WEBVTT - Cloud Computing Overview: Part One 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:13.960 stuff Works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:17.239 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:20.040 hell Stuff Works, and I love all things tech and 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:25.880 this is another bonus episode from Sunny Las Vegas. Nevada, 0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:29.440 or I should say Nevada. I've been informed that is 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:34.200 the preferred pronunciation among the locals here. I just pronounced 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:37.360 it the way most people pronounce it. So I apologize 0:00:37.400 --> 0:00:41.480 if I fall by the wayside yet again. But yes, 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:45.880 I am here attending sweet World eighteen is a big 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:50.520 cloud computing conference, and uh, I just wanted to start 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:53.280 producing some episodes while I'm here. This is one of 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:56.240 those special things where when I go to events and conferences, 0:00:56.720 --> 0:00:58.680 my goal is to give you guys more of the 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:02.200 stuff you like. So I'm gonna drop a few episodes 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:06.800 this week. Hopefully, uh you'll get them as the week 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:10.080 goes on. There's going to be one today about cloud computing. 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:13.120 But I also plan on doing specific ones about net 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:17.119 sweet That is the organization that throws Sweet World every year. 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:21.640 An Oracle, which is net sweets parent company, Oracle purchased 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:24.480 net Suite, a couple of years ago, and so I'm 0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:26.600 going to cover those as well as well as maybe 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:29.160 any other kind of cool topics that I happened to 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:32.400 encounter while I'm here at the conference. So far, it's 0:01:32.400 --> 0:01:34.600 been kind of an overview, So that's where I'm going 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:38.080 with UH for now. And I've I've talked about cloud 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:41.160 computing in the past. Um I've I've covered it a 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:43.280 couple of times on tech stuff, but it kind of 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:47.240 bears going over again because it's one of those big 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:50.440 buzzword terms that I think a lot of people have 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:53.240 heard and most people, I think, by this point have 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:56.320 a fairly good grasp of what it's all about. But 0:01:56.320 --> 0:01:58.280 there's still some confusion out there, and I kind of 0:01:58.320 --> 0:02:01.400 want to clear that up. So we're gonna talk about 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:05.600 what exactly is cloud computing, How did cloud computing evolve 0:02:05.640 --> 0:02:09.000 over time, because the idea is pretty old, why is 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:11.400 it such a big business, and and how does it 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:14.919 actually work? What's going on there? Well, first things first, 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:18.560 cloud computing is a very broad term. It covers an 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:23.160 enormous number of different offerings and services, but in general, 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:27.600 it's a method of delivering services over a network, essentially 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:31.359 allowing people to access a computer that does not belong 0:02:31.440 --> 0:02:35.519 to them in order to do something. Now that something 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:40.720 could be storing information, it could be processing information. It 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:44.240 could be uh developing an app, it could be all 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:46.079 sorts of stuff, and we'll cover a lot of that 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:49.520 in this episode. But your computer, the one that you 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:53.200 are using to connect to the service, is not doing 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:55.840 the work. In fact, it could be a very bare 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:59.720 bones computer. That's the basis behind some of the very 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:04.240 weight notebook computers like chromebooks. The idea is that you 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:07.520 really don't need to have a lot of bells and 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:11.959 whistles in the laptop itself because you can access all 0:03:12.120 --> 0:03:16.760 the applications and services that you require using the Internet, 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:19.400 and some other computer out there in the great, big 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:23.240 scary world is doing all the work for you, so 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:26.840 your computer doesn't have to. That is in some ways 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:29.880 a big benefit to the end user because it can 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:33.240 really cut down on your upfront costs. Right because if 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:35.960 you are just going out to buy a very simple computer, 0:03:36.240 --> 0:03:39.480 one that does not have an incredibly powerful processor or 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:43.000 a whole lot of storage space or whatever, then the 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:45.640 price can be lower. It doesn't have to be as 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:48.800 big a ticket item for you when you go out 0:03:48.800 --> 0:03:51.440 there and purchase it. On the flip side, a lot 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:54.760 of these services end up being subscription based services, so 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:58.760 you're paying to use the service in some way. Some 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:02.320 of them are add based rather than fee based, so 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:05.640 you're still technically generating revenue, but you're doing it by 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:10.280 looking at ads as opposed to paying a subscription service. 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:15.400 But in a long term, over a really long use 0:04:15.480 --> 0:04:18.640 case scenario, it could be argued that you're a little, 0:04:19.920 --> 0:04:25.080 you know, lightweight chromebook kind of of computer. Cost more 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:29.560 than if you had purchased a computer with native software 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:33.280 stored on it, but you would have less capabilities as well. 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:34.880 Now I'm going to cover all of this and more 0:04:34.920 --> 0:04:39.320 detailed throughout this episode, so just know the cloud computing 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:42.720 it's a it's a pretty big deal. It's it's not 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:46.119 just big as in it makes huge amounts of money. 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:49.680 I mean, there's a multibillion dollar industry. But it's a 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:54.680 big deal because it covers so much ground as far 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:58.840 as the features that can be grouped under a cloud computing. Now, 0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:01.839 the cloud computing model as you take advantage of another 0:05:01.839 --> 0:05:05.760 computer's capabilities to bolster your own, and like I said, 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:07.919 the service could be as simple as cloud storage. That 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:10.880 just means that you're storing files on some other computer 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:14.440 systems somewhere. Typically that would be in some sort of 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:18.359 huge data center, and normally that would mean the files 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:21.080 were actually on multiple computers throughout the data center, not 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:24.960 just one, and that's for the purposes of redundancy. That way, 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:28.000 if one of those computers should fail, you can still 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:31.120 access your files. So if you were to visit one 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:33.520 of these giant data centers, first of all, you would 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:37.240 noticed that the air conditioning system is on overdrive to 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:40.960 keep the computers cool enough to operate at maximum efficiency. 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:45.800 You would also notice just row upon row upon row 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:50.520 of server stacks, and each of those servers would represent 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:55.440 a device that could be processing information or storing information 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:59.200 for customers and your own personal photos. Let's say that 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:03.239 you're visiting the data center that belongs to the company 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:08.039 that offers up an online photo album service that you use. 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:12.000 You would probably discover, if such a thing were possible, 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:16.480 that your photos existed on multiple computers within that data center, 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:20.040 and multiple copies of each photo would be on different 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:23.359 uh would be within that data center, they would be 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:26.080 on different servers, not multiple copies on the same server, 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:28.880 but a copy might be on server A, and another 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:31.080 one might be on server M, and another one might 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:35.200 be on server B seventeen, that kind of thing. And 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:36.880 the whole purpose of that is if one of those 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:39.920 machines should fail, you would be able to get your 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:44.159 images anyway, because it's got this redundant system. If you 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:49.920 don't use redundancy, you're pretty much playing chicken with fate. 0:06:50.440 --> 0:06:54.280 It's not a great idea anyway. You probably use some 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:57.120 form of cloud storage fairly regularly, so it could be 0:06:57.160 --> 0:06:59.640 a photo album that's a very popular one that backs 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:03.000 up all images that you might take with your smartphone. Um, 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:06.600 a lot of smartphones come with this just as part 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:10.240 and parcel with the smartphone itself, where you have a 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:13.760 setting where it's automatically uploading these images to a server 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:17.760 bank somewhere so that you can access it wherever you are. 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:20.480 Even if you were to change phones, you would still 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:22.680 be able to access those images because they would be 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:26.920 associated with your account, not with the hardware itself. Not 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:31.160 very common feature. Or you might use something like Google Drive, 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:34.760 which allows you to upload files to Google servers or 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:37.920 a very specific service within the Google Drive realm, the 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:41.480 Google Suite realm, like Google Docs, where you can actually 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:45.040 create documents or spreadsheets or presentations, all of which live 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:48.480 on the cloud and not on your personal computer, unless 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:51.520 you choose to download a copy, which you can do. Now, 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:54.000 that last example gives a little hint of what else 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:56.760 cloud computing can do, because not just you can't. It's 0:07:56.760 --> 0:07:59.080 not just storing information. You can let you run an 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:03.440 application or program on another computer, which means your own 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:05.720 computer does not have to dedicate a lot of processing 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:08.120 power to that job. Instead, all you have to do 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:12.560 is run the program that connects you to that online service, 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:16.240 and frequently that's something as simple as web browser, So 0:08:16.280 --> 0:08:20.440 your web browser becomes the interface with the programs you're using. 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:23.800 So with docs services like Google Docs or Microsoft Office 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:28.400 three and the one drive Microsoft product, it's all about 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:31.480 creating documents. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:35.800 There are companies that offer deep and complex services, some 0:08:35.960 --> 0:08:39.400 catering to specific industries or processes. Now I have a 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:41.839 little bit more to say about the history of cloud computing, 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:44.920 but first let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:54.760 The power of cloud computing is that it gives users 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:58.559 a chance to leverage computing power they might otherwise never 0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:02.040 have access to. So for businesses, it can mean being 0:09:02.080 --> 0:09:06.680 able to scale processes smoothly while the business grows. So 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:10.319 instead of spending a lot of money buying powerful computers 0:09:10.440 --> 0:09:13.840 or setting up your own data centers, the business can 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:18.120 become customers of one or more cloud computing service operators 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:21.719 and offload all of that work to a different company 0:09:22.000 --> 0:09:25.720 and thus scale up faster. Because you know, every time 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:28.079 you would grow as a company, there would be kind 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:31.520 of the stop start situation where you would need to 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:34.280 build out your infrastructure to make it larger and more 0:09:34.360 --> 0:09:38.600 robust to deal with all that growth, But then you 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:42.360 would end up filling that right. If your business continues 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:45.800 to grow, you would eventually hit that that limit that 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:48.400 your new infrastructure can handle, and then you have to 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:51.240 do it all over again. And this is a very 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:54.400 complex process at times, like if your business gets really 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:59.000 really big, with enormous departments underneath that business, each of 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:02.400 those departments having its own needs, then it quickly can 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:06.440 become unmanageable unless you have really got your act together. 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:09.040 So what these services tend to do is make it 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:13.600 much easier for companies to scale as they grow. This 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:16.640 is particularly important in today's business world where you've got 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:19.440 all these startup companies, a lot of which are begun 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:22.679 by people who are first time business owners. Right. These 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:26.120 are entrepreneurs who came up with an idea. It was 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:29.600 a really good idea, it resonates with their customers, they 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:32.360 launch it, it becomes way more popular than they were 0:10:32.400 --> 0:10:36.320 necessarily prepared to handle at the beginning. They grow very rapidly, 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:39.920 and that can be the doom of a small company. 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:43.440 A small company can actually collapse because it was growing 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:47.280 so fast that uncontrolled growth can mean that people make 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:49.600 bad decisions about where they need to put their money 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:53.120 in order to sustain the company as well as to 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:58.120 continue to grow. So these services are what allow companies 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:02.319 like that to kind of not worry so much about 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:05.680 that part of their business. It can be put into 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:10.280 the hands of another company that specializes in those UH processes, 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:13.960 which frequently can be customized to the specific customer, so 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:17.160 it's not like a one size fits all approach. But 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:20.760 the whole point of it is that the business owners 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:22.880 don't have to worry about all that themselves. They can 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:26.560 actually work and partner with these other companies to handle 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:29.760 some of that while they the business owners continue to 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:33.920 concentrate on the very core of the business itself. So 0:11:34.320 --> 0:11:36.800 that's why cloud computing has become such a huge deal. 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:39.960 It is an enabler for other companies to grow. Not 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:43.000 to mention, it is also a very useful tool for 0:11:43.080 --> 0:11:45.760 the average person. I use cloud computing all the time. 0:11:45.800 --> 0:11:48.839 I use it for creating my documents at work, but 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:51.719 I also use it for my home stuff, Like if 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:54.880 I want to do a personal project, I use cloud 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:58.440 computing for that because I can access that information wherever 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:02.640 I am by logging into the associated account and then 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:06.959 using whatever computer I'm on to access that information. Very 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:12.120 very convenient. Uh. But that's just a high level overview 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:15.719 of what cloud computing is. And there are some questions 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:18.439 that come up, or at least should come up, when 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:21.800 you hear about this model. Among them are questions of ownership, 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:26.280 because if your documents, files, and processes live on someone 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:30.480 else's machines, who owns that stuff. There are a lot 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:34.920 of confusing terms of service out there that seem to 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:39.880 suggest your handing over ownership of your stuff to these 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:44.679 third parties, but that can be a little a little misleading. 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:47.640 I'll cover that a little bit more later on. But 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:50.240 there are other questions too. If the service were to 0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:53.160 go out of business. Let's say that you have relied 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:57.199 upon a service that's holding up your back end operations 0:12:57.240 --> 0:13:00.200 of your business. If that service goes out of this, 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:04.439 what happens to your organization? If it's cloud storage to 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:07.359 your files go away forever? Would you end up collapsing 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:10.400 right behind the service provider? Because that would become a 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:14.600 domino effect, right if a major cloud service operator were 0:13:14.840 --> 0:13:19.240 to run into serious financial problems, maybe there's a terrible scandal, 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:22.920 maybe there's a data breach, maybe something happens that just 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:27.040 affects that company at a fundamental level. What does that 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:30.960 do to the customers? Does that does it cripple multiple 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:34.800 other businesses? Could you see an entire, attire swath of 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:40.160 companies collapse as a result of a provider collapsing? And 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:43.080 then there's the issue of security itself. Can you, as 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:46.680 a customer of a cloud computing service operator be sure 0:13:46.720 --> 0:13:50.360 that your information, that your processes, that your infrastructure in 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:54.560 some cases are safe from bad actors? After all, if 0:13:54.600 --> 0:13:57.200 the cloud computing operator is a really big one, it's 0:13:57.240 --> 0:14:01.240 probably a really attractive target for hackers. I'll talk more 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:03.720 about some of those questions a bit later, But first 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:06.960 I want to talk about the evolution of cloud computing itself, 0:14:07.000 --> 0:14:09.199 because it goes back a bit further than a lot 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:12.520 of people think. The term cloud computing for the average 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:16.439 person became kind of a big buzzword around two thousand nine, 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:19.440 two thousand ten or so, and when it first popped 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:22.760 up in general use, it caused some confusion, so much 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:25.280 so that I actually got an assignment from how Stuff 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:28.200 Works to write more than a dozen articles for the 0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:31.360 website at that time, and it was covering stuff like 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:35.920 cloud computing, grid computing, utility computing, and related terms to 0:14:35.920 --> 0:14:39.520 help clarify things. Those are the days now. The actual 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:43.520 term cloud computing goes back more than a decade before 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:48.960 it became a buzzword on the average streets of the world, 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:51.480 right like before the average person was aware of what 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:54.440 cloud computing think was, the term was already in use 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:57.400 for more than a decade. But the concept of cloud 0:14:57.400 --> 0:15:01.240 computing is even older than that. So to understand the 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:04.040 birth of cloud computing, we actually have to go back 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:07.120 before the era of personal computers, even before the era 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:13.960 where businesses, big businesses, we're using computers for the average employee. 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:16.600 We're going all the way back to the nineteen fifties. 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:21.000 Not at that time computers were mainframe computers. They were giant, 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:24.840 expensive machines that took up the better part of a room, 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:27.880 sometimes the better part of a floor of a building. 0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:33.000 This would not be practical to have as a computer 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:36.640 that one person would use, right, it's so big and 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:40.200 if you wanted to have multiple people use a computer, 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:43.240 and you need to have multiple computers, then you would 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:47.440 be dedicating floors of your buildings to just the just 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:50.760 a few computers. It's it was not an efficient means. 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:52.680 And in fact, that was one of the big problems 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:56.760 with the computers early on. It wasn't there uh their 0:15:56.840 --> 0:16:00.680 processing power, or their storage capacity or anything that The 0:16:00.760 --> 0:16:04.960 problem was, how do you make this powerful machine efficient? 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:09.200 How do you best make use of its capabilities? Because 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:12.600 if it's so large and if only one person can 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:15.760 use it at a time, then you've got limitations on 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:18.920 what the computer can do, just based upon human limitations. 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:21.240 There's only so much a human can do with a 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:26.240 computer like that, and it meant that there were very 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:29.440 few use cases for a computer that were compelling enough 0:16:29.720 --> 0:16:35.600 to to really uh justify the expense of one. The 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:40.000 solution in the nineties sixties was to create computer terminals, 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:42.880 which typically consisted of a workstation that has like a 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:46.320 keyboard and maybe some other input devices, and then an 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:49.960 output device like a display. The terminal wasn't in of 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:53.240 itself a computer, It was more of an interface for 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:56.320 accessing the main frame computer. So you still have a 0:16:56.360 --> 0:16:59.680 centralized computer, but then you would have one or more 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:03.280 term annals that would allow users to interface with the computer, 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:06.520 and then, when paired with a strategy called time sharing, 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:11.439 a main frame could support multiple terminals. This concept was 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:14.960 first described by John Backus in nineteen fifty four, but 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:17.560 it took several years for someone to come up with 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:22.399 a practical means of enabling it, and in nineteen sixty 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:24.760 one there was a computer scientist and the father of 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:29.480 artificial intelligence, John McCarthy, who proposed that the time sharing model, 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:33.000 once fully developed, could give rise to the shift of 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:36.959 computer as a utility service. So, in other words, in 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:40.400 the future, he would argue, customers could pay to make 0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:44.200 use of a computer's processing power and for specific applications 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:47.400 as well, so instead of owning a computer, you would 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:50.320 pay someone else to make use of their computer's abilities 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:54.240 to complete a task. Uh. Now, this did not first 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:56.560 see the development of the personal computer, because again, at 0:17:56.560 --> 0:18:00.199 the time, computers were enormous, They were very complicated, they 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:03.000 were difficult to work with. You had to have a 0:18:03.119 --> 0:18:06.600 very specialized set of knowledge and skills in order to 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:09.040 work with these computers. So it seemed like it was 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:12.040 well outside the realm of the average person. People weren't 0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:15.639 thinking in terms of personal computers. So what McCarthy was 0:18:15.680 --> 0:18:18.920 proposing was a model where you would still be able 0:18:19.000 --> 0:18:22.320 to take advantage of a computer's processing power, but you 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:25.919 would pay on demand. Right, You would pay whenever you 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:29.199 needed to use a computer, and then in return you 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:34.680 would get some application run or some computation performed. And 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:38.879 this would actually become part of the foundation for modern 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:42.639 cloud computing. While we kind of bypassed this for a while, 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:47.240 it's come back around. Utility computing is related to cloud computing. 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:50.400 It's not synonymous, but it is related to it. I've 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:52.199 got a little bit more to say about cloud computing, 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:55.400 but first let's take another quick break to thank our sponsor. 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:07.360 The development of multi user mainframe solutions was originally funded 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:12.200 by the Advanced Research Projects Agency or ARPA, the predecessor 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:16.119 to DARPA, the research and development arm of the United 0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:20.880 States Department of Defense. They've been responsible for funding tons 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:25.280 of projects that have been all about pushing technology forward, 0:19:25.960 --> 0:19:30.920 frequently with at least a a an eye toward defense, 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:35.320 but not necessarily all about that. So ARPA NET is 0:19:35.359 --> 0:19:37.440 a great example, and I'll talk about that a little 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:41.080 bit more in just a minute. But ARPA or DARPA 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:42.960 as it now is known it changed its name in 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:47.640 the early nineteen seventies. DARPA has also funded big projects 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:52.040 that have led to things like robots that can respond 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:56.600 to various uh crises, like there was a big robotics 0:19:56.680 --> 0:20:00.639 challenge where the robots had to perform a series of 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:04.560 of different tasks in order to simulate responding to a 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:09.879 nuclear meltdown scenario, or driverless cars. DARPA has also funded 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:13.560 a lot of the development behind autonomous vehicles. So back 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:19.320 in ninety three, the agency ARPA awarded two million dollars 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:21.040 to m I T to take on what was called 0:20:21.080 --> 0:20:24.639 Project MAC, which was also known as the Project of 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:29.119 Mathematics and Computation Now. Later on, the acronym was tweaked 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:31.600 a few different times to mean various things, one of 0:20:31.600 --> 0:20:35.879 which was multiple access computer, which was one aspect of 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:38.480 Project MAC, but not the only one. The ARPA side 0:20:38.520 --> 0:20:40.880 of the project was headed by a guy named Joseph 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:45.720 Carl Robnett Licklider, better known as j. C. R or Lick, 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:48.960 and he had previously served as a professor at m 0:20:48.960 --> 0:20:52.200 I T before joining the Department of Defense. The m 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:55.639 I T side was originally headed by Robert fano A. 0:20:55.720 --> 0:21:00.000 Project MAC would span many different areas of computer science, 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:03.280 but the one we're specifically interested in here is time sharing. 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:05.960 The origins of the time sharing model came out of 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:08.840 a different project and m I T, but was completed 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:11.480 as part of Project MAC. Lick Lighter is going to 0:21:11.520 --> 0:21:14.280 pop up again in our discussion in just a second now. Typically, 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:17.760 time sharing meant that the main frame would devote a 0:21:17.840 --> 0:21:22.399 certain number of processing cycles to each terminal's operations, so 0:21:22.440 --> 0:21:25.879 you could have multiple people using different terminals accessing the 0:21:25.920 --> 0:21:28.800 same mainframe computer, and the main frame would work on 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:34.720 problems in sequence rather than simultaneously. But computers work very quickly, 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:38.040 and we humans are relatively slow by comparisons, so on 0:21:38.119 --> 0:21:41.800 casual glance, it looks like one computer is handling all 0:21:41.840 --> 0:21:44.639 the work of all the terminals all at the same time. 0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:48.199 In fact, the reason time sharing works so well is 0:21:48.240 --> 0:21:51.840 that we humans tend to work in short batches or spurts. 0:21:51.880 --> 0:21:54.679 This means that the main frame would be waiting on 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:57.960 humans more than humans would wait on the main frame, 0:21:58.040 --> 0:22:00.840 which is another reason why one person working on a 0:22:00.840 --> 0:22:03.440 computer is not an efficient use of that computer, because 0:22:03.440 --> 0:22:06.560 there's a lot of downtime when you look at the 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:11.000 accumulation of all the little pauses and breaks humans take. 0:22:11.560 --> 0:22:14.399 So if you could allow multiple people to access the 0:22:14.440 --> 0:22:18.399 same machine at the same time, you can then shift 0:22:18.560 --> 0:22:21.920 the downtime of one user so it becomes the active 0:22:21.920 --> 0:22:24.879 time of another user. And with the right number of users, 0:22:25.119 --> 0:22:27.760 that would maximize the efficiency of the main frame itself. 0:22:27.840 --> 0:22:32.159 It would essentially be working constantly, and in turn that 0:22:32.200 --> 0:22:36.040 would justify the massive cost of owning and operating a 0:22:36.080 --> 0:22:40.399 mainframe computer. Time sharing also opened up the possibility of 0:22:40.440 --> 0:22:43.360 allowing a business to make use of a computer owned 0:22:43.480 --> 0:22:46.320 by someone else. The business would just have to have 0:22:46.359 --> 0:22:48.920 access to a terminal for the main frame in question, 0:22:49.119 --> 0:22:51.439 so you could argue that's the very foundation of the 0:22:51.480 --> 0:22:54.800 concept of cloud computing. Lick Lighter is one of the 0:22:54.880 --> 0:22:59.320 people responsible for the formation of the Arpanett project. Ar 0:22:59.359 --> 0:23:02.280 Ponnet's goal was to create means for different computers and 0:23:02.359 --> 0:23:06.160 different locations to share information with one another and therefore 0:23:06.320 --> 0:23:09.840 resources between each other, even if the computers were of 0:23:09.880 --> 0:23:12.719 different make and model, which was not a trivial task 0:23:13.240 --> 0:23:17.639 as different mainframes relied on very different computer architectures and 0:23:17.680 --> 0:23:21.840 different operating systems, which made them incompatible with one another 0:23:22.000 --> 0:23:25.080 in normal use, so it's like they're speaking totally different languages. 0:23:25.640 --> 0:23:29.960 Lig Lighter envisioned what he called an intergalactic computer network, 0:23:30.320 --> 0:23:33.080 and in this vision, link Letters saw everyone in the 0:23:33.080 --> 0:23:36.359 world having access to computers and information through an interconnected 0:23:36.400 --> 0:23:40.639 network of machines. Essentially, he was proposing the Internet. The 0:23:40.760 --> 0:23:44.920 Arpanet project launched in nineteen sixty nine. In the early 0:23:45.000 --> 0:23:48.239 nineteen seventies, another big development took place, which was the 0:23:48.280 --> 0:23:52.879 evolution of machine virtualization. In the nineteen sixties, we use 0:23:52.920 --> 0:23:55.840 the term virtualization to refer to the ability to allow 0:23:55.960 --> 0:23:59.520 multiple users to access the same machine more or less 0:23:59.640 --> 0:24:02.720 sim sultaneously, as it was almost as if each user 0:24:02.840 --> 0:24:06.320 had access to his or her own virtual computer. So 0:24:06.359 --> 0:24:09.040 essentially it was another kind of word for time sharing, 0:24:09.480 --> 0:24:13.160