Introduction:
This assignment requires students to choose a relatively complex term used within a specific discipline or field, and provide its definition in three forms (parenthetical, sentence, and expanded). This assignment aims to let students know the importance of definition in technical writing, as well as to improve students’ ability in differentiating different level of detail and in choosing appropriate level of detail based on the audience and purpose.
Situation:
In this hypothetical situation, the term “cloud computing” will be presented to audience with only basic literacy in computer.
Parenthetical Definition:
Emerging technologies such as cloud computing (centralized computing resources hosted in remote locations) will greatly reshape the IT industry.
Sentence Definition:
Cloud computing is computing using centralized computation resources in a remote location, hosted by a specialized cloud service provider.
Expanded Definition:
What is cloud computing:
Traditionally, individuals or organizations that require computation resources will have in-house computers deployed in their locations to satisfy their needs, such as hosting websites. Cloud computing is the providing of such computation resources over internet from a remote data center to individuals or organizations that requires such resources. It is usually offered by a cloud service provider at the cost of monthly subscription fee.
Figure 1.1 How Entities Interact Through Cloud
Source: NETSource
History of cloud computing:
The term “cloud computing” appeared in 1996, but was not popular until mid 2000s. In 2006, Amazon launched EC2 (Elastic Computer Cloud), which allowed people to rent virtual computers from their place and use their own programs online. Starting from that, people have seen a surge in number of cloud service providers.
Application of cloud computing:
There are many applications of cloud computing. Cloud storage such as Dropbox is one common application. For users with storage needs, they can simply register an account at these providers and upload their file to the cloud storage without having to set up their own storage network at home at an expensive rate. It also allows access stored data from anywhere with internet access. Another emerging application is cloud gaming such as Google Stadia. People who want to play games do not need to have expensive gaming computer at home, instead they can play it on the cloud gaming platform, with the graphics being streamed to their own computer. In this way, their own computer is simply used to display the graphics, while all the computation is done on the platform.
Benefits of cloud computing:
Cloud computing has benefits such as economies of scale, flexible resources, and faster innovation. With cloud computing, most of the computation resources will be built, ran, and maintained by dedicated service providers, thus lowering the cost of such resources. Also, the resources can be requested on an on-demand basis, a client that requires more resources temporarily may get it by paying more fees, instead of having to upgrade the computers at their location. In this way, the resource is distributed in an efficient and flexible way. Take cloud storage mentioned above as an example, if the user uses up all the capacity in their account, they can upgrade to have higher storage space on an on-demand basis by paying more, and cancel the subscription if they don’t have that much to store. If they were to host it themselves, then they have the trouble of buying new hard drives and selling them when they are not needed. What is more, an organization that seeks innovation by developing a new software does not need to be concerned about buying new physical servers, instead they can directly rent servers from cloud services providers, which shortens the wait period of new initiatives and facilitates innovation.
Works cited:
“What is cloud computing?” Microsoft Azure, https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/overview/what-is-cloud-computing. Accessed 29 Sep 2021.
“The history of cloud computing” Scality, https://www.scality.com/solved/the-history-of-cloud-computing. Accessed 29 Sep 2021.
“Top 7 most common uses of cloud computing” IBM, 20 Jul. 2020, https://www.ibm.com/cloud/blog/top-7-most-common-uses-of-cloud-computing. Accessed 29 Sep 2021.
“11000997 – man pointing a cloud computing diagram” NETSource, https://www.netsourcesecure.com/homepage/11000997-man-pointing-a-cloud-computing-diagram/. Accessed 29 Sep 2021.
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