1. CLOUD COMPUTING 101 Basic concepts and library applications Marshall Breeding Director for Innovative Technology and Research Vanderbilt University Library Founder and Publisher, Library Technology Guides http://www.librarytechnology.org/ http://twitter.com/mbreeding Internet Librarian 2011 Oct 18, 2011

2. Summary  So exactly what does it mean to move data and services to the “cloud”? This cybertour discusses the concept; the advantages of cloud computing, where your documents and data live on the internet; how you can utilize web services in the cloud; and what libraries are currently doing in the cloud.

3. Continuum of Abstraction  Locally owned and installed servers  Co-located servers  Co-located virtual servers  Web hosting  Server hosting services  Application Service Provider  Software-as-a-service  Infrastructure-as-a-service  Platform-as-a-service The Advance of Computing From the Ground to the Cloud Computers in Libraries, December 2009 http://www.librarytechnology.org/ltg-displaytext.pl?RC=14384

4. What is Cloud computing?  Wikipedia: “Cloud computing is Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices on demand, like the electricity grid.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing

5. Cloud computing as marketing term  Cloud computing used very freely, tagged to almost any virtualized environment  Any arrangement where the library relies on some kind of remote hosting environment for major automation components  Includes almost any vendor-hosted product offering

6. Cloud computing – characteristics  Web-based Interfaces  Externally hosted  Pricing: subscription or utility  Highly abstracted computing model  Provisioned on demand  Scaled according to variable needs  Elastic – consumption of resources can contract and expand according to demand

7. Fundamental technology shift  Mainframe computing  Client/Server  Cloud Computing http://www.flickr.com/photos/carrick/61952845/ http://soacloudcomputing.blogspot.com/2008/10/cloud-computing.html http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-10-2001/jw-1019-jxta.html

8. Gartner Hype Cycle 2009

9. Gartner Hype Cycle 2010

10. Gartner Hype Cycle 2011

11. Local Computing  Traditional model  Locally owned and managed  Shifting from departmental to enterprise  Departmental servers co-located in central IT data centers  Increasingly virtualized

12. Virtualization  The ability for multiple computing images to simultaneously exist on one physical server  Physical hardware partitioned into multiple instances using virtual machine management tools such as Vmware  Applicable to local, remote, and cloud models

13. Application service provider  Business applications hosted by software vendor  Standalone application on discrete or virtualized hardware  Staff and public clients accessed via the Internet  Same user interfaces and functionality as if installed locally

14. ASP vs SaaS From: THINKstrategies: CIO’s Guide to Software-as-a-Service

15. Software-as-a-Service  Complete software application, customized for customer use  Software delivered through cloud infrastructure, data stored on cloud  Eg: Salesforce.com—widely used business infrastructure

16. Google Apps

17. Microsoft Office 365

18. Enterprise SaaS deployments  Many universities outsourcing mail  Retain institutional domain names  Google Apps Education Edition Gmail  Microsoft Live@Edu

19. Infrastructure-as-a-service  Provisioning of Equipment  Servers, storage  Virtual server provisioning  Examples:  Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)  Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3)  Rackspace Cloud (http://www.rackspacecloud.com/)http://www.rackspacecloud.com/  EMC 2 Atmos (http://www.atmosonline.com/)

20. Amazon EC2  Machine Instances  Red Hat Enterprise Linux  Debian  Fedora  Ubuntu Linux  Open Solaris  Windows Server 2003/2008

21. Storage-as-a-Service  Provisioned, on-demand storage  Bundled to, or separate from other cloud services

22. Platform-as-a-Platform as a Service  Virtualized computing environment for deployment of software  Application engine, no specific server provisioning  Examples:  Google App Engine SDKs for Java, Python  Heroku: ruby platform  Amazon Web Service

23. Private vs Public cloud  Public – multi-tenant provisioning  Logically isolated computing environment  Theoretical security / competitive concerns  Private – cloud architecture, institutionally controlled  Enforces physical segregation  Leverages cost and scalability  Institutions may require private clouds from providers  Institutions may operate their own cloud infrastructure for internal clients

24. Library automation through SaaS  Almost all library automation products offered through hosted options  Saas or ASP?

25. ILS Products offered as SaaS (mostly ASP_  SirsiDynix Symphony  SirsiDynix Horizon  Innovative Interfaces Millennium  Ex Libris Aleph  EOS International EOS.Web  Evergreen – Equinox Software  Koha – LibLime, ByWater, many others internationally  …many other examples …

26. Multi-tenant SaaS  Serials Solutions  Summon  Web-scale management solution  360 Search, 360 Link, KnowledgeWorks  Ex Libris  Alma  Primo Central  BiblioCommons  OCLC Web-scale Management Services

27. Repositories in the cloud  Dspace – institutional repository application  Fedora – generalized repository platform  DuraSpace – organization now over both Dspace and Fedora  DuraCloud – shared, hosted repository platform  Pilot since 2009, production in early 2011  http://www.duraspace.org/duracloud.php http://www.duraspace.org/duracloud.php

28. Caveats and concerns with SaaS  Libraries must have adequate bandwidth to support access to remote applications without latency  Quality of service agreements that guarantee performance and reliability factors  Configurability and customizability limitations  Access to API’s  Ability to interoperate with 3 rd party applications  Eg: Connect SaaS ILS with discovery product from another vendor

29. Cost implications  Total cost of ownership  Do all cost components result in increased or decreased expense  Personnel costs – need less technical administration  Hardware – server hardware eliminated  Software costs: subscription, license, maintenance/support  Indirect costs: energy costs associated with power and cooling of servers in data center  IaaS: balance elimination of hardware investments for ongoing usage fees  Especially attractive for development and prototyping

30. Risks and concerns  Privacy of data  Policies, regulations, jurisdictions  Ownership of data  Avoid vendor lock-in  Integrity of Data  Backups and disaster recovery

31. Security issues  Most providers implement stronger safeguards beyond the capacity of local institutions  Virtual instances equally susceptible to poor security practices as local computing

32. Cloud computing trends for libraries  Increased migration away from local computing toward some form of remote / hosted / virtualized alternative  Cloud computing especially attractive to libraries with few technology support personnel  Adequate bandwidth will continue to be a limiting factor

33. Increased pressure  Library automation vendors promoting SaaS offerings  Some companies already exclusively SaaS  Software pricing increasingly favorable to SaaS

34. Caveat  technologies promoted by companies and organizations have a vested interest in their adoption  Critically assess viability of the technology and its appropriateness for your organization

35. Questions and Discussion