Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is a combination of multiple traditional technology developments, including distributed computing, parallel computing, utility computing, network storage, virtualization and load balancing. It has become a popular term in recent years, and many experts believe that cloud computing will change the technical foundation of the Internet, and even affect the pattern of the IT industry as we know it. After super computers, personal computers (PC) and the world wide web (WWW), cloud computing is the third wave of computer evolution. As a result, many large enterprises such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, IBM, SUN, and Apple are researching ways in which cloud computing technology can expand their market share.

The fundamental concept of cloud computing is similar to that of water and electricity supply. Each user connects to a single pipe and shares the same resources. This evolution changes our lifestyle, business model and operations. It successfully evolves from built in IT systems, to save costs and boost business revenue. Below are examples that may help us understand how cloud computing works:

1. Server A - 50GB storage

2. Server B - 100GB storage

3. Server C - 150GB storage

Traditionally, each server is a stand alone and none of the servers can store 200GB of data. To do so, a business owner would have to spend additional money to upgrade the hardware. With the cloud system, the three servers can share their capacity without any upgrades, and achieve 300GB storage.

In another scenario, if a single PC downloads 1MB of antivirus definitions to a local drive, it causes the main server to lose 1MB of bandwidth. When 10,000 PCs makes the same download, it will cause the main server to lose 10GB of bandwidth. With cloud antivirus, all virus updates refer to the main server and no downloads are required. It saves server cost and user time.

Similarly, in an Apple game center for example, each user’s game score is stored in a remote location. When the user needs the data, it can be accessed through any Apple device and not necessarily a personal device.

Google Being Hacked?

Recently, Google being hacked in Romania and Pakistan became a popular topic for discussion. "Real" hacking would mean someone successfully broke into Google's server, changed the server permission, and stole Google data. So in actual fact, Google was not hacked, but instead had a DNS redirection problem.

For example, to visit lns.com.my, we need to memorize the specific IP address 103.3.72.5. To make it easy for users to remember a website, DNS (Domain Name System) is responsible for translating Internet domain and host names to IP addresses. So when a user types lns.com.my in a browser, the DNS will automatically direct the user to visit the 103.3.72.5 website.

In Google's case, someone has taken advantage of the conversion tool (DNS), and switched off google.com.pk by pointing it to a different IP address. As a result, millions of users saw the hacker message instead of the usual Google landing page

If you find a page with an error message or non-common landing page, don't linger or click anything. Leave the site and let the administrator solve the problem, because syncing DNS to the correct IP address is a process that may take up to a few hours.