One of the things I learnt from this chapter is designing systems for LANs.
Personal computers and workstations can be used as separate systems to support local applications. Nonetheless, organizations have learnt that data available to one employee is also valuable to other employees in the same work group or in other work groups close by. Hence, interconnecting their computers makes it possible for the employees to electronically share information among their computers and to other devices such as printers.
A local area network (LAN) provides for a network of personal computers. Hence, considering that each computer has its own storage, it is possible to share information among the common devices and software attached to the LAN. However, for LAN to work, each PC and workstation on a LAN network must be typically within few hundred feet apart connected with a cable of less than 1 mile. Regularly, at least one computer is designated as a file server, where the shared databases and applications are stored.
For example, the LAN modules of a DBMS add synchronized access controls, usually extra security features, and additional transaction queuing management to support simultaneous access from the multiple users of the shared database. In a basic LAN environment file servers, all data is manipulated at the workstation where the data is requested. In this case, one or more file servers are attached to the LAN in question.
A file server is an indispensable part in designing systems for local area networks. In the client/server model, a file server is a computer responsible for the central storage and management of data files so that other computers on the same network can access the files. Any computer can be configured to be a host and act as a file server.
When using file servers on LANs, the limitations are inevitable. Generally, there are 3 major limitations, Excessive data movement, the need for a powerful client workstation and Decentralized data control
Client/server architecture is an improvement of LAN-based system, For example. An architecture has both the Web Serverand the Data Server running on the same PC. Thin Clients can connect to the Server through either an Intranet (LAN) connection to the Server or an Internet (WAN) connection to the Server
As I was reading through chapter 12 of our textbook which focused on “Designing Distributed and Internet Systems”, I found it quite interesting that the textbook made the decision to address “common environments for deploying these systems” and the risks associated with their design and implementation. The textbook also specified how the “distributed” systems that would be addressed in the chapter will be LAN-based file servers and client/server architectures, and proceeded to distinguish between their functionalities. However, what most interested me about this reading was the section on Cloud Computing and how it comes in many forms to suit an organization’s needs as it grows, including Software, Infrastructure, and Platform as a Service. While the benefits of Cloud Computing over other systems include increased automation to reduce human error, increased availability and reduced resource consumption, there are still considerations organization’s must make when considering switching over. These include, but are not limited to reliability of these cloud services, privacy and security compliance, and potentially cost as well based on the services and requirements laid out for the needed system.
Hi Jortdan,
I agree that cloud computing is really interesting and it makes our lives so much easier. We use cloud computing like google doc to do our group assignments and the convenience it brought is quite fascinating. However, as much as the pros outweigh the cons of cloud computing, the cons of cloud computing is that the database is super important and the server needs to secure the transaction of data to be accurate. Loss of integrity and availability would be the biggest threat to cloud computing.
Standards play a major role when designing internet-based systems. Standards drive the internet that designing internet-based systems is much simpler than designing traditional server systems because of the use of standards. For example, information is located throughout the internet via the use of the standard domain naming system(BIND). BIND provides the ability to locate information using common domain names that are translated into corresponding internet protocol addresses.
Universal user access on a broad variety of clients is achieved through a standardized communication protocol which is the hypertext transfer protocol(HTTP). It is the agreed-upon format for exchanging information on the World Wide Wed.
Beyond the BIND and the HTTP, an internet-based system has another advantage over types of system. It is the Hypertext Markup Language( HTML) which is the standard language for representing content on the Web through the use of hundreds of common tags.
The BIND, HTML, and HTTP enable designers to quickly craft system because much of the complexity of the design and implementation is removed. Also, they free the designer from much of the worry of delivering applications over a broad range of computing devices and platforms.
The interesting thing that I found is errors and warning messages. Sometimes some poor error message is too technical to understand for non-tech people such as WRONG CHOICE. A better error message from the textbook would be “Please enter an option from the menu.” That is good enough that users would recognize that is an error message and also very understandable. It is also interesting that the textbook mentioned that multiple messages can be useful for users to gain more understanding of the issue if needed. I would say that people who write error messages should be people who understand the company’s business, IT, and users. If not, users would not understand the message or the message would not send the correct information. BA would be a good choice to do that, and it is necessary IT auditor review the design of error message in order to meet the user requirements and acceptable.
Great comments. I agree with you to make the error message in an understandable way is better for the users to understand the errors, especially for the no-tech users.
I want to talk about the design of cloud computing since it is really interesting that In order to achieve greater flexibility and agility, organizations have tried to move away from deploying large, monolithic applications in favor of a service-oriented architecture (SOA).
Using SOA, business process are broken down into individual components aka the process can be done one step at a time. It is used to achieve the desire of the service consumer, which can either be an application, another service, or a person. By breaking down business processes into individual services, organizations can more swiftly react to changing business needs.
Services need to keep these 3 principals in mind:
1. Reusability. A service should be usable in many different applications.
2. Interoperability. A service should work with any other service.
3. Componentization. A service should be simple and modular.
One of the biggest advantages of cloud computing is that you can treat your servers as disposable resources instead of fixed components. However, resources should always be consistent and tested. One way to enable this is to implement the immutable infrastructure pattern, which enables you to replace the server with one that has the latest configuration instead of updating the old server.
Chapter 12 of MSAD was centered around “Designing Distributed and Internet Systems”. Within this chapter, I took away more from the particular section on Cloud Computing. The reason I focused on this section more than the others is because of the overall relevance of AWS in the IS world today. In an aside — a speaker came to AIS on Friday and reference the overall demand for those with AWS certifications and experience. Therefore, I am touching upon this section in particular. One restriction on organizations that the article touched upon was the overall infrastructure constraints that many small – medium and even large organizations have. Housing all of the hardware, software, data, servers, human resources, etc. can be costly and time consuming. That’s where the option to ‘outsource’ those needs to another company like Amazon (AWS) or Microsoft, Oracle, etc. becomes a viable option. The cloud computing model has on-demand service, resource pooling, and (in many cases) a proven track record an inquiring company can base their decisions off of.
AWS hosts enormous number of virtual cluster of computers, which are available 24/7 for the customers, with their choice of operating system, RAM, CPU’s, networking. It also provides the users access to a console, which helps them monitor and configure their systems. Based on the customer’s need, they can reserve a single computer or a cluster of computers. Amazon manages , upgrades, and provides security to each of these systems.
Some of the most popular services of AWS include EMR (Elastic MapReduce), EC2(Elastic Compute Cloud),s3, Redshift,RDS etc.
I agree with everything you have said. Services like AWS and Salesforce are the leaders in cloud technology. Cloud computing is only going to continue to grow. More and more each day, a company’s technology needs to grow. Adding services like AWS, Azure, etc… are become necessary to operate efficiently and cost-effectively.
The topic which caught my attention in this chapter is about “Security, Privacy, and Compliance due to usage of Cloud Services”. Organizations move to cloud-based services due to its cost benefits because it helps to move from capital expenditure to operational expenditure, but this increases risk of security as you move from internal security to external operational security. These security issues and compliance issues can be inhibitors to moving to the cloud, especially with regards to storage because of data retention regimes, data protection regimes and other regulations like SOX, HIPAA, PCI DSS.
When using cloud services, it becomes extremely difficult to audit who has access to data, as it is stored on someone else’s premises with very minimal or no control over its own data and also organizations have less legal rights if their data are stored in the cloud. The first thing that organizations need to do is to be fully be aware of the type of cloud services that they use and what type of data is moved to cloud. It is important to understand that for security and compliance reasons, organizations may decide that some highly confidential data will always remain on an internal network and will not move to the cloud. It is very important to make sure that controls are in place to safeguards and benchmark in order to check the effectiveness of the security around the data on the cloud.
Hi, the Security, Privacy, and Compliance due to usage of Cloud Service also catch my eyes. I agree with you that it is important to be fully be aware of the type of cloud services that they use and what type of data is moved to cloud initially. Organizations have to carefully weigh the benefits and downsides of cloud computing.
The chapter introduces how to design Internet system. most new system development focuses on Internet-base applications for Internet processing, business -to-business, and business-to-customers. There are several design issues: standards, separating content from display, future evolution, site consistency, site management and online data management. The chapter also shows the client server advantages and cautions. It advantages are leverages benefits of microcomputer technology, processing performed close to data source, which is good for improving response time, reducing network traffic. Another two benefits are facilitating use of GUIs and encouraging acceptance of open systems. There are three cautions in Client server design. it result difficult migration from file server to server, compatibility issues and limited system design and performance monitoring tools.
Hi Yuan, I also read about the Internet-based application in this chapter and I agree with your point. Based on my understanding, web-based applications also could be a client-based, where a small part of the program is downloaded to a user’s desktop, but processing is done over the internet on an external server.
What I take form chapter 12, Designing Distributed and Internet Systems, is the implementation of Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), which is a protocol for communicating XML data between web service applications and the operating system. SOAP messages are basically one-way transports from the sender to the receiver, but they are often combined to perform a pattern similar to request/reply. All SOAP messages are encoded in XML. A SOAP message is an XML document that contains a required SOAP wrapper, an optional SOAP header, and a required SOAP body block. SOAP uses the Internet’s application layer protocol as its transport protocol. Both HTTP and SMTP protocols can be used to transport SOAP messages, but HTTP is widely adopted because it works well on the Internet today, especially under network firewalls. When extracting data from XML, people don’t have to spend time formatting the page. The different applications can exchange data in XML format over the HTTP protocol, regardless of programming language, platform, or hardware.
I would like to introduce one thing of interest that I took away from MSAD Ch. 12 “Designing Distributed and Internet Systems,” which is related to cloud computing.
Cloud computing is a utility computing model, which is a form of on-demand computing where resources in terms of processing, data storage, or networking are rented on an as-needed basis, and the organization only pays for the services used. Cloud computing thus helps to transform IT infrastructure costs from an expense to revenue. One good example of a cloud computing provider is Amazon Web Services (AWS). Amazon.com has built an immense infrastructure for supporting its online store, so the company has decided to use these resources to generate additional revenue streams by selling cloud services to individuals and business.
Hello,
Reading through your interests from the chapter of the textbook on “Designing Distributed and Internet Systems”, I noted that you similarly took an interest in cloud computing and the functional benefits it provides organizations. What really caught my eye in your response, however, was the perspective you took to look at cloud computing as a service than can be offered by an organization for others as opposed to a solution that an organization can implement for themselves. I also appreciated the example you provided, as Amazon’s web services are among the more prominent examples we come across in our everyday lives.
Hi, thank you for providing an example, amazon web services that is a cloud services platform to access servers, storage, databases and a broad set of application services over the Internet.
When I read chapter 12 Designing Distributed and Internet Systems, it also talked about cloud computing and I think this is an interesting point. Could computing is the practice of using a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store, manage, and process data, rather than a local server or a personal computer. As mentioned in the book, there are three types of service models infrastructure as a service, platform as a service, and software as a service. For our daily life, most of us will use the Saas model, the customer uses only applications provided via a cloud infrastructure. Typically, such applications include Web-based e-mail services, for example, Gmail and Hotmail, and Web-based productivity suites. The Could Computing is critical to our life and helping the business operation for organizations.
Hi Ryu, I like you mentioned the three types service models and I agree with you that almost all Internet services available to ordinary users are SaaS. The development, management and deployment of SaaS are all entrusted to a third party. They do not need to care about technical issues and can be used immediately. Particularly for many small businesses, SaaS is the best way to adopt advanced technologies that eliminate the need for the company to buy, build, and maintain infrastructure and applications.
In Chapter 12 “Designing Distributed and Internet Systems”, one thing that piqued my interest is cloud computing. Cloud computing lets the customer have a variety of computing resources accessible on demand with minimal human interaction. Characteristics include on-demand self-service, rapid elasticity, broad network access, resource pooling, and measured service. Cloud computing service models use infrastructure as a service, platform as a service, and soft-
ware as a service. When organizations consider moving to a cloud-based infrastructure, they should consider availability, reliability, scalability, viability,
security, privacy, compliance, openness, diversity of offer-
ings, and, mostly, cost. Cloud computing supports many service-oriented architectures and using web services, it is very easy to integrate the systems and deploy them on a variety of devices.
Cloud computing has two meanings. The most common refers to running workloads remotely over the internet in a commercial provider’s data center, also known as the “public cloud” model. Popular public cloud offering, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Salesforce’s CRM system, and Microsoft Azure—all exemplify this familiar notion of cloud computing. Today, most businesses take a multi-cloud approach, which simply means they use more than one public cloud service.
The second meaning of cloud computing describes how it works: a virtualized pool of resources, from raw, compute power to application functionality, available on demand. When customers procure cloud services, the provider fulfills those requests using advanced automation rather than manual provisioning. The key advantage is agility: the ability to apply abstracted compute, storage, and network resources to workloads as needed and tap into an abundance of prebuilt services.
My favourite part of this chapter was about the section on cloud computing. Nowadays, cloud-based storage is the future of information systems. Not only amongst consumers, but companies are using cloud computing to store their information as well. With services like AWS and Salesforce, it is only a matter of time until all companies are using cloud-based services to store all of their information. Importantly, the risk associated with keeping information in the cloud is always relevant. Many people were very skeptical when the cloud first came along, so it is always important to assess the risks involved with implementing a cloud-based system.
Cloud computing is always an interesting read. Businesses of all sizes are turning to cloud services nowadays. There are various benefits of cloud adoption. One of the key benefits is that the service is available at all times and anywhere. Another benefit to cloud is the obvious flexibility. Cloud computing allows groups of people to meet virtually and easily share information via shared storage. Lastly, cloud computing is cost-effective. With traditional computing, businesses have to spend thousands of dollars on equipment and data centers. This is not the case with cloud computing.
One thing is managing the cloud. Cloud computing is the on demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage and computing power, without direct active management by the user. It is used widely nowadays because of its various benefit. However, there are also various issues management should consider when moving to a public cloud infrastructure includes availability, reliability, scalability, viability, security, privacy, compliance, diversity of offerings, openness, and cost etc. The primary concern should be availability. Organizations must evaluate which applications to move to the cloud, and how to ensure the availability of cloud-based applications. And organizations must ensure that acceptable support capabilities and personnel are available to rapidly solve technical issues when they arise.
Hey Haixin
Good summary. Nowadays, cloud computing offers a big convenience to our daily work. You can access personal files and data from anywhere with a solid Internet service connection, at any time. That’s all because of cloud computing technology. The cloud storage market spoils you for choice too. A variety of cloud storage providers are available, many of which offer free storage space.
The subsection, Customer Loyalty and Trustworthiness, under Design Issues Related to Site Management on page 438 of MSAD Ch. 12 “Designing Distributed and Internet Systems” was an interesting read. The information provided under that subsection was also true to its content as I was easily able to link the information to one of my favorite websites. The Customer Loyalty and Trustworthiness mentions four significant features— design quality, up-front disclosure, comprehensive, correct, and current content, and connected to the rest of the Web. The one website that came to mind while reading this section was Amazon. I personally believe that Amazon does a great job in satisfying customers in all four areas mentioned above. The design quality is clear and concise, and therefore, the website is easy to navigate. Amazon provides all the information needed to make a purchase up-front (shipping, returns, etc). However, if for some reason, that information cannot be located, Amazon allows the customer to reach out to the vendor or an Amazon support staff who may then provide the appropriate information. Amazon also provides up-to-date information for all products listed on their website. If an item is out of stock, Amazon lists the restocking date somewhere on the page of the product. Lastly, Amazon also designs their website in a way to eliminate isolation. As mentioned in the text, Amazon provides personalized content. This obviously adds to the site’s overall excellence.
#amazondidnotpaymeforpublishingthiscontent
Hi, Raisa:
I love Amazon personally, and I found it is true that it is a great site that provides as many information as possible for customers. I also love that Amazon allows users to provide reviews with pictures and videos, which helps a lot with the correct feature.
Amazon does do a great job with making shopping user friendly, even when you’re shopping for things that you typically don’t buy, such a side view mirrors for a car. When a friend asked me to order these mirrors after someone roundhouse kicked them off their car, I was pleasantly surprised by how easy Amazon made this experience. By providing drop down menus and choices for which make and model of car the mirrors were intended for, I felt like I actually knew what I was doing and didn’t feel as clueless as I normally am. Then I found myself becoming mildly annoyed that all my online shopping couldn’t be this way- and that is how Amazon is eventually going to be the ultimate retail overlord.
From my experience working as a legal assistant to a medical malpractice attorney, I found the section on security, privacy, and compliance to be particularly interesting. Today, even with electronic medical records, hospitals still heavily rely on paper, along with scanning and faxing, in order to ensure that patient information is kept confidential. For hospitals that service a large number of patients, it shouldn’t be surprising that “cloud computing” isn’t something that the health information or risk management department would seriously consider switching to at this point in time. Even in the legal field, the firm I work for would rather use MS perpetual than Office 365 due to the possibility of a breach of client information, which would lead to the firm getting sued for malpractice. So, there certainly are companies that are able to successfully run on a cloud environment, however, it should be noted that there are also industries that still err on the side of caution when it comes to protecting vital information.
I like the examples you gave about why a company wouldn’t want to switch to cloud computing. Although this concept has its benefits as being more easily accessible and convenient, people are more likely to cling onto what they’re comfortable with such as the hospitals you noted. The fear of the “unknown”, and fear of change are both reasons why people still stick to their pen and paper today. Once the internet is more regulated, I do believe cloud computing is the new movement.
Hi Sarah, I like the way how you related and explained based on your work experience. When I was reading an article about Risk Management, I came across the famous “unknown unknowns” quote, they are – known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns, we are constantly faced with all these three types of risks. One of the biggest challenges is calculation of additional risk from all the unknowns, known and otherwise. Even when using cloud services, the risks is comparatively high as we are storing the data on someone else’s premises.
One of the things I learnt from this chapter is designing systems for LANs.
Personal computers and workstations can be used as separate systems to support local applications. Nonetheless, organizations have learnt that data available to one employee is also valuable to other employees in the same work group or in other work groups close by. Hence, interconnecting their computers makes it possible for the employees to electronically share information among their computers and to other devices such as printers.
A local area network (LAN) provides for a network of personal computers. Hence, considering that each computer has its own storage, it is possible to share information among the common devices and software attached to the LAN. However, for LAN to work, each PC and workstation on a LAN network must be typically within few hundred feet apart connected with a cable of less than 1 mile. Regularly, at least one computer is designated as a file server, where the shared databases and applications are stored.
For example, the LAN modules of a DBMS add synchronized access controls, usually extra security features, and additional transaction queuing management to support simultaneous access from the multiple users of the shared database. In a basic LAN environment file servers, all data is manipulated at the workstation where the data is requested. In this case, one or more file servers are attached to the LAN in question.
A file server is an indispensable part in designing systems for local area networks. In the client/server model, a file server is a computer responsible for the central storage and management of data files so that other computers on the same network can access the files. Any computer can be configured to be a host and act as a file server.
When using file servers on LANs, the limitations are inevitable. Generally, there are 3 major limitations, Excessive data movement, the need for a powerful client workstation and Decentralized data control
Client/server architecture is an improvement of LAN-based system, For example. An architecture has both the Web Serverand the Data Server running on the same PC. Thin Clients can connect to the Server through either an Intranet (LAN) connection to the Server or an Internet (WAN) connection to the Server
As I was reading through chapter 12 of our textbook which focused on “Designing Distributed and Internet Systems”, I found it quite interesting that the textbook made the decision to address “common environments for deploying these systems” and the risks associated with their design and implementation. The textbook also specified how the “distributed” systems that would be addressed in the chapter will be LAN-based file servers and client/server architectures, and proceeded to distinguish between their functionalities. However, what most interested me about this reading was the section on Cloud Computing and how it comes in many forms to suit an organization’s needs as it grows, including Software, Infrastructure, and Platform as a Service. While the benefits of Cloud Computing over other systems include increased automation to reduce human error, increased availability and reduced resource consumption, there are still considerations organization’s must make when considering switching over. These include, but are not limited to reliability of these cloud services, privacy and security compliance, and potentially cost as well based on the services and requirements laid out for the needed system.
Hi Jortdan,
I agree that cloud computing is really interesting and it makes our lives so much easier. We use cloud computing like google doc to do our group assignments and the convenience it brought is quite fascinating. However, as much as the pros outweigh the cons of cloud computing, the cons of cloud computing is that the database is super important and the server needs to secure the transaction of data to be accurate. Loss of integrity and availability would be the biggest threat to cloud computing.
Standards play a major role when designing internet-based systems. Standards drive the internet that designing internet-based systems is much simpler than designing traditional server systems because of the use of standards. For example, information is located throughout the internet via the use of the standard domain naming system(BIND). BIND provides the ability to locate information using common domain names that are translated into corresponding internet protocol addresses.
Universal user access on a broad variety of clients is achieved through a standardized communication protocol which is the hypertext transfer protocol(HTTP). It is the agreed-upon format for exchanging information on the World Wide Wed.
Beyond the BIND and the HTTP, an internet-based system has another advantage over types of system. It is the Hypertext Markup Language( HTML) which is the standard language for representing content on the Web through the use of hundreds of common tags.
The BIND, HTML, and HTTP enable designers to quickly craft system because much of the complexity of the design and implementation is removed. Also, they free the designer from much of the worry of delivering applications over a broad range of computing devices and platforms.
The interesting thing that I found is errors and warning messages. Sometimes some poor error message is too technical to understand for non-tech people such as WRONG CHOICE. A better error message from the textbook would be “Please enter an option from the menu.” That is good enough that users would recognize that is an error message and also very understandable. It is also interesting that the textbook mentioned that multiple messages can be useful for users to gain more understanding of the issue if needed. I would say that people who write error messages should be people who understand the company’s business, IT, and users. If not, users would not understand the message or the message would not send the correct information. BA would be a good choice to do that, and it is necessary IT auditor review the design of error message in order to meet the user requirements and acceptable.
Hi Shuyue,
Great comments. I agree with you to make the error message in an understandable way is better for the users to understand the errors, especially for the no-tech users.
I want to talk about the design of cloud computing since it is really interesting that In order to achieve greater flexibility and agility, organizations have tried to move away from deploying large, monolithic applications in favor of a service-oriented architecture (SOA).
Using SOA, business process are broken down into individual components aka the process can be done one step at a time. It is used to achieve the desire of the service consumer, which can either be an application, another service, or a person. By breaking down business processes into individual services, organizations can more swiftly react to changing business needs.
Services need to keep these 3 principals in mind:
1. Reusability. A service should be usable in many different applications.
2. Interoperability. A service should work with any other service.
3. Componentization. A service should be simple and modular.
One of the biggest advantages of cloud computing is that you can treat your servers as disposable resources instead of fixed components. However, resources should always be consistent and tested. One way to enable this is to implement the immutable infrastructure pattern, which enables you to replace the server with one that has the latest configuration instead of updating the old server.
Chapter 12 of MSAD was centered around “Designing Distributed and Internet Systems”. Within this chapter, I took away more from the particular section on Cloud Computing. The reason I focused on this section more than the others is because of the overall relevance of AWS in the IS world today. In an aside — a speaker came to AIS on Friday and reference the overall demand for those with AWS certifications and experience. Therefore, I am touching upon this section in particular. One restriction on organizations that the article touched upon was the overall infrastructure constraints that many small – medium and even large organizations have. Housing all of the hardware, software, data, servers, human resources, etc. can be costly and time consuming. That’s where the option to ‘outsource’ those needs to another company like Amazon (AWS) or Microsoft, Oracle, etc. becomes a viable option. The cloud computing model has on-demand service, resource pooling, and (in many cases) a proven track record an inquiring company can base their decisions off of.
AWS hosts enormous number of virtual cluster of computers, which are available 24/7 for the customers, with their choice of operating system, RAM, CPU’s, networking. It also provides the users access to a console, which helps them monitor and configure their systems. Based on the customer’s need, they can reserve a single computer or a cluster of computers. Amazon manages , upgrades, and provides security to each of these systems.
Some of the most popular services of AWS include EMR (Elastic MapReduce), EC2(Elastic Compute Cloud),s3, Redshift,RDS etc.
I agree with everything you have said. Services like AWS and Salesforce are the leaders in cloud technology. Cloud computing is only going to continue to grow. More and more each day, a company’s technology needs to grow. Adding services like AWS, Azure, etc… are become necessary to operate efficiently and cost-effectively.
The topic which caught my attention in this chapter is about “Security, Privacy, and Compliance due to usage of Cloud Services”. Organizations move to cloud-based services due to its cost benefits because it helps to move from capital expenditure to operational expenditure, but this increases risk of security as you move from internal security to external operational security. These security issues and compliance issues can be inhibitors to moving to the cloud, especially with regards to storage because of data retention regimes, data protection regimes and other regulations like SOX, HIPAA, PCI DSS.
When using cloud services, it becomes extremely difficult to audit who has access to data, as it is stored on someone else’s premises with very minimal or no control over its own data and also organizations have less legal rights if their data are stored in the cloud. The first thing that organizations need to do is to be fully be aware of the type of cloud services that they use and what type of data is moved to cloud. It is important to understand that for security and compliance reasons, organizations may decide that some highly confidential data will always remain on an internal network and will not move to the cloud. It is very important to make sure that controls are in place to safeguards and benchmark in order to check the effectiveness of the security around the data on the cloud.
Hi, the Security, Privacy, and Compliance due to usage of Cloud Service also catch my eyes. I agree with you that it is important to be fully be aware of the type of cloud services that they use and what type of data is moved to cloud initially. Organizations have to carefully weigh the benefits and downsides of cloud computing.
The chapter introduces how to design Internet system. most new system development focuses on Internet-base applications for Internet processing, business -to-business, and business-to-customers. There are several design issues: standards, separating content from display, future evolution, site consistency, site management and online data management. The chapter also shows the client server advantages and cautions. It advantages are leverages benefits of microcomputer technology, processing performed close to data source, which is good for improving response time, reducing network traffic. Another two benefits are facilitating use of GUIs and encouraging acceptance of open systems. There are three cautions in Client server design. it result difficult migration from file server to server, compatibility issues and limited system design and performance monitoring tools.
Hi Yuan, I also read about the Internet-based application in this chapter and I agree with your point. Based on my understanding, web-based applications also could be a client-based, where a small part of the program is downloaded to a user’s desktop, but processing is done over the internet on an external server.
What I take form chapter 12, Designing Distributed and Internet Systems, is the implementation of Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), which is a protocol for communicating XML data between web service applications and the operating system. SOAP messages are basically one-way transports from the sender to the receiver, but they are often combined to perform a pattern similar to request/reply. All SOAP messages are encoded in XML. A SOAP message is an XML document that contains a required SOAP wrapper, an optional SOAP header, and a required SOAP body block. SOAP uses the Internet’s application layer protocol as its transport protocol. Both HTTP and SMTP protocols can be used to transport SOAP messages, but HTTP is widely adopted because it works well on the Internet today, especially under network firewalls. When extracting data from XML, people don’t have to spend time formatting the page. The different applications can exchange data in XML format over the HTTP protocol, regardless of programming language, platform, or hardware.
I would like to introduce one thing of interest that I took away from MSAD Ch. 12 “Designing Distributed and Internet Systems,” which is related to cloud computing.
Cloud computing is a utility computing model, which is a form of on-demand computing where resources in terms of processing, data storage, or networking are rented on an as-needed basis, and the organization only pays for the services used. Cloud computing thus helps to transform IT infrastructure costs from an expense to revenue. One good example of a cloud computing provider is Amazon Web Services (AWS). Amazon.com has built an immense infrastructure for supporting its online store, so the company has decided to use these resources to generate additional revenue streams by selling cloud services to individuals and business.
Hello,
Reading through your interests from the chapter of the textbook on “Designing Distributed and Internet Systems”, I noted that you similarly took an interest in cloud computing and the functional benefits it provides organizations. What really caught my eye in your response, however, was the perspective you took to look at cloud computing as a service than can be offered by an organization for others as opposed to a solution that an organization can implement for themselves. I also appreciated the example you provided, as Amazon’s web services are among the more prominent examples we come across in our everyday lives.
Hi, thank you for providing an example, amazon web services that is a cloud services platform to access servers, storage, databases and a broad set of application services over the Internet.
When I read chapter 12 Designing Distributed and Internet Systems, it also talked about cloud computing and I think this is an interesting point. Could computing is the practice of using a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store, manage, and process data, rather than a local server or a personal computer. As mentioned in the book, there are three types of service models infrastructure as a service, platform as a service, and software as a service. For our daily life, most of us will use the Saas model, the customer uses only applications provided via a cloud infrastructure. Typically, such applications include Web-based e-mail services, for example, Gmail and Hotmail, and Web-based productivity suites. The Could Computing is critical to our life and helping the business operation for organizations.
Hi Ryu, I like you mentioned the three types service models and I agree with you that almost all Internet services available to ordinary users are SaaS. The development, management and deployment of SaaS are all entrusted to a third party. They do not need to care about technical issues and can be used immediately. Particularly for many small businesses, SaaS is the best way to adopt advanced technologies that eliminate the need for the company to buy, build, and maintain infrastructure and applications.
In Chapter 12 “Designing Distributed and Internet Systems”, one thing that piqued my interest is cloud computing. Cloud computing lets the customer have a variety of computing resources accessible on demand with minimal human interaction. Characteristics include on-demand self-service, rapid elasticity, broad network access, resource pooling, and measured service. Cloud computing service models use infrastructure as a service, platform as a service, and soft-
ware as a service. When organizations consider moving to a cloud-based infrastructure, they should consider availability, reliability, scalability, viability,
security, privacy, compliance, openness, diversity of offer-
ings, and, mostly, cost. Cloud computing supports many service-oriented architectures and using web services, it is very easy to integrate the systems and deploy them on a variety of devices.
Cloud computing has two meanings. The most common refers to running workloads remotely over the internet in a commercial provider’s data center, also known as the “public cloud” model. Popular public cloud offering, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Salesforce’s CRM system, and Microsoft Azure—all exemplify this familiar notion of cloud computing. Today, most businesses take a multi-cloud approach, which simply means they use more than one public cloud service.
The second meaning of cloud computing describes how it works: a virtualized pool of resources, from raw, compute power to application functionality, available on demand. When customers procure cloud services, the provider fulfills those requests using advanced automation rather than manual provisioning. The key advantage is agility: the ability to apply abstracted compute, storage, and network resources to workloads as needed and tap into an abundance of prebuilt services.
My favourite part of this chapter was about the section on cloud computing. Nowadays, cloud-based storage is the future of information systems. Not only amongst consumers, but companies are using cloud computing to store their information as well. With services like AWS and Salesforce, it is only a matter of time until all companies are using cloud-based services to store all of their information. Importantly, the risk associated with keeping information in the cloud is always relevant. Many people were very skeptical when the cloud first came along, so it is always important to assess the risks involved with implementing a cloud-based system.
Cloud computing is always an interesting read. Businesses of all sizes are turning to cloud services nowadays. There are various benefits of cloud adoption. One of the key benefits is that the service is available at all times and anywhere. Another benefit to cloud is the obvious flexibility. Cloud computing allows groups of people to meet virtually and easily share information via shared storage. Lastly, cloud computing is cost-effective. With traditional computing, businesses have to spend thousands of dollars on equipment and data centers. This is not the case with cloud computing.
One thing is managing the cloud. Cloud computing is the on demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage and computing power, without direct active management by the user. It is used widely nowadays because of its various benefit. However, there are also various issues management should consider when moving to a public cloud infrastructure includes availability, reliability, scalability, viability, security, privacy, compliance, diversity of offerings, openness, and cost etc. The primary concern should be availability. Organizations must evaluate which applications to move to the cloud, and how to ensure the availability of cloud-based applications. And organizations must ensure that acceptable support capabilities and personnel are available to rapidly solve technical issues when they arise.
Hey Haixin
Good summary. Nowadays, cloud computing offers a big convenience to our daily work. You can access personal files and data from anywhere with a solid Internet service connection, at any time. That’s all because of cloud computing technology. The cloud storage market spoils you for choice too. A variety of cloud storage providers are available, many of which offer free storage space.
The subsection, Customer Loyalty and Trustworthiness, under Design Issues Related to Site Management on page 438 of MSAD Ch. 12 “Designing Distributed and Internet Systems” was an interesting read. The information provided under that subsection was also true to its content as I was easily able to link the information to one of my favorite websites. The Customer Loyalty and Trustworthiness mentions four significant features— design quality, up-front disclosure, comprehensive, correct, and current content, and connected to the rest of the Web. The one website that came to mind while reading this section was Amazon. I personally believe that Amazon does a great job in satisfying customers in all four areas mentioned above. The design quality is clear and concise, and therefore, the website is easy to navigate. Amazon provides all the information needed to make a purchase up-front (shipping, returns, etc). However, if for some reason, that information cannot be located, Amazon allows the customer to reach out to the vendor or an Amazon support staff who may then provide the appropriate information. Amazon also provides up-to-date information for all products listed on their website. If an item is out of stock, Amazon lists the restocking date somewhere on the page of the product. Lastly, Amazon also designs their website in a way to eliminate isolation. As mentioned in the text, Amazon provides personalized content. This obviously adds to the site’s overall excellence.
#amazondidnotpaymeforpublishingthiscontent
Hi, Raisa:
I love Amazon personally, and I found it is true that it is a great site that provides as many information as possible for customers. I also love that Amazon allows users to provide reviews with pictures and videos, which helps a lot with the correct feature.
Amazon does do a great job with making shopping user friendly, even when you’re shopping for things that you typically don’t buy, such a side view mirrors for a car. When a friend asked me to order these mirrors after someone roundhouse kicked them off their car, I was pleasantly surprised by how easy Amazon made this experience. By providing drop down menus and choices for which make and model of car the mirrors were intended for, I felt like I actually knew what I was doing and didn’t feel as clueless as I normally am. Then I found myself becoming mildly annoyed that all my online shopping couldn’t be this way- and that is how Amazon is eventually going to be the ultimate retail overlord.
From my experience working as a legal assistant to a medical malpractice attorney, I found the section on security, privacy, and compliance to be particularly interesting. Today, even with electronic medical records, hospitals still heavily rely on paper, along with scanning and faxing, in order to ensure that patient information is kept confidential. For hospitals that service a large number of patients, it shouldn’t be surprising that “cloud computing” isn’t something that the health information or risk management department would seriously consider switching to at this point in time. Even in the legal field, the firm I work for would rather use MS perpetual than Office 365 due to the possibility of a breach of client information, which would lead to the firm getting sued for malpractice. So, there certainly are companies that are able to successfully run on a cloud environment, however, it should be noted that there are also industries that still err on the side of caution when it comes to protecting vital information.
Hi Sarah,
I like the examples you gave about why a company wouldn’t want to switch to cloud computing. Although this concept has its benefits as being more easily accessible and convenient, people are more likely to cling onto what they’re comfortable with such as the hospitals you noted. The fear of the “unknown”, and fear of change are both reasons why people still stick to their pen and paper today. Once the internet is more regulated, I do believe cloud computing is the new movement.
Hi Sarah, I like the way how you related and explained based on your work experience. When I was reading an article about Risk Management, I came across the famous “unknown unknowns” quote, they are – known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns, we are constantly faced with all these three types of risks. One of the biggest challenges is calculation of additional risk from all the unknowns, known and otherwise. Even when using cloud services, the risks is comparatively high as we are storing the data on someone else’s premises.