Cloud Computing - What it is and How it Works

Nowadays, the concept of Cloud Computing is an emerging IT delivery model. It is a rising computing technology that uses both the Internet, and central remote servers, located within the Internet, to maintain data and applications. The technology lets consumers, enterprises and businesses, to use applications, without having any need for software, or hardware installation, providing an always on access capability, to their files at any computer with Internet access, at any place and any time.

The Internet is basically the, "cloud" for all the applications, and services that are available to be accessed by subscribers. A person simply has to log into their desired computer application - for example, a sales force or office automation program, a web service, a data storage service, spam filtering, or blog sites. Usually, you get access to these programs by monthly or annually paid subscriptions. This technology allows for far more efficient computing by centralizing storage, memory, and processing.

Cloud computing, basically consists of hardware, and software resources, which are made available on the Internet. These are specifically known as cloud computing services. These services normally, provide access to advanced software applications, and high-end networks of server computers. The services of this technology can be chiefly divided into three categories: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

Cloud computing has become very significant, in the IT and business world. This is due to the countless benefits driven from this concept. Advantages can be obtained from this massive web infrastructure by both small and medium sized businesses. Moreover, many huge enterprises and governments are now shifting towards cloud computing, because of its greater significance and importance.

Cloud Computing, is in frenzy these days, because it can considerably reduce IT costs and other technology complexities, whilst improving workload optimization, and service delivery. The technology is extremely scalable. It provides a superior user experience.

Furthermore, it hardly requires any time to be arranged, and established since there is no need to buy hardware, software licenses or their implementation services. Also unlike other services, there are only skilled practitioners, dealing in cloud computing. Normally, whenever any technology becomes all the rage and is recognized, a lot of people start to become more interested in it. In the case of cloud computing, vendors; specifically the more reputable ones, offer their customers very reliable services, with unlimited storage and computing capacity. Some of these vendors include Microsoft, Google, IBM, Yahoo Inc. etc.

In cloud computing, there are two basic general types of clouds: public cloud and private cloud. A public cloud, typically sells services to anyone on the Internet. Anyone can use it. There is usually no or very little privacy as such involved in it. A private cloud on the other hand, is usually a proprietary network, or a data center that provides hosted services to a restricted number of people. When a service provider uses public cloud resources, to create a private cloud, the result is often called a virtual private cloud or a hybrid.

Cloud Computing offers a significant amount of potential benefits but at the same time a balance has to be maintained on the downsides of using this technology such as diminished privacy and control of your data.

An article by Dougles Chan - Recruitment Guru. A Business Coach that specialized on coaching recruitment agencies & staffing agencies. Author of 8 books. 25 years in business coaching in recruitment and staffing agencies. Talks about Pareto Principle - 80 20 rule.  Training recruitment business owners in Singapore, USA, UK, and Australia. He specialized business, sales, marketing, digital marketing, 360 recruitment process, SEO, SEM, and social media recruiting. For 121 recruitment coaching, kindly check here.

Know About IT Infrastructure Services and Solutions

With the digitization of all data and information, companies today rely extensively on a solid IT infrastructure. It is the need of the hour to have a flawless IT Infrastructure service that can guarantee security and proper access to information even through mobile devices.

IT Infrastructure Services Overview

With Infrastructure management services, you will be able to get assistance with planning, design, and implementation of IT strategies for your organization. These services will also help manage any IT requirement that is mission-critical for organizations.

With most service providers you have the advantage of technical knowledge combined with an in-depth study of specific industries to ensure that you get maximum value with the investments made in your IT infrastructure.

Today, it is essential for organizations to have the facility to automate all their processes and also have open computing options. In addition to that, the Infrastructure Management Services today is designed to be agile so that it can be transformed in order to adhere to any larger business goal that organizations may set for themselves. It also allows organizations to stay in tune with current trends and implement changes as per the dynamic nature of their industry.

IT Infrastructure Services and Solutions

The demands of the IT infrastructure are fulfilled by the following services and solutions:

· Operations Management: Execution and excellence in operations is the cornerstone to run an enterprise successfully. This means that the output needs to be maximized while the IT solutions provided for any business operates as required.

· Network Management: It is necessary to have a solid network of employees, partners, and customers through business applications. It is almost impossible for your business to function as needed without proper access to these apps. To ensure that, a secure and robust network is necessary so that data can remain secure and agile.

· Workplace Transformation: The primary concern with any business technology is the end user. The applications need to be flexible and personalized for your IT infrastructure to be manageable and meet the demands of the end user.

· Security Service: Keeping data and assets secure is important for all businesses. There are several threats to security today which has made enterprises look for options that can help them manage these threats proactively. This also reduces the cost of operations when managed internally.

· Remote Infrastructure Management and Monitoring: In order to keep it flexible, they can be monitored through the cloud -based solutions that also allow you to remotely manage data and processes.

· Datacenter Management: It is true that data continues to grow with your business. This can affect the performance of the systems and also pose challenges with respect to scalability. For this, service providers track data and assets to provide datacenter management options that utilize your resources effectively.

· Product Support: All the issues related to the implementation of good IT infrastructure whether it is related to performance, configuration, capacity management, analysis, design or auditing will be taken care of by the service providers.

· End-user Computing: These services allow you to transform the environment of the end user to make it possible for them to access your IT infrastructure better while keeping your data secure. It is possible to build an agile and collaborative workplace for end users with proper management and efficient design. These services include data and asset management, desk imaging, IT help desks, remote login options, software distribution, desktop migration and lots more.

· Cloud Computing: The IT infrastructure of an organization can be consolidated and adopted into a cloud-based system. End to end solutions to create better cloud-enabled services to ensure a self-provisioning system that can address the challenge of deploying work virtually. There are several other services such as server virtualization, storage virtualization, database virtualization, network virtualization, desktop virtualization and remote monitoring that are available with cloud-based systems.

An article by Dougles Chan - Recruitment Guru. A Business Coach that specialized on coaching recruitment agencies & staffing agencies. Author of 8 books. 25 years in business coaching in recruitment and staffing agencies. Talks about Pareto Principle - 80 20 rule.  Training recruitment business owners in Singapore, USA, UK, and Australia. He specialized business, sales, marketing, digital marketing, 360 recruitment process, SEO, SEM, and social media recruiting. For 121 recruitment coaching, kindly check here.

A Wearable Technologist's Manifesto

The Medium of Wearable Technology

Wearable technology is everywhere, you just weren't paying attention. It's on your wrist. It's on your face. It's in your shoes. It is your watch, your glasses, your sportswear. It introduces new capabilities and resources to your day-to-day living. Any technology that you wear is wearable technology. But it can be so much more.

Today, wearable technology is most commonly defined as garments and accessories that integrate circuitry, are made of technologically significant materials, or produced by technologically significant means, be it accelerometers (tilt sensors) in your shoes, LEDs (lights) in your dress, peltier modules (heaters) in your jacket, or t-shirts with print patterns designed with a computer algorithm. It is new, it is different, it is undervalued, and all too commonly misused.

The military and athletic industries dominate the wearable technology scene as commercial and research interests to improve user performance and communication. Outside of the commercial mainstream, it appears in tech blogs as a game of "one up" to see how many LEDs a designer can fit onto a single dress.

The Practice of the Wearable Technology

Wearable technology must be three things: it must be small so that it is wearable, it must be attractive so that people will wear it, and it must be functional so that people will have a reason to wear it. All else is needless elaboration.

Wearable technology is of two worlds and too often its practitioners loose track of one side or the other: creating opulent dresses of LEDs-all light and fury, signifying nothing-or fearfully functional works that might aid the body but at the cost of any aesthetics or comfort. Indeed, wearable technology binds two worlds that are too often devoid of interdisciplinary consideration.

Wearable (read: fashion)

Fashion is too trendy for its own good. The paradigm of fashion is one of seated authorities dictating the current style to the masses. And while industry has control of what it outputs, buyers, more than ever, have control over what they choose to consume. Though our tastes are our own, I will stand by the flavor of elegance-not the elegance of opulence but the elegance that comes of optimality. No, I believe in the simplicity of line, the delicacy of cut, the timelessness of rationality.

I leave it to you to choose what to buy but chastise those who similarly choose what to sell. Fashion is not eternally tied to the theocracy of labeled priests and boutique temples. If the Internet has done anything to fashion, it is that it has opened the consumers to a wider range of possibilities than ever before. Though fashion always had a trickle down process to the Kmart clothing racks for the masses, this new means of commercial structure-like that of MySpace music groups and YouTube amateur series before-allows smaller or more niche designers to find a larger audience for limited runs of clothes. Of course, the transition is harder than the transition of already digital goods that can be sampled online. The Internet lacks the convenience of a dressing room with which to try on potential purchases for fit, drape, and complementary colors. Yet people are buying online, and there is little reason to expect that market to do anything but grow in the future.

Technology

The technological market place has been historically unconscious of the end user. Computers were initially used by programmers and technicians that knew the inner workings of the computers. For them, the arcane acronyms in commands were adequate to control the computer. It was only with Smalltalk, followed by its adoption and adaptation by Apple, that the concept of the user illusion was introduced to the computing world. The user illusion allows users to create their own experimental narrative of how content on the computer is represented and should be used without knowing anything about the inner workings of the computer. Everything in the computer is just a series of "0″s and "1″s, but we perceive them as metaphors for physical objects that have meaning to us. From the user illusion comes the imagery of desktops, trash cans, folders, files, and documents.

While this approach is gaining ground it still has a ways to go and room to expand. Those not clued in, think that adding a drop-shadow and reflection to their websites and applications will make them like Apple. No, what matters most of all-what should be at the top of our consciousness when creating-is the user.
Wearable technology schematic, in a nutshell

The Potential of the Wearable Technology

Wearable technology is a medium characterized by its closeness to the body-it is the closest we can get to the body short of subdermal implants. This makes it ideal for taking measurement and monitoring body states. Unlike other medical technology, it is also integrated into the day-to-day life of the wearer, so that it can collect readings over a greater period of time and react to body movements and biometric shifts. These capabilities speak to wearable technology's singular potential to be intimately and innately sensitive. Why is it, then, that these characteristics are so often over looked?

Much of today's technology employs an overt interface. Users are presented with keys, buttons, switches, levers, knobs, call them what you will-label them if you must-to control their technology. But all these means of entry are abstractions of the message. The medium may be the message that is currently conveyed, but it is far from the intent. Our intent is formed before it was composed into words, typed onto a screen, sent to another screen to be read by another. Our true meaning is something inside of us that has yet to find a means of pure expression. Even our migration to touch screens and finger gestures does not represent a transition from the consciousness but a smoother means of operating with it. And while I do not claim that wearable technology is a means of undiluted communication, it is a means of coming one step closer to it.

Wearable technology can take in the unconscious gestures of a user. By unconscious, I do not, by any stretch, imply that these actions are not meaningful. Much of our functions, actions, and reactions are left to our unconscious to decide and execute. Indeed, "left to" is a bit of a misnomer in that implies that the consciousness has some part in giving over control. If the experiments of Libet on neurological stimulation and awareness prove anything, it is that the consciousness is a final authority that is called on by the subconscious to validate an action. Our unconscious actions have faster response times, unhindered initiation, and more undiluted meaning. Wearable technology is in a, quite literally, unique position to monitor these actions and convey meaning to them.

And so create. Create beauty. Create use. Create usability. Create wearable technology that does more than flash lights, that does more that warm feet. Create wearable technology that inspires, intrigues, and enhances the users' life. We have a unique medium with as yet unimagined potential.

Elizabeth is a native of California, now exported to New York where she develops wearable technology at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications program. Elizabeth combines her past studies in mass communication and work in web development with her current work on physical computing. She is fascinated by computer mediated communications--transitioning from a computer dominated interaction to one where the computer is an unobtrusive enabler. Her work explores augmented awareness and pieces operating on the threshold of psychological and physiological consciousness. To integrate technology into everyday living in an intimate and innate interface, Elizabeth integrates technological circuitry with garments and accessories.

An article by Dougles Chan - Recruitment Guru. A Business Coach that specialized on coaching recruitment agencies & staffing agencies. Author of 8 books. 25 years in business coaching in recruitment and staffing agencies. Talks about Pareto Principle - 80 20 rule.  Training recruitment business owners in Singapore, USA, UK, and Australia. He specialized business, sales, marketing, digital marketing, 360 recruitment process, SEO, SEM, and social media recruiting. For 121 recruitment coaching, kindly check here.