3. Interoperability & Usability

Introduction

On November 9, 2011, the 9th annual Cloud Expo begins in Santa Clara, California.  Cloud file storage and cloud computing is nothing new to the IT world or the business world.  However, to the average consumer, and for the most part, the public education sector, it is a fairly new option.

High-profile companies are offering cloud file storage such as a Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Connect, and Apple iCloud. In fact, in the recent release of iOS5 from Apple, the operating system running on devices such as the iPhone and iPad, iCloud is an integrated part of the OS. There are also turnkey cloud services, such as HP SchoolCloud, being marketed directly to the education market.

Interoperability and usability issues are also nothing new to the IT world. These factors have always affected enterprise data centres. However, cloud computing and storage adds another layer of complication, especially when private, proprietary clouds, that have been developed within an organization, must now be able to operate with public, third party clouds.

Interoperability issues

How easy is it to seamlessly connect a large user base and their digital actions with the cloud where their information is stored? What if users have multiple devices using multiple operating systems? And what if various clouds, public and private, are running simultaneously? How well the data interaction happens between these disparate is what is meant by interoperability. It is one of the key issues in data storage design and is a salient issue with cloud storage and the larger cloud computing industry.

Luckily, interoperability has been an issue with data storage access long before cloud computing came along. Fast, reliable data access between a diverse set of systems are ensured by interoperability data standards. In cloud data storage designs that involve multiple cloud systems there is a need for a single standard that will be adopted by all vendors and organizations. For example, eXtensible Access Method (XAM) is one standard that has proven interoperability but it is not an industry standard. Similar to our consumer experiences of competing standards such as Blu-ray vs. HD DVD, or VHS vs. Beta, the IT world is working to develop a set of standards for seamless interoperability in  cloud storage.

There are many standards groups and organizations and currently there are attempts to coordinate these groups. However, there is a growing need for a “standardizing community or strategic working group which is approved by all major cloud players with teams from them that can take inputs from customers and cloud communities at large to build technical bridges to improve interoperability in mixed clouds.“ (KloudLabs, 2010)

Usability Issues

Users of cloud storage and computing have different needs and different skills sets. Usability refers to the effectiveness of cloud storage designs and data interchange standards to adequately address the needs of end users.

Those users who are very technical and who have very specific technical needs will be looking for low-level usability to the cloud. Those users who are not technical and but still have specific needs will be looking for high-level usability. This difference in usability levels is analogous to programming language generations (Perry, 2009).  In low-level computer languages, programmers can access microprocessor-level instructions and directly manipulate data in memory in order to accomplish a processing task. In higher level computer languages, programmers concern themselves more with the functions, algorithms and structure of their program rather than the tedious and intricate flow of direct microprocessor instructions. Sometimes, programmers need low-level access to accomplish a task and other times it is not required at all.

In cloud storage and computing, there will be users who need very low level access to the way the cloud stores data. For example, some enterprises will need to solve interoperability issues that exist between multiple operating system platforms and multiple data centres. An out-of-the-box solution for such a company will, most likely, not exist. For other enterprises, an out-of-the-box, or turnkey, solution will suffice. Thus, cloud providers will need to market their services according the needs of users.

Experience it!

The background information provided above along with the following three online articles should prepare you for your task:

The Context

In this experience, you are invited to continue playing the role of EVA.  In this exercise, you are to assume that you are in a decision making position in a large school district.  You have a budget and a mandate to manage and administer data storage system wide. Your users are demanding vastly greater amounts of data storage: growing numbers of teachers are blending face-to-face classroom instruction with online learning environments. Students and staff are demanding mobile access to data. Your in-house data centre is already operating beyond at maximum capacity. Cloud storage appears to be a cost-effective solution that can grow as your demands grow.

Instructions

There are two parts to this exercise:

  • Evaluate one specific cloud service from the three choices below in which you employ your EVA skills developed so far in this course (Part A)
  • Examine one case study from the three choices below in which you reflect on similarities and differences to your organization or context (Part B)

Use the background information provided on this page, along with your growing venture and market analysis skills gained so far in this course, to complete Part A and B.

VoiceThread Conversations

The learning artifact container for this experience will be VoiceThread. This free Web 2.0 tool allows for conversations to take place around media. There is a separate VoiceThread for Part A and Part B (The link is next to the title). Please visit each and follow the instructions provided on the first slide.

It takes less than a minute to start using VoiceThread; simply sign up with an email address.  (Note: You will need a microphone or headset-mic in order to make voice comments. If you don’t have one, you can still comment using text but it is not quite as engaging.)

Part A – Cloud Storage Options

Detailed information:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXgOQUOqm2A

Detailed information: Google Apps for Education

Detailed information: Windows Azure

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_3_gw6YecU

Part B – Case Studies

  • Bloomington Public School District – “The IlliniCloud, a nonprofit consortium launched two years ago, is made of three data centers across the state that allows school districts as well as private and parochial K-12 schools to share hardware, applications, services and IT support.” (CDW, 2011)  (more information here)
  • New South Wales Education Department – “New South Wales Department of Education (DET) estimated for them to host an online test for 65,000 students simultaneously would require a A$200,000 investment in server infrastructure. In 2010, they trialled an online science exam hosted by Microsoft Azure that went out to 65,000 students in 650 schools simultaneously. Paying A$40 per hour for 300 Microsoft Azure Servers, DET estimated the cost of hosting the online exam for one day was just A$500.” (Microsoft, Inc., 2011)
  • Edmonton Public Schools – “Terry Korte of Edmonton Public Schools: We wanted to build a collaborative learning community in which students could work together easily on projects with their peers and also interact more productively with teachers.” (Google, Inc., 2011)

References

CDW. (2011). Illinois schools turn to the cloud [online document]. Retrieved from http://webobjects.cdw.com/webobjects/media/pdf/solutions/cloud-computing/IlliniCloud.pdf

Google, Inc. (2011). Google Apps Case Study: Edmonton Public Schools [Online document]. Retrieved from http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B5AOHQcS-cAeODhkOGQwNmMtNDRiNC00ZjA2LTkwM2YtNDY4MGEwOWEyZWNj&hl=en_US

KloudLabs. (2010, August). Cloud Interoperability : It’s the Time [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://blog.kloudlabs.com/2010/08/27/cloud-interoperability/

Microsoft, Inc. (Producer). (2011, April 11). New South Wales Education Department avoids A$200,000 infrastructure investment [Online video]. Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57n81bRoKH0

Perry, G. (2009, August). The Purpose-Driven Cloud: Part 1 – Usability [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://gevaperry.typepad.com/main/2009/08/the-purposedriven-cloud-part-1-usability.html

 

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