Example Of Research Paper On Cloud Computing

Typically, historians of inventions tend to identify one or more specific points at which a particular innovation has been created. This is, in fact, a human characteristic for identification, categorization and reduction. Most, if not all, innovations however cannot be identified by one particular date and/or history. If anything, important events can be identified, not as exact points of occurrence but as events of significance celebrating a long march of development and continuation. Probably, no one area is more debatable as Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Given great jumps by computing capabilities since mid-twentieth century, continuation, development and potential best characterize how IT innovations perform. Increasingly noticeable in recent years is cloud computing. True to all ICT innovations, cloud computing best exemplifies how a disruptive technology creates impact, not by sudden shocks of unprecedented steps, but by ripple effects. Further, cloud computing does not only exemplify an innovation whose impact cannot be readily identified but also as a model development for innovations in next decades. This paper aims, accordingly, to explore cloud computing as both an evolving and innovative invention.
Against a long history of computing power and application development, cloud computing is set to define not only how information system infrastructures could be deployed but also how businesses could be created and run. One important event in cloud computing development is J.C.R. Licklider's ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) in 1969 (Mohamed). The central concept in J.C.R. Licklider's network is different users utilize different applications from different sites. Prior to J.C.R. Licklider's conception of a global network, computerized systems had been isolated and user-specific. By connecting – now a common language in a hyper-connected world – users, information and practically everything could be shared. The sharing concept – now another common language in social network sphere – had to wait until 1999 for an innovative company, Salesforce.com, whose enterprise application platform opened up new horizons for application sharing and usage (Mohamed). Then, by expanding Internet connectivity and introduction of early cloud computing models by Amazon – e.g. Amazon Mechanical Turk and Elastic Compute cloud (EC2) – cloud computing started to be common and become a viable innovation for commercialization. Then, by Web 2.0 applications in 2009 such as Google Apps, cloud computing has became an innovation of choice for ICT players (Mohamed). An innovation which evolving over years has became, in fact, innovative in how computing ecosystem could be re-imagined.
Historically, computing has been a matter of software, hardware and information design. However, by applying cloud computing conception ICT has shifted paradigm from a software-based industry into a service one and cloud computing has become an on-demand software rather than a software run on personal computers (Buyya, Yeo, Venugopal, Broberg, and Brandic). Indeed, cloud computing has not come to define Internet-based industries but also IT overall (Dikaiakos, Katsaros, Mehra, and  Pallis).
Further, by evolving from "internal IT system to public service, from cost-saving tools to revenue generator, and from ISP to telecom" (Qian, Luo, Du, and Guo), cloud computing offerings are further specialized into more specific services such as Software as a service (Saas), Platform as a service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) (IBM). This has been innovative enough as to reshape business models and change IT Department culture across industries from one of infrastructure design and engineering to one fulfilling dynamic needs of community users.
The question of whether cloud computing has made businesses as well as communities better remains an open one. Since cloud computing is still a nascent area of experimentation, possible benefits – as well as risks – could be identified.
For benefits, cloud computing deepens sharing culture, broadens accessibility, redefines workplace practices from one of physicality into one of virtuality. By sharing data and applications in a cloud space, concerned stakeholders at a workplace are better informed, information management optimized and communication centralized. By supplying available (and applying for on-demand) data and applications, accessibility to business opportunities and benefits across platforms are further enhanced. By redesigning IT infrastructure from one based on physical space and product lifecycle into one based on virtuality and service lifecycle, workplace practices change from an ownership model of proprietary data and application into a sharing economy model of on-demand data and application services.
For risks, security and privacy remain major issues for broader application. This should call into question how values of sharing should be balanced out against values of security and privacy. Of course, not all sectors share same security and privacy concerns. However, sharing – as a culture of knowledge consumption – could be decided by cloud computing.
Of course, like all innovations, cloud computing has unintended consequences. Apparently, cloud computing is creating parallel markets of old, big players and new, small ones for data and application provision. Ironically, once exclusive creators and providers of ICT innovations, major IT players such as Google and Microsoft are responding to – rather than leading – on-demand data and application delivery. Thanks to cloud computing, smaller players are at a better edge to meet needs of niche clients briskly and in more specialized – vis-à-vis generic – services than big players. Thus, niche-ness is, apparently, becoming cloud computing's governing practice by which bigger players pursue long-adopted investment and ownership model and smaller ones act as intermediaries between bigger players and end clients. Overall, cloud computing remains an innovation in process. Lacking a specific, starting point, cloud computing is still evolving and has yet to show more potential as more stakeholders join in and more developments introduced into cloud computing.
In conclusion, cloud computing is both an innovative and evolving invention: by departing from older models of data and application delivery on a utility basis and evolving by pursuing a line of development started in earlier phases. To decide whether cloud computing is ultimately good or bad innovation is, in fact, to cut short an innovation process in progress. A more sustainable approach is to put cloud computing in context by monitoring in-progress developments which directly impact both innovation and community at large. Indeed, in a more interconnected, global economic ecosystem innovations can hardly be pigeonholed as good or bad, let alone be of direct or indirect impact. Like cloud computing, conception of inventions and innovations should be context-specific and should not be interpreted far into future.

Works Cited

Buyya, Rajkumar, Chee Shin Yeo, Srikumar Venugopal, James Broberg, and Ivona Brandic. "Cloud computing and emerging IT platforms: Vision, hype, and reality for delivering computing as the 5th utility." Future Generation Computer Systems 25.6 (2009) : 599–616. ScienceDirect. Web. 29 Jan. 2015.
Dikaiakos, D. Katsaros, P. Mehra, and G. Pallis. " Cloud Computing: Distributed Internet Computing for IT and Scientific Research." Internet Computing 13.5 (2009) : 10-13. IEEE. Web. 29 Jan. 2015.
IBM. "What is cloud?" IBM, n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2015.
Mohamed, Arif. "A history of cloud computing." ComputerWeekly. TechTarget, n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2015.
Qian, Ling, Zhiguo Luo, Yujian Du, and Leitao Guo. "Cloud Computing: An Overview." Lecture Notes in Computer Science 5931 (2009) : 626-631. Springer Link. Web. 29 Jan. 2015.