Abstract
Cloud computing has emerged as one of the most highly discussed topics both in the academic community and in the computing industry. While most of the work that has been conducted to explore this field focuses either on establishing the basis for cloud computing or almost exclusively on the issues surrounding security and data privacy, this paper takes the first exploratory step into exploring the actual internal working of cloud computing and demonstrates its viability for organizations, more specifically educational establishments . The paper starts by introducing the most important key clouds computing concepts, including virtualization technologies, Web services and Service Oriented Architectures (SOA), and distributed computing. Light will be then shed on the impact and potential benefits of cloud computing on teaching and learning in educational institutions. The paper closes by describing building a private cloud inside educational institution and highlights its offerings for students, staff and lecturers.
Similar content being viewed by others
Explore related subjects
Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.References
Abels, T., Dhawan, P., & Chandrasekaran, B. (2005). An overview of xen virtualization, http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/power/ps3q05-20050191-Abels.pdf . Accessed 15th September 2011.
Barham, P., Dragovic, B., Fraser, K., Hand, S., Harris, T., Ho, A., et al. (2003). Xen and the art of virtualization. 19th ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles. doi:10.1145/1165389.945462.
Behrendt, M., Glasner, B., Kopp, P., Dieckmann, R., Breiter, G., Pappe, S. et al. (2011). https://www.opengroup.org/cloudcomputing/uploads/40/23840/CCRA.IBMSubmission.02282011.doc. Accessed 12th July 2011.
Bluelock Box (2011). http://www.bluelock.com/cloud-hosting/virtual-private-cloud/. Accessed 27th July 2011.
Buyya, R., Yeo, C. S., Venugopal, S., Broberg, J., & Brandic, I. (2009). Cloud computing and emerging IT platforms: vision, hype, and reality for delivering computing as the 5th utility. Future Generation Computer Systems, 25(6), 599–616.
Doelitzscher, F., Sulistio, A., Reich, C., Kuijs, H., & Wolf, D. (2011). Private cloud for collaboration and e-Learning services: from IaaS to SaaS. Computing, 91(1), 23–42.
Dong, B., Zheng, Q., Qiao, M., Shu, J., & Yang, J. (2009). BlueSky cloud framework: an e-learning framework embracing cloud computing. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-10665-1_55.
Foster, I., Zhao, Y., Raicu, I., & Lu, S. (2008). Cloud computing and grid computing 360-degree compared. Grid computing environments workshop. doi:10.1109/GCE.2008.4738445.
Fox, A. (2009). Cloud computing in education. Berkeley iNews, https://inews.berkeley.edu/articles/Spring2009/cloud-computing. Accessed 27th July 2011.
Google Apps for Education (2011). http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/edu/index.html. Accessed 15th July 2011.
Höfer, C. N., & Karagiannis, G. (2011). Cloud computing services: taxonomy and comparison. Journal of Internet Services and Applications, 2(2), 81–94.
Kaur, P. J., & Kaushal, S. (2011). Security concerns in cloud computing, communications in computer and information science, high performance architecture and grid computing (pp. 103–112). New York: Springer.
Keahey, K., Foster, I., Freeman, T., & Zhang, X. (2005). Virtual workspaces: achieving quality of service and quality of life in the grid. Scientific Programming, 13(4), 265–275.
Kossmann, D., & Kraska, T. (2010). Data Management in the cloud: promises, state-of-the-art, and open questions. Datenbank-Spektrum: Zeitschrift für Datenbanktechnologien und Information Retrieval, 10(3), 121–129. doi:10.1007/s13222-010-0033-3.
Marston, S., Li, Z., Bandyopadhyay, S., Zhang, J., & Ghalsasi, A. (2010). Cloud computing-The business perspective. Decision Support Systems, 51(1), 176–189.
Mateescua, G., Gentzsch, W., & Ribbens, C. J. (2011). Hybrid computing—where HPC meets grid and cloud computing. Future Generation Computer Systems, 27(5), 440–453.
Mell, P., & Grance, T. (2011). The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing, Recommendations of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-145/SP800-145.pdf. Accessed 27 October 2011.
Microsoft (2011). http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/private-cloud/default.aspx. Accessed 27th July 2011.
Muehlen, M. Z., Nickerson, J. V., & Swenson, K. D. (2005). Developing web services choreography standards—the case of REST vs. SOAP. Decision Support Systems, 40(1), 9–29.
Nurmi, D., Wolski, R., Grzegorczyk, C., Obertelli, G., Soman, S.,Youseff, L., et al. (2009). The Eucalyptus open-source cloud computing system. 9th IEEE/ACM international symposium on cluster computing and the grid (CCGRID), doi: 10.1109/CCGRID.2009.93.
Oh, T. H., Lim, S., Choi, Y. B., Park, K., Lee, H., & Choi, H. (2010). State of the art of network security perspectives in cloud computing. Communications in Computer and Information Science. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-16444-6_7978.
OpenNebula (2011). OpenNebula project. http://www.opennebula.org/. Accessed 20th July 2011.
Paquette, S., Jaeger, P. T., & Wilson, S. C. (2010). Identifying the security risks associated with governmental use of cloud computing. Government Information Quarterly, 27(3), 245–253.
Radhakrishnan, R., & Sriraman, B. (2007). Aligning Architectural Approaches towards an SOA-Based Enterprise Architecture. WICSA ‘07 Proceedings of the Sixth Working IEEE/IFIP Conference on Software Architecture, doi: 10.1109/WICSA.2007.5.
Rimal, B. P., Choi, E., & Lumb, I. (2009). A taxonomy and survey of cloud computing systems. In: NCM’09: proceedings of the 2009 fifth international joint conference on INC, IMS and IDC, doi: 10.1109/NCM.2009.218.
Rochwerger, B., Breitgand, D., Levy, E., Galis, A., Nagin, K., Llorente, I. M., et al. (2009). The reservoir model and architecture for open federated cloud computing. IBM Journal of Research and Development, 53(4).
Smith, J. E., & Nair, R. (2005). The architecture of virtual machines. Computer, 38(5), 32–38.
Subashini, S., & Kavitha, V. (2011). A survey on security issues in service delivery models of cloud computing. Journal of Network and Computer Applications, 34(1), 1–11.
Sultan, N. (2010). Cloud computing for education: a new dawn? International Journal of Information Management. doi:10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2009.09.004.
Thinstation (2011). Thinstation, http://thinstation.org/. Accessed 27th July 2011.
Vaquero, L. M., Rodero-Merino, L., Caceres, J., & Lindner, M. (2009). A break in the clouds: towards a cloud definition. ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review, 39(1), 50–55.
Vmware Vsphere (2011). http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/overview.html. Accessed 27th July 2011.
Vouk, M., Averritt, S., Bugaev, M., Kurth, A., Peeler, A., Schaffer, H., et al (2008). Powered by VCL—using Virtual Computing Laboratory (VCL) Technology to Power Cloud Computing. In: Proceedings of the 2nd international conference on the virtual computing initiative (ICVCI’08).
Wang, L., Laszewski, G., Younge, A., He, X., Kunze, M., Tao, J., et al. (2010). Cloud computing: a perspective study. New Generation Computers. doi:10.1007/s00354-008-0081-5.
Weinhardt, C., Anandasivam, A., Blau, B., Borissov, N., Meinl, T., Michalk, W., et al. (2009). Cloud computing—a classification business models, and research directions. Business Information Systems Engineering, 1(5), 391–399.
Wohl Associates (2006). SOA Governance. An IBM White Paper. http://www-01.ibm.com/software/solutions/soa/Amy_Wohl_SOA_Governance_Analyst_White_Paper.pdf. Accessed on 5th July 2011.
US News & World Report (2011). http://www.usnews.com/usnews/store/college_compass_google_deal.htm. Accessed 15th July 2011.
Xu, X. (2012). From cloud computing to cloud manufacturing. Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing. doi:10.1016/j.rcim.2011.07.002.
Yoo, C. S. (2011). Cloud computing: architectural and policy implications. Review of Industrial Organization, 38(4), 405–421.
Zhang, Q., Cheng, L., & Boutaba, R. (2010). Cloud computing: state-of the-art and research challenges. Journal of Internet Services and Applications, 1(1), 7–18.
Zissis, D., & Lekkas, D. (2012). Addressing cloud computing security issues. Future Generation Computer Systems, 28(3), 583–592.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Mousannif, H., Khalil, I. & Kotsis, G. Collaborative learning in the clouds. Inf Syst Front 15, 159–165 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-012-9364-y
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-012-9364-y