CLOUD COMPUTING FOR LIBRARY SERVICES Continuum of Abstraction

CLOUD COMPUTING FOR LIBRARY SERVICES

Continuum of Abstraction Locally owned and installed servers Co-located virtual servers Web hosting Server hosting services Application Service Provider Software-as-a-service Platform-as-a-service

Cloud computing – basic understanding Any arrangement where the library relies on some kind of remote hosting environment for major automation components Includes: � Almost any vender-hosted offering

Cloud computing – formal definitions Highly abstracted computing model Utility model Provisioned on demand Scaled according to variable needs Discrete virtual machines Compute cycles on demand Storage on demand Elastic – consumption of resources can contract and expand according to demand

Hosting Services Web hosting � Web site only � Standard support for PHP, Perl, and other dynamic page generation Dedicated Server � Appropriate for applications that have not been tested and deployed in virtual environments Virtual server � Requires software that supports virtualization

Advantages Increasing opportunities to eliminate local servers and tech support Most libraries cannot support the cost of systems and network administrators which command higher salaries than professional librarians Eliminate hardware replacement, operating systems upgrades, etc.

Software-as-a-Service Complete software application, customized for customer use Eg: Salesforce. com

Platform-as-a-Platform as a Service Virtualized computing environment for deployment of software Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC 2)

Storage-as-a-Service Provisioned, on-demand storage Bundled to, or separate from other cloud services

Private vs Public cloud Public – multi-tenant provisioning � Locically isolated computing environment � Theoretical security / competitive concerns Private – cloud architecture, institutionally owned/controlled � Leverages cost and scalability � Enforces physical segration

Examples of cloud offerings by library vendors

Application Service Provider Expxtech Horizon in 2000 Sirsi Unicorn (sirsi. net) 2005 DRA Classic pilot ASP program in 2000 Auto-Graphics acquired Macess Library Systems in 2001 > AGent VERSO offered primarily as hosted service Virtua ASP 2003 Polaris Hosted launched in 2005

Virtualization Sirsi. Dynix virtualization for Symphony implemented in March 2010 Sirsi. Dynix virtualization for Horizon implemented in Dec 2009

Software-as-a-Service Common marketing term Often applied to ASP Subscription-based vendor-hosted offerings

Serials Solutions All offerings delivered as a service: � 360 Search � 360 Link � Summon

Sirsi. Dynix Strategic emphasis on Saa. S Technically more of a ASP model Many local installs transitioning to Saa. S

Lib. Lime Lib. Lime Enterprise Koha deployed in Amazon EC 2 LAMP stack implemented on Virtual Machine Image Ability to meet larger site requirements through high-performance cloud-delivered platform.

OCLC World. Cataloging World. Cat ILL World. Cat Local Web. Scale Management Services Private cloud