Cloud Computing
The rise of the cloud is more than just another platform shift that gets geeks excited. It will undoubtedly transform the IT industry, but it will also profoundly change the way people work and companies operate.
- The Economist, "Let it Rise," 23/10/08
Aim
To conduct fundamental research into cloud computing.
Background
It's one of the foundations of the next generation of computing... It's a world where the network is the platform for all computing, where everything we think of as a computer today is just a device that connects to the big computer we're building. Cloud computing is a great way to think about how we'll deliver computing services in the future.
-Tim O'Reilly, CEO, O'Reilly Media
As the Internet evolves and, in particular, as very high bandwidth becomes readily available, it has become possible to envisage all the resources needed to accomplish the IT function as residing in the Web rather than physically existing on the user's premises. Hence cloud computing, a style of computing in which dynamically scalable resources are available on the Internet as services and as a service, paid for on a usage basis, viz., as a service.
At a basic level, cloud computing is simply a means of delivering IT resources as services. Almost all IT resources can be delivered as a cloud service: applications, compute power, storage capacity, networking, programming tools, even communications services and collaboration tools.
For end users, cloud computing means there are no hardware acquisition costs, no software licenses or upgrades to pay for and manage, no new employees or consultants to hire, no facilities to lease, no capital costs of any kind - and no hidden costs: just a metered, per-use rate or a fixed subscription fee. Use only what you want, pay only for what you use.
Cloud computing also means that companies can transfer IT acquisition from the capital account to the operating account.
Although fairly simple to describe conceptually, cloud computing presents a formidable series of problems which must be solved before it becomes readily available to corporations, governments and individuals.
Research Scope
The cloud computing research is focused on a number of specific aspects that provide a better vehicle for software applications. These include:
- computation and data intensive scientific workflows
- instance intensive business workflows
- cost-effective dataset storage
- cost-effective dataset replications for reliability
- efficient dataset placement
- effective privacy protection
- effective security assurance
Research Projects
Cost Effective Storage of Massive Intermediate Data in Cloud Computing Applications (Australian Research Council Discovery Grant)
Cloud computing is a new exciting paradigm for computation and data storage. Smart facilitation of cloud computing can significantly reduce the need of infrastructure and energy consumption for government (and private) sectors due to unnecessary continuous construction of data centres. Given the 'pay-as-you-go' philosophy of (commercial) cloud, how to decide whether data should be stored or not stored is critical to the overall cost. This project will invent novel algorithms for cost effective data storage strategies in cloud computing. Given the Australian government ICT budget of about $5 billion p.a. and promotion of environment preservation, the success of this project will transfer to scientific, economic and environmental value.
Novel Cloud Computing based Workflow Technology for Managing Large Numbers of Process Instances (Australian Research Council Linkage Grant)
Workflow is for computerised automation of processes existing in all organisations. Cloud computing is a recent paradigm to provide users with services via virtualised resources from the Internet. By combining workflow and cloud computing technologies, we can provide a promising solution for handling large numbers of process instances effectively with cloud computing. To manage such instance-intensive processes, the project aims at proposing a novel cloud workflow architecture and its corresponding innovative mechanisms including data and services management schemes, scheduling algorithms and exception handling strategies. The key research outcomes are equally applicable to many similar Australian e-business and e-government counterparts.
Lead Contacts
Research: Prof. Yun Yang, yyang@swin.edu.au
Administrator: Mrs Gillian Foster, gfoster@swin.edu.au
Centre for Computing & Engineering Software Systems (SUCCESS)
Faculty of Information and Communication Technologies
Swinburne University of Technology
John Street, Hawthorn, Victoria 3122, Australia
Telephone: +61 3 9214 5915
Facsimile: +61 3 9214 5916
Web: www.swinburne.edu.au/ict/succes
