Thread:Open ICT Infrastructure (4)

Hi Wayne,

I'll admit the terminology is enough to drive anyone to distraction. It does me. I'm just flagging this early on, so Jim and Steve will know there are lots of other engineers who will want to help as we go though the development of a platform, which can host the goodies in a cloud rather than on an institutional network.

You've seen glen offering his SaaS service, 360. So that gives an indication of how the cloud approach works. Yhe indications of the cost savings. for institutions, are between 50 and 90%, depending on how you measure individual's (like steve and Jim) time and efforts, and the demand on institutional servers.

So far as the spec, you're half way there. A moodle and a wiki being the favourite apps around your end. The only difference, so far as a non geek are concerened, is that one can log in using their institutional credentials, to the platform which is shared by OERu. Sorry to have to use the geek term but this is the terminology which network operators use.

Perhaps what I should have said is that including a few NREN guys in the discussion would open things up. More importantly it would give them some direction from "user groups" who only want solutions which are "above the net". http://billstarnaud.blogspot.com/2011/10/commercial-cloud-services-for.html

You have no idea how frustrating it is when I see you doing some great stuff, and measuring the quality of the content, when my mousetrap builder friends would love to help. But they just measure bandwidth, and talk abut the kinds of things you want as "commodity services".

Ah terminology! Ever get the feeling that we are trying to work in a time where professionals earn their credentials by learning an esoteric language rather than how it relates to improving the real world? All the best.