This ECAR research bulletin is the first in a series of bulletins devoted to cloud computing in higher education. It summarizes insights and a framework for thinking about cloud computing, and it touches on potential emergent roles for public and private clouds. The findings draw from spring 2009 interviews with industry and university information technology (IT) leaders, a review of current literature, and a synthesis of recent research from the EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research (ECAR). Citation for this work: Katz, Richard N., Philip J. Goldstein, and Ronald Yanosky. “Demystifying Cloud Computing fo
The Tower and The Cloud A New EDUCAUSE e-Book The emergence of the networked information economy is unleashing two powerful forces. On one hand, easy access to high-speed networks is empowering individuals. People can now discover and consume information resources and services globally from their homes. Further, new social computing approaches are inviting people to share in the creation and edification of information on the Internet. Empowerment of the individual -- or consumerization -- is reducing the individual's reliance on traditional brick-and-mortar institutions in favor of new and emerging virtual ones. Second, ubiquitous access to high-speed networks along with network standards, open standards and content, and techniques for virtualizing hardware, software, and services is making it possible to leverage scale economies in unprecedented ways. What appears to be emerging is industrial-scale computing -- a standardized infrastructure for delivering computing power, network b