6Foot2 Posted June 30, 2010 Posted June 30, 2010 I have been asked to look at Cloud Computing for our site, visit some schools that have already deployed a Cloud Computing solution and to make recommendations to senior staff about how we should move forward. To this end is anyone here willing to receive me as a visitor? Please PM me if it is OK for me to visit you and see your Cloud Computing solution. Many thanks.
NikChillin Posted June 30, 2010 Posted June 30, 2010 Hi Dave, Our Head of ICT is currently looking into this too, herre are the sites she has found - Live Mesh, JungleDisk, DropBox, Sugarsync, and Box.net. Personally we are not sure about this as personal network storage and backup is barred through the filtering. It would mean students would have their work held off site using resources off site also perhaps using communication medium off site. We have no control or access to what is ocurring, no backups or resources in school... no need for us either? Perhaps this is the way forward, what do you think? Am I pessimistic?
Hightower Posted June 30, 2010 Posted June 30, 2010 We are looking at implementing something like this: eyeOS - Cloud Computing Operating System | Web Desktop - RIA Framework - Web Office - your files and applications everywhere There's support for LDAP auth/users' home dirs too so looks good if you have a server chunky enough to pull it.
dhicks Posted June 30, 2010 Posted June 30, 2010 I have been asked to look at Cloud Computing for our site Could you define "cloud computing" a bit more? -- David Hicks
6Foot2 Posted June 30, 2010 Author Posted June 30, 2010 (edited) Could you define "cloud computing" a bit more? It early days for us on this. What I can say is that our Head has been hearing good things about computing in the cloud and would like us to take the best aspects from it. So I guess the sort of thing he is thinking about is: Remote storage of student and staff work. Open source applications for all users [wherever possible] Thin clients in the classroom offering only a browser logon [ubuntu/Mint/...?] Other things I can list here will have to wait as I have just been called away... Edited July 1, 2010 by 6Foot2
penfold Posted June 30, 2010 Posted June 30, 2010 I dont think dhicks was unware of cloud computing, but more along the lines of depending on who you talk to, the definition of cloud computing changes, and lots of things that are tagged as cloud computing is actually just virtulisation. I am guessing that what he was after was the reasons behind looking at cloud computing rather than just do it because it's the buzz word. And as one of the reasons was to use Open source applications, my first question would be have you used Open Office and if so what was the response like?
dhicks Posted June 30, 2010 Posted June 30, 2010 Cloud computing is Internet-based computing But I've always thought of "cloud computing" as that used by Amazon's "elastic compute cloud" - a pool of physical servers upon which a bunch of virtual machines run, able to move between machines as needed and possibly mirrored, so if one physical server breaks another can seamlessly take over. Facilities to run your own such cloud are included with the latest release of Ubuntu Server - a compute cloud doesn't have to be away on the Internet somewhere. -- David Hicks
CyberNerd Posted June 30, 2010 Posted June 30, 2010 We have a cloud based: Storage, Office Apps, Email, Collaboration, calendar, websites etc. Its all single sign on and integrated with moodle and AD. You don't need to visit us, just sign up for free here: Business email, calendar, documents and intranet sites for your company - Google Apps for Business
teejay Posted June 30, 2010 Posted June 30, 2010 We've been looking at this and a huge stumbling block is that the data must be held within the EU and not stored outside the EU to comply with current EU privacy directives. This rather limits a lot of services, which has left us looking at the Microsoft live@edu service with the new Ofiice 2010 web apps, or building our own cloud using something like Ubuntu 10.04 server with its cloud components.
CyberNerd Posted June 30, 2010 Posted June 30, 2010 We've been looking at this and a huge stumbling block is that the data must be held within the EU and not stored outside the EU to comply with current EU privacy directives. This rather limits a lot of services, which has left us looking at the Microsoft live@edu service with the new Ofiice 2010 web apps, or building our own cloud using something like Ubuntu 10.04 server with its cloud components. You could also look at the google services because they host within the EU and comply with UK data protection legislation (according to their website and contract)
teejay Posted June 30, 2010 Posted June 30, 2010 You could also look at the google services because they host within the EU and comply with UK data protection legislation (according to their website and contract) Could you point me in the direction of where it states that as all I can find is this below, which basically measn it doesn't comply: Is my organization compliant with the European Commission Directive on Data Protection if we use Google Apps? Share Google adheres to the U.S. Safe Harbor Privacy Principles of Notice, Choice, Onward Transfer, Security, Data Integrity, Access and Enforcement, and is registered with the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Safe Harbor Program. Generally, an organization must decide whether its use of Google Apps is compliant with any regulations it may be subject to.
dhicks Posted June 30, 2010 Posted June 30, 2010 Remote storage of student and staff work. Remember that on something like Amazon's storage service you pay monthly for the amount stored and the amount transferred, so if people are constantly opening and closing files you pay a fair bit in bandwidth fees. Open source applications for all users [wherever possible] Run from a thin client server "cloud" you mean? Or open source web-based applications? Or is your head's definition of "cloud computing" stretching somewhat? Thin clients in the classroom offering only a browser logon [ubuntu/Mint/...?] I'm trying Slax just now, booting over PXE, but could easily be booted locally from a small solid state drive. Bear in mind that old computer equipment is old computer equipment - our RM all-in-ones make great thin clients but don't seem up to running Firefox locally (loading YouTube crashes Firefox on Slax, could be Firefox, Slax or just the age of the machines). -- David Hicks
p858snake Posted July 1, 2010 Posted July 1, 2010 Cloud computing as in remote access (eg: terminal services) or as in web based submissions (eg: VLE)?
CyberNerd Posted July 1, 2010 Posted July 1, 2010 Could you point me in the direction of where it states that as all I can find is this below, which basically measn it doesn't comply: I found this bit: Google Apps 17.1.1. Google shall comply with all applicable laws, regulations, regulatory requirements and codes of practice in connection with its data processing obligations under this Agreement, including without limitation by complying with all the provisions of the UK Data Protection Act 1998, and any regulations or instruments thereunder, and of Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the Protection of Individuals with Regard to the Processing of Personal Data and on the Free Movement of Such Data (together, the "Data Protection Laws") applicable to a data controller and shall not do, or cause or permit to be done, anything which may cause or otherwise result in a breach by Customer of the same; 2
soveryapt Posted July 1, 2010 Posted July 1, 2010 One concern I would have about cloud computing and storing peoples work off site is that if your internet goes down, bang go all your files. The only way round this would be to ensure that you have a local replica on site as a failsafe.
joe90bass Posted July 1, 2010 Posted July 1, 2010 One concern I would have about cloud computing and storing peoples work off site is that if your internet goes down, bang go all your files. The only way round this would be to ensure that you have a local replica on site as a failsafe. Ditto. And with our link to our council and hence Internet saturated at times anyway, we'd have problems throwing more data down our link! Interesting topic this, I always took cloud computing to mean out there on the web, but using Ubuntu and having it in house is something to think of for the future.
soveryapt Posted July 1, 2010 Posted July 1, 2010 Ditto. And with our link to our council and hence Internet saturated at times anyway, we'd have problems throwing more data down our link! Interesting topic this, I always took cloud computing to mean out there on the web, but using Ubuntu and having it in house is something to think of for the future. Definitely, the in house solution would seem a good way of going and then having a link into this for external access as you therefore have it all in house and safe and available no matter what happens to the outside worlds connection ..
CyberNerd Posted July 1, 2010 Posted July 1, 2010 One concern I would have about cloud computing and storing peoples work off site is that if your internet goes down, bang go all your files. The only way round this would be to ensure that you have a local replica on site as a failsafe. google apps has an offline mode, you don't need an internet connection to write emails documents etc. unless you want to send them, of course.
soveryapt Posted July 1, 2010 Posted July 1, 2010 google apps has an offline mode, you don't need an internet connection to write emails documents etc. unless you want to send them, of course. Does that include a locally stored collection of all your online data as well, or is that just for creating new things?
CyberNerd Posted July 1, 2010 Posted July 1, 2010 Does that include a locally stored collection of all your online data as well, or is that just for creating new things? Email, Calendar attachments are all stored locally and synced through Google gears, an OpenSource plugin. I just noticed that my docs are not synced though, they should be according to this: Google Docs in Offline Mode not sure whats going on there, other stuff is ok I was under the impression that all data can be downloaded locally.
CyberNerd Posted July 1, 2010 Posted July 1, 2010 (edited) not sure whats going on there, other stuff is ok I was under the impression that all data can be downloaded locally. As of May 3rd, 2010 we’ve temporarily removed support for offline access in Google Docs through Gears. We know offline access is important for some of you, and we're working hard to bring a new and improved offline access option to Google Docs. If you need offline access to certain documents after May 3rd, you can always export files to your computer from the Google Docs homepage, then upload your offline files back to Google Docs after you’re finished editing offline. What happened on May 3rd? On May 3rd, 2010 we disabled offline access to Google Docs, and it's no longer possible to access Google Docs while disconnected from the Internet. How will I know when offline access to Google Docs is available again? We’re working hard to bring new and improved support for offline access to Google Docs. To make sure you don’t miss the announcement, keep an eye on the Google Apps Blog. We've heard from some users that keeping Gears enabled for Docs (even though offline access is not available) can cause some unexpected behavior in Google Docs. So, just in case, here's how to disable Gears for Google Docs: 1. Click the Offline link in the upper-right corner of your Docs list. 2. On the dialogue box that appears, click the Reset my offline access button. bloody google. mail and cals still ok though Edited July 1, 2010 by CyberNerd more info
36Degrees Posted July 1, 2010 Posted July 1, 2010 Although we have signed up for Google Apps for education it is mainly used for email. There are a few members of staff that use Google Docs but not many. Since last March there have only been 2 occasions where we have had major issues and both of these have been due to our internet connection being lost, once for a full day. With email I have to confess that I cheat slightly as I have configured Outlook to communicate with Google Mail. That means that even when the internet does go down I still have access to all previous messages and can compose new ones in readiness for the connection being restored.
SpuffMonkey Posted July 1, 2010 Posted July 1, 2010 not sure whats going on there, other stuff is ok I was under the impression that all data can be downloaded locally. bloody google. mail and cals still ok though In a nutshell - why using the cloud would worry me - you've just lost control of your data/functionality..
mavhc Posted July 1, 2010 Posted July 1, 2010 Depends if your cloud is gmail (use offline mode, better than outlook), or a bunch of VMs on amazon E2C etc etc. If you don't have the source code you have no control
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