characteristics
1. On-demand self-
service
2. Broad network access
3. Resource pooling
4. Rapid elasticity
5. Measured Service
Mell & Grance (2009)
Source: iStockphoto
Three Cloud Service Models
1. Cloud Software as a Service (SaaS)
Mell & Grance (2009); Metz (2010)
Google Docs
Three Cloud Service Models
2. Cloud Platform as a Services (PaaS)
Mell & Grance (2009); Metz (2010)
HEROKU
Three Cloud Service Models
3. Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Mell & Grance (2009); Metz (2010)
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
Four Cloud Deployment Models
1. Private cloud (?)
2. Community cloud
3. Public cloud
4. Hybrid cloud
Mell & Grance (2009)
Source: iStockphoto
WHY CLOUD COMPUTING
MATTERS
Why the Hype?
• “Cloud computing
remains the latest,
most hyped concept in
IT” (Smith, 2010).
• The paradigm of
software is shifting
(Katz et al, 2010).
• K-12 is broke.
• K-12 is ready.
Source: StorageNerve.com
Benefits to Education
• Separating the idea of data storage from an
individual computer allows educators and
students to more easily
– Share documents
– Collaboratively edit
– Effectively manage versions
• Distributed access across a wide variety of
devices
• Reduced cost of computing
Horizon Report (2009)
Additional Benefits to Education
• Timely deployment of new software
• Cloud computing is a “perpetual beta
environment where solutions are deployed,
modified, upgraded, replaced, or retired all
in the time it previously took our internal
teams to develop a single campus
application” (Weggener, 2010)
• ‘Unlimited’, un-tethered storage
Trends to Watch
• Stripped down
browser client
operating systems
(particularly mobile)
• Pay-per use cloud
storage
Smith (2010)
Source: Stephen Morris
Uh, oh … looks like rain.
OBSTACLES AND
OPPORTUNITIES
Some Cloud Computing Concerns
• Service level agreements
– Uptime
– Performance and
response time
• Data processing and
storage
– Ownership of data
– Location of data
– Legal/government
requests for access
Source: Snopes.com
• Infrastructure/security
Trappler (2010)
Some Additional Obstacles
• While everyone has an opinion on cloud
computing, confusion remains the norm.
• The ability for cloud computing to cut costs
is not a given.
Smith (2010)
Putting it all together.
POPULAR EDUCATIONAL
CLOUD SERVICES
Adobe Buzzword (Acrobat.com)
SlideShare.net
ArcGIS
Microsoft Live@EDU
Google Apps for Education
OTHER EXAMPLES?
Our Goals
• Define “cloud computing”
• Discuss why cloud
computing is generating so
much hype in and out of
education
• Identify some obstacles that
need to be considered
• Demonstrate some existing
cloud services that may be
useful in your classroom
Source: FreeFoto.com
References
The Horizon Report (2009). L.F. Johnson, Alan Levine & Rachel S. Smith (eds.).
Austin, TX: The New Media Consortium.
Katz, R.N., Harel, E.C., Keehn, A.K., King, M., Kossuth, J., Wessemann, D., &
Wheeler, B. (2010). Looking at clouds from all sides now. Educause Review,
45(3). 32-45.
Mell, P., & Grance, T. (2009). Cloud computing. National Institute of Standards,
Computer Security Division, Computer Security Resource Center. Retrieved
September 1, 2001, http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/SNS/cloud-computing/index.html
Metz, R. (2010). Cloud computing explained. Educause Quarterly, 33(2).
Smith, D.M. (2010). Hype cycle for cloud computing, 2010. Retrieved from
Gartner database.
Trappler, T.J. (2010). If it’s in the cloud, get it on paper: Cloud computing contract
issues. Educause Quarterly, 33(2).
Weggener, S. (2010). Cloud computing. Educause Quarterly, 33(2).
Where’s the Handout?
• Looking for the handout that
accompanies this presentation?
• Just go to
http://netsquirrel.com/ and look
in the “PowerPoint Files”
section.
• There you will find a free,
zipped copy of this PowerPoint
presentation that has been
licensed to the public under the
Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0
license.
Understanding "Cloud Computing": Is It
Really a Vast Silver Lining or Just a Bunch of
Water Vapor?
a presentation by
Patrick Douglas Crispen, Ed.D.
NetSquirrel.com
This work is
licensed by Patrick
Crispen to the
public under the
Creative
Commons
Attribution-
NonCommercial-
Share Alike 3.0
license. All other
rights reserved.
