Cloud Computing = you put your applications to ‘cloud’. If you want a more detailed definition refer to IDC which says ‘Cloud Computing’ is an emerging IT development, deployment, and delivery model, enabling real-time delivery of products, services, and solutions over the Internet. In Simple terms, this is like a firm shifting their ERP package to cloud. That is NOT what LIRNEasia does. Our Finance Department has no ERP, but whatever the package it uses we have no intentions of ‘clouding’ it.

On the other hand, what we do is to use a gamut of ‘Cloud Services’ or SaaS (Software as a Service). That is the basket LIRNEasia puts all its eggs. If Internet goes down one day we will have lots of problems, but of course Internet, by the very nature of it will not fail so easily like, er…the US economy.

What is a ‘Cloud Service’? It is not as simple as ‘using something on the web’. IDC has given eight criteria to be met if you offer a ‘Cloud Service’. (See above)

The question still remains: What exactly RMS calls ‘more than stupidity’? Is it clouding your applications (which obviously has a downside when it comes to security and reliability – but these can’t be what bothers RMS when he talks about ‘losing control’) or using ‘Cloud Services’? It is strange if it happens to be the latter, because Cloud Services are increasingly becoming public goods. (Gmail is non-excludable and virtually non-rivaled)

BTW, IDC also predicts ‘Cloud Services’ will be a $42 billion industry by 2012.

Not that we are offended. Cloud computing is not our religion – it is just an experiment – part of our research. We may be proved wrong – but at least not so far. We are glad we use the model.

Here is how we, at LIRNEasia, use ‘CLOUD’ Computing:

This blog itself is in the CLOUD (WordPress, to be specific)

All our documents are in the CLOUD (Scribd)

All our photos are in the CLOUD (Flickr)

All our video clips are in the CLOUD (You Tube)

All our databases are in the CLOUD (Here is one: http://www.asianict.lirneasia.org)

Then, we plan to go further in this research cycle by contributing more to:

(a) Wikipedia, a CLOUD (One example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_of_service_experience) and
(b) Others’ blogs – another CLOUD

In short, LIRNEasia is an organization that runs – on CLOUD – without a single central physical server. All what we have are our laptops which we use to directly access the CLOUD. (ie. without going through a Local Area Network) So whatever we do; eat, sleep and dance we do it in the CLOUD.

Why LIRNEasia takes CLOUD COMPUTING so seriously?

We saw the potential at very begining. It is the only way a regional research organization without a large IT budget could survive, let alone operate. We were proved correct. (Out IT budget is only for our laptops and three broadband connections. Why three? – Redundancy. When CLOUD is everything for us, better not take chances)

Perhaps RMS might want to have a look at our Virtual Organisation Report which we did to share our experience with similar organisations. Dated April 2008, it is bit outdated now – we have come a long way since then. (Yes, many things can happen in five months, like increasing the hit rate of our site by 50%) Still it is a document worth reading.

We proudly recommend it for anyone who does not want to spend dollars on proprietary hardware to get rid of proprietary software! Thanks RMS, for the opportunity!