Introduction
Table of Contents
The purpose of this document is to interpret the technical term and see how it’s being applied in different situations. There were many terms, but I decided on cloud due to its complexity depending on how it’s used. In today’s world, cloud is mainly used in the technology world rather the clouds in the sky but it can also be talking about cloud computing in the technology world.
Definitions
According to Oxford English Dictionary (OED) “A visible mass of condensed watery vapour floating in the air at some considerable height above the general surface of the ground.” (OED, 2019) In this definition, it shows how evaporated water shows some visible mass after reaching a certain altitude which is simply called cloud. Besides the OED, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) states “Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources…”. (Mell, Grance, 2011) This translates cloud to how it uses remote servers that’s hosts computing resources that users can access without actually having it store locally. According to Ahmed, “Cloud computing is a service that is internet based and that gives the facility of sharing computer resources along with other devices on user demand.” (Ahmed, 2019) As it states it is having internet access to off site shared resources or device that users can use.
Context
As time has passed, cloud is not only used for disputing the weather, it is also used in the technology world. It has been widely used in cloud computing to save time and space from downloading necessary files. According to Fox, “Privately owned cloud computers-large data centers filled with computers that mainly run their company’s software”. (Fox, 2011,p.406) Cloud is being described as a service that can be used by accessing software or resources that’s being hosted at data centers. Users would access these resources without needing their own expensive infrastructure. In consonance to Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems (JAMES), “Our findings may ultimately led to improvements in the presentation of thunderstorms cloud life cycle in climate model and therefore increase the trust in projection of future climates.” In this context, it shows how cloud contribute to different weather in our climate especially for thunderstorm and they may just be able to use their finding to better predict future climates.
Working Definition
Based on all the definition above, cloud is associate to my field of study because many tools require expensive high end equipment that not everyone can afford nor have space to storage. Also, when it does breaks down or stops working it’ll require repair that won’t be cheap. As an alternative, there are businesses out there that specialized in providing support and maintenance. So, cloud is a service that provides computer resources and hardware to users over the internet instead of actually having it locally on your computer. It’s not realistic where user can have a quantum computer to access one. However, with cloud computing obtaining access to one makes it possible without breaking the bank. In fact, IBM provide access to their quantum computer through the cloud without installing anything for free!  In my field of study of network security, cloud services are susceptible to attacks such as Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS), system vulnerabilities even with the use of encryption, security policies and most of all human negligence. Even so, since users are accessing these resources over the internet, the user and organization can both keep their private information from being stored on network servers. With cloud computing growing so fast more and more people are using these services instead of the traditional download and install to run some sort of applications.
References
“cloud, n.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, September 2019, www.oed.com/view/Entry/34689. Accessed 18 October 2019.
Fox, A. (2011). Cloud Computing–What’s in It for Me as a Scientist? Science, 331(6016), 406–407. https://doi-org.citytech.cuny.edu/10.1126/science.1198981
Mell, Peter, and Tim Grance. “The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing.” CSRC, 28 Sept. 2011, csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/sp/800-145/final.
Ahmed, I. (2019). A brief review: security issues in cloud computing and their solutions. Telkomnika, 17(6), 2812–2817. https://doi-org.citytech.cuny.edu/10.12928/TELKOMNIKA.v17i6.12490
