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Unit-III

Centralizing Email Communications

We will now understand how the concept of cloud computing proves beneficial to families by
understanding how typical families use cloud based tools to encourage and strengthen communications
between family members. Let us now learn how computing in the cloud encourages communications
amongst family members.
The main objective of cloud computing is to enable easy access to emails in any part of the world at any
given time. Email, in one form or another, has been around almost as long as computer networks and
long predates the arrival of the Internet. In pre-cloud computing, your email access was via a single
computer. This computer also stored all your email messages. Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express
and similar programs installed on your home computer were mainly used for this purpose. You were
required to use your ISP‘s email access Web page if you wanted to check your home email from work.
And such a Web page was never in sync with the messages on your home PC. This was the major
problem with trying to communicate in this manner.

A better approach is to use a Web-based email service, such as Google‘s Gmail, Yahoo! Mail or
Microsoft‘s Windows Live Hotmail. Gmail is the Google approach to email and chat. Practically
unlimited free online storage allows you to collect all your messages, and Gmail‘s simple but very smart
interface lets you locate them conveniently. Windows Live Hotmail is yet another free email service that
gives you unlimited storage, fast search, good security. Windows Live Hotmail has various helpful
shortcuts when you need to organise your emails.
Yahoo! Mail is your ever-present email program on the web. Its free-form labeling and smart folders and
a strong spam filter to catch junk effectively make Y! Mail a joy to use.
These services put your email inbox in the cloud and you can access all emails from any computer with
an Internet connection. The messages you receive and send are stored on the Web, so nothing depends
on a single personal computer and you can access all the messages from any computer that has an
internet connection.
Over time, most Cloud service providers have added several other functions to their basic email service.
A wide range of advanced collaboration and communication tools now complement the traditional email
and calendar.
The basic advantage of using Web-based email is that no matter what PC you use, your messages will
always remain where they should be and will be in perfect synchronization. This facility just makes it
easy for you to check your home email from work, or from anywhere you happen to be. Your messages
remain in the cloud, not on any specific PC so you can conveniently use your work PC, your home PC, a
friend‘s PC or your notebook PC for your work.
Such a facility allows you to stay in contact with your family irrespective your location. Sending
messages to your loved one without knowing exactly where they are has become much easier with this
innovation in technology. All you need to do is to ensure that you are connected to the Internet. You can
then simply open your Web browser and login to the Gmail, Windows Live Hotmail or Yahoo! Mail
websites. Access your email, go to your inbox and you will find your loved one‘s message, reply if
needed and wait for your loved one to respond. In this process, your loved one‘s messages will remain in
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your inbox and your response in your sent messages folder irrespective of which computer you use and
what is your current location. This is how advantageous cloud computing is. With this innovative
technique of interacting, you do not have to worry about emails being lost, or their content getting
manipulated or lost. All your conversation stays in your email account. With the ―Drafts‖ facility in
Gmail, Yahoo Mail and other such applications you can now save the content and messages that you‘ve
either already sent or the ones your waiting to send at a later time.
Collaborating on Schedules
In today‘s environment, constant access to your schedule is often important. It is important for every
individual to maintain a calendar to schedule and plan his/her daily activities.
web-based calendar can make organizing your life easier. A Web-based calendar, such as Yahoo!
Calendar or Google Calendar is accessible to anyone, anywhere, anytime over the Web. Google
Calendar is a free Internet calendar that lets you keep track of your own events and share your calendars
with others. It‘s the ideal tool for managing personal and professional schedules. It is both simple to use
and very powerful. Similar to a traditional day planner, this customizable online organizer keeps track of
doctor visits, sports practices, meetings, and social events.
Many web-based calendars are free or low cost and easy to set up. Calendar features can vary from the
simple to the complex. Such a calendar can also be arranged in a manner so that your family members
can add their own events to this calendar. For instance, when your mother adds her Thursday dinner to
the web based calendar, that scheduled event will automatically show on your version of the calendar. It
will also appear on the calendars of the other family members who can then plan their schedules
accordingly. To make this calendar accessible to your other family members, you just need to create a
public calendar and authorize access to all the members of your family. Then your family members can
see all currently scheduled events and can add new events of their own when they login to the calendar
site. To add an event to a Google calendar, you just need to click on a day in month view or an hour in
day or week views. A dialog box points to the day or time and lets you quickly schedule the event. Or
you can click on the more details link and add more details. You can also add events from text links on
the left. You can also import a whole calendar full of events at once from your Outlook, iCal, or Yahoo!
calendar. Google Calendar doesn‘t sync directly with software like Outlook or iCal, so you‘ll have to
keep importing events if you use both tools.

Collaborating on To-Do Lists

A grocery list is just one type of to-do list. With a lot of household chores and repairs to do, it is evident
that to do list for your household will be much longer.
Web-based word processing applications can be used by you and your family to collaborate on your to-
do list. You can also use dedicated web-based planning programs to do so.
Applications, such as Zoho Planner can be used as such applications let you create multiple to-do lists on
the Web. A Zoho Planner is an online planner with a calendar, to-do lists, pages, and email reminders for
collaboration with other users. You can set email reminders to remind you when a task is due. You can
strike off the task once it is done. This component competes with Microsoft Outlook, and more closely
with Google Calendar. It is, however, being criticized as unlike Google Calendar and 30 Boxes, Zoho
Planner is currently unable provide SMS reminders.
You can also use simpler Web-based to-do list applications like Remember the Milk and Ta-da List if
the above mentioned applications are a bit too advanced for you. Remember the Milk (RTM) is an
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application service provider for Web-based task and time-management. It allows users to manage tasks
from a computer or smartphone, both online and offline. It is like a simple notepad that helps you
remember your tasks.

Collaborating on Contact Lists

Contacts are important. It can get difficult to manage hundreds of contacts. A good option of storing and
managing contacts of friends, family, business associates and others is to use a Web-based program for
contact management. There are few different ways to save contacts that can be retrieved when needed.
Web-based email program such as Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, etc. can be used as essential contact
management programs. All such programs help you to keep your contacts in place. With these web
based email programs you can create and save all significant information about your contacts in your
email account. However, the only drawback of using such email oriented programs for saving contacts is
that every time you or any other family member needs to look for a specific contact, they will have to
sign in using the same email program and same email address.
Thus a dedicated Web-based contact management program is what you really need. With My events
(www.myevents.com) you can store your contacts online, and the next time you‘re away from your
personal computer, you‘ll still have access to those phone numbers and addresses via
any web browser. If you are an advanced user you can also synchronize your calendar, contacts, and
tasks from any of your groups to popular programs such as Palm Desktop, Outlook, and Lotus Organizer
using My events. You can also use another dedicated Web-based contact management program called
Highrise. Created by 37signals, Highrise is an online system designed to manage contacts and
communication with clients. It‘s simple interface makes it easy to follow up on projects and interactions
with contacts. Since, the system is online and not a downloadable software, all information is accessible
from a web browser and can be shared with others. With Highrise, contacts and communication history
can be shared across your entire company.
Both these programs include the Customer Resource Management (CRM) features needed for business
and sales force management. Always remember that irrespective of the program you choose to use, you
need to authorize access for yourself and other members who you want should give their inputs to your
contact list. This way you all can import your existing Outlook contacts or contacts from software that
exports vCard format whenever needed. Once added, contacts are easily viewed via the ―Contacts‖ tab
and sorted by people, companies, or recently added, viewed or imported. When viewing an individual
contact, all details are available including an ―about‖ section and related dates to remember important
information about the person or company.

Cloud Computing for the Community

The cloud provides options for approach, sourcing, and control. It delivers a well-defined set of services,
which are perceived by the customers to have infinite capacity, continuous availability, increased agility,
and improved cost efficiency. Different levels of abstraction, aimed at different market segments are the
following.

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)

Infrastructure as a Service is a provision model in which an organization outsources the equipment used
to support operations, including storage, hardware, servers and networking components. The service
provider owns the equipment and is responsible for housing, running and
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maintaining it. The client typically pays on a per-use basis. IaaS is a standardized, highly automated
offering, where compute resources, complemented by storage and networking capabilities are owned
and hosted by a service provider and offered to customers on-demand.
Customers are able to self-provision this infrastructure, using a Web-based graphical user interface that
serves as an IT operations management console for the overall environment. API access to the
infrastructure may also be offered as an option.
Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)

Platform as a Service is a way to rent hardware, operating systems, storage and network capacity over
the Internet. The service delivery model allows the customer to rent virtualized servers and associated
services for running existing applications or developing and testing new ones.
Platform as a Service is an outgrowth of Software as a Service, a software distribution model in which
hosted software applications are made available to customers over the Internet. PaaS has several
advantages for developers. With PaaS, operating system features can be changed and upgraded
frequently. Geographically distributed development teams can work together on software development
projects. Services can be obtained from diverse sources that cross international boundaries. Initial and
on-going costs can be reduced by the use of infrastructure services from a single vendor rather than
maintaining multiple hardware facilities that often perform duplicate functions or suffer from
incompatibility problems. Overall expenses can also be minimized by unification of programming
development efforts.
On the downside, PaaS involves some risk of ―lock-in‖ if offerings require proprietary service interfaces
or development languages. Another potential pitfall is that the flexibility of offerings may not meet the
needs of some users whose requirements rapidly evolve.

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
Software as a Service is a software distribution model in which applications are hosted by a vendor or
service provider and made available to customers over a network, typically the Internet.‘ SaaS is
becoming an increasingly prevalent delivery model as underlying technologies that support Web
services and Service-oriented Architecture (SOA) mature and new developmental approaches, such as
Ajax, become popular. Meanwhile, broadband service has become increasingly available to support user
access from more areas around the world.
Software as a Service delivers business processes and applications, such as CRM, collaboration, and
email, as standardized capabilities for a usage-based cost at an agreed, business-relevant service level.

SaaS is closely related to the ASP (application service provider) and on demand computing software
delivery models. IDC identifies two slightly different delivery models for SaaS. The hosted application
management (hosted AM) model is similar to ASP: a provider hosts commercially available software for
customers and delivers it over the Web. In the software on demand model, the provider gives customers
network-based access to a single copy of an application created specifically for SaaS distribution.

Benefits of the SaaS model includes easier administration, automatic updates and patch management,
compatibility wherein all users will have the same version of software, easier collaboration for the same
reason and global accessibility. SaaS provides significant efficiencies in cost and delivery in exchange
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for minimal customization and represents a shift of operational risks from the consumer to the provider.
All infrastructure and IT operational functions are abstracted away from the consumer.

Collaborating on Group Projects and Events

Community groups usually have a lot of tasks to accomplish. In such cases group members depend on
each other to accomplish a shared goal or task. In order to carry out all the activities one must know how
to get started. In this time of cloud computing, the best way to carry out all
the tasks Web-based applications should be used. These applications can be accessed by anyone in the
group. A web based application is a software package that can be accessed through the web browser.
Web based applications are the ultimate way to take advantage of today‘s
technology to enhance your group‘s productivity and efficiency in achieving goals. An application that
is usable only with an active Internet connection is called a Web-based application. It uses HTTP as its
primary communications protocol.

Collaborating on Task Management

Use a Web-based task management application for managing more complex tasks, because a simple to
do list might not help. Web based task management application is a collection of programs, processes
and information that is used to manage various phases of a project and that
is accessible on the Internet. Basic task management can be accomplished with applications such as
HiTask (www.hitask.com) which originated as a friendly and easy-to-use task management system and
Zoho Planner (planner.zoho.com). A Zoho Planner is an online planner with a calendar, to-do lists,
pages, and email reminders for collaboration with other users. You can set email reminders to remind
you when a task is due. You can strike off the task once it is done. For the most complicated projects,
you can use dedicated project management applications, such as Basecamp (www.basecamphq.com) or
Goplan (www.goplan.com).
Basecamp is a web-based project-management tool developed by 37signals. Basecamp offers to-do lists,
wiki-style web-based text documents, milestone management, file sharing, time tracking, and a
messaging system. With Basecamp you can create special calendars for vacation
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time, holidays, meetings, or anything else that isn‘t specifically tied to a project. Goplan is an online
project management and collaboration tool for individuals and teams. Goplan, built by WBS is a tool
that manages our projects, communicates with clients and organizes our
personal lives.
You must first remember to set a due date for your project. Then divide the project amongst all group
members. Group members can then go online to access the application from their respective computers
and update the project with their own individual progress.

Collaborating on Event Management

Whether it‘s a music gig, a festival, a conference or a public lecture: all events need lots of hard work
and people power. While organizing an event such as a concert or conference, you have to manage the
tasks involved with putting together the event. You also handle attendee registration, event marketing,
ticket sales. Web-based event management tools have made organizing events much easier and hassle
free.

With Web-based event management applications, the cloud hosts everything you need to schedule and
market your events. These applications provide event planners with a complete solution to increase
event attendance and decrease event costs. By automating the event management processes, Web-based
event management applications enable you to focus your time on strategic decisions rather than
repetitive, time consuming tasks. For example, create an online event calendar to inform attendees about
all present and future events. Web-based event registration and payment tool such as Eventzilla which is
an online event registration and ticketing software for anyone hosting an event, conference, seminar,
fund-raising event or training workshop helps you to manage various tasks involved with registrations to
and event and making payments online. Various event organizers around the world use Eventzilla to
accept registrations and payments online and offline, promote events on Facebook and Twitter and
manage attendee communications and cancellations. Such Web-based event management applications
help you get more attendees for your events and they are Simple to use and affordable. They allow you
to promote and sell tickets through your blog and Facebook.

Collaborating on Event Marketing

Most event management applications deal with basic event marketing. Event marketing can be defined
as a Promotional strategy that links a company to a special event be it sponsorships of a sports
competition, or festival, etc. to support corporate objectives. It can also be understood as the activity of
designing or developing a themed activity, occasion, or exhibit such as a music festival, fair, or concert
to promote a product, cause or an organization. It is also called event creation.
When you want to promote your community related events, you want to switch to the more innovative
forms of marketing. For example, there is an event that you want to announce. You plan to create a
brochure, a leaflet or a pamphlet to announce this event. However your seniors
and colleagues want to look at your work before these brochures get distributed. In pre-cloud computing
days showing your piece to everybody would have been a tedious and time consuming
task. But today with the introduction of Web-based application such as Google Docs you can
conveniently create your piece and show it to everyone online for their approvals and appreciation. In
this process, however, you must remember to authorize all the members of your organization who you
think should view your document and hold the power to make necessary changes to the document. Web-
based local search sites such as Zvents can be used to post announcements of your community events
online. Zvents is a popular producer of local entertainment guides online.
It has a comprehensive, high-quality storehouse of local event and business information on the web. It
helps people to find some interesting things to do in their local area. This in turn helps thousands of
event advertisers as it increases attendance at their events.
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You may even want to use cloud-based social media sites, such as Youtube, Facebook, MySpace etc., to
promote your events online by creating and sharing videos, photographs and other audio and visuals.
These you can share and circulate to people online. And, after the event, you
can post pictures of the event on community photo-sharing Photo sharing sites such as Flickr and Shutter
fly. Thanks to cloud computing all this is conveniently possible.

Cloud Computing for the Corporation

Amazon and Google may be the biggest names in cloud computing today, but don‘t discount the built-in
advantage telcos have when it comes to infrastructure. ―Building publicly accessible cloud infrastructure
is not inexpensive or uncomplicated,‖ Pund-IT analyst Charles King says. ―The service providers
already have those infrastructures in place – the data center assets, connectivity and billing.‖ Amazon is
one of the true innovators in Web-based computing, offering pay-as-you-go access to virtual servers and
data storage space. In addition to these core offerings, Amazon offers the SimpleDB (a database Web
service); the CloudFront (a Web service for content delivery); and the Simple Queue Service (a hosted
service for storing messages as they travel between computers). By launching the Elastic Compute
Cloud in 2006, well before most of its competitors, Amazon has become almost synonymous with
―cloud computing.‖ But criticisms are starting to pop up regarding Amazon‘s reliability and service-
level agreements

Managing Schedules
The scheduler developing requires the input as submit jobs. The assumptions made for algorithm has to
be designed are as follows:
There is a master node which is the only node responsible for users to submit jobs into the cloud service.
The master node-approved jobs are the only ones running on any node in cloud infrastructure. Master
node evaluates the best node which can execute the application on the basis of the CPU availability of
slave machines.
Let‘s suppose you need to schedule a meeting sometime next week with a dozen different attendees.
You punch in the details of the meeting and the desired attendees, and the scheduling app finds the first
available timeslot when all attendees are free. Alternatively, the app might have to pick a timeslot when
the maximum number of people can attend. This kind of ―best case scenario‖ scheduling might be the
only way to get you meeting on the calendar in a reasonable period of time.

Web-based scheduling programs let you schedule both in-person meetings and teleconferences with
attendees from multiple locations. You are not limited to just those people located in your office; you
can work with the schedules of people around the country and even in different firms.
Of course, much of this can be accomplished with simple Web-based calendar programs, such as
Google Calendar (calendar.google.com) and Yahoo! Calendar (calendar.yahoo.com). To take advantage
of the more advanced automatic scheduling features, however, you need to use an
industrial strength scheduling application, such as Appointment Quest (www.appointmentquest.com),
hitappoint (www.hitappoint.com), and Schedule book (www.schedulebook.com). Naturally, these
enterprise-level apps cost more to use than the free Web-based calendars; expect to pay anywhere from
INR 960 to INR 9600 subscription fees per month.