Types of Computing Applications

Udayakumar Nalinasekaren
Dec 19, 2010

In an earlier post, we got introduced to Cloud Computing with an example of a gaming application. In real life, we have many other applications for computing. The simplest of them is when we communicate with other people around us using e-mail. In this application, we type, send, receive, forward and store text messages (to keep things simple).

In the gaming example, we talked about the need to send and receive data. Usually we do not believe that such data is secret. Data qualifies for increased secrecy and therefore security when it has personal information which we do not want to share with others. In the case of e-mail data, the sensitivity and privacy of data goes up a few notches relative to the computer game example.

Just like individuals, enterprises (small or large) produce and consume data. The order of magnitude goes up several fold compared to data produced and consumed by an individual. Some of it is willingly shared with the world. Some of it which is considered competitive is only shared with a set of qualified people within the enterprise.

Applications of personal computing can be purely personal (e.g., managing your investment portfolio, a digital photo album of private family photos) or used for increased collaboration with other individuals or a business (e.g., a networked multi-player game, a website advertising your talents, an income tax tracker).

Enterprises use computing applications for keeping their operations streamlined, tracking their own business performance, interfacing with customers and interfacing with partners. Different applications warrant different levels of data security and protection. How does cloud computing address this important need? We will see..