Cloud computing - Wikipedia. Cloud computing metaphor: For a user, the network elements representing the provider- rendered services are invisible, as if obscured by a cloud. Cloud computing is an information technology (IT) paradigm, a model for enabling ubiquitous access to shared pools of configurable resources (such as computer networks, servers, storage, applications and services),[1][2] which can be rapidly provisioned with minimal management effort, often over the Internet. Cloud computing allows users and enterprises with various computing capabilities to store and process data either in a privately- owned cloud, or on a third- party server located in a data center - thus making data- accessing mechanisms more efficient and reliable.[3][need quotation to verify] Cloud computing relies on sharing of resources to achieve coherence and economy of scale, similar to a utility. Advocates note that cloud computing allows companies to avoid or minimize up- front IT infrastructure costs. As well, third- party clouds enable organizations to focus on their core businesses instead of expending resources on computer infrastructure and maintenance.[4] Proponents also claim that cloud computing allows enterprises to get their applications up and running faster, with improved manageability and less maintenance, and that it enables IT teams to more rapidly adjust resources to meet fluctuating and unpredictable business demand.[4][5][6] Cloud providers typically use a "pay- as- you- go" model. This could lead to unexpectedly high charges if administrators are not familiarized with cloud- pricing models.[7]In 2.
For some good general notes on designing spacecraft in general, read Rick Robinson's Rocketpunk Manifesto essay on Spaceship Design 101. Also worth reading are Rick's. Companies can scale up as computing needs increase and then scale down again when demands decrease.[1. In 2. 01. 3 it was reported[by whom?] that cloud computing had become a highly demanded service or utility due to the advantages of high computing power, cheap cost of services, high performance, scalability, and accessibility - as well as availability. Some cloud vendors experience growth rates of 5. History[edit]Origin of the term[edit]The origin of the term cloud computing is unclear. The word cloud is commonly used in science to describe a large agglomeration of objects that visually appear from a distance as a cloud and describes any set of things whose details are not further inspected in a given context.[1. Another explanation is that the old programs that drew network schematics surrounded the icons for servers with a circle, and a cluster of servers in a network diagram had several overlapping circles, which resembled a cloud.[1. In analogy to the above usage, the word cloud was used as a metaphor for the Internet and a standardized cloud- like shape was used to denote a network on telephony schematics. Later it was used to depict the Internet in computer network diagrams. With this simplification, the implication is that the specifics of how the end points of a network are connected are not relevant for the purposes of understanding the diagram. The cloud symbol was used to represent networks of computing equipment in the original ARPANET by as early as 1. Free operating system papers, essays, and research papers.CSNET by 1. 98. 1[1. Internet itself. The term cloud has been used to refer to platforms for distributed computing. In Wired's April 1. Bill and Andy's Excellent Adventure II" on the Apple spin- off General Magic, Andy Hertzfeld commented on General Magic's distributed programming language Telescript that: "The beauty of Telescript .. Cloud out there, where a single program can go and travel to many different sources of information and create sort of a virtual service. No one had conceived that before. The example Jim White [the designer of Telescript, X. ASN. 1] uses now is a date- arranging service where a software agent goes to the flower store and orders flowers and then goes to the ticket shop and gets the tickets for the show, and everything is communicated to both parties."References to "cloud computing" in its modern sense appeared as early as 1. Compaq internal document.[2. The popularization of the term can be traced to 2. Amazon. com introduced its Elastic Compute Cloud.[2. During the 1. 96. RJE (Remote Job Entry); [2. IBM and DEC. Full time- sharing solutions were available by the early 1. Multics (on GE hardware), Cambridge CTSS, and the earliest UNIX ports (on DEC hardware). Yet, the "data center" model where users submitted jobs to operators to run on IBM mainframes was overwhelmingly predominant. In the 1. 99. 0s, telecommunications companies, who previously offered primarily dedicated point- to- point data circuits, began offering virtual private network (VPN) services with comparable quality of service, but at a lower cost. By switching traffic as they saw fit to balance server use, they could use overall network bandwidth more effectively.[citation needed] They began to use the cloud symbol to denote the demarcation point between what the provider was responsible for and what users were responsible for. Cloud computing extended this boundary to cover all servers as well as the network infrastructure.[2. As computers became more diffused, scientists and technologists explored ways to make large- scale computing power available to more users through time- sharing.[citation needed] They experimented with algorithms to optimize the infrastructure, platform, and applications to prioritize CPUs and increase efficiency for end users.[2. Since 2. 00. 0, cloud computing has come into existence. In early 2. 00. 8, NASA's Open. Nebula, enhanced in the RESERVOIR European Commission- funded project, became the first open- source software for deploying private and hybrid clouds, and for the federation of clouds.[2. In the same year, efforts were focused on providing quality of service guarantees (as required by real- time interactive applications) to cloud- based infrastructures, in the framework of the IRMOS European Commission- funded project, resulting in a real- time cloud environment.[2. By mid- 2. 00. 8, Gartner saw an opportunity for cloud computing "to shape the relationship among consumers of IT services, those who use IT services and those who sell them"[2. IT products in some areas and significant reductions in other areas."[2. In August 2. 00. 6 Amazon introduced its Elastic Compute Cloud.[2. Microsoft Azure was announced as "Azure" in October 2. February 2. 01. 0 as Windows Azure, before being renamed to Microsoft Azure on 2. March 2. 01. 4.[3. In July 2. 01. 0, Rackspace Hosting and NASA jointly launched an open- source cloud- software initiative known as Open. Stack. The Open. Stack project intended to help organizations offering cloud- computing services running on standard hardware. The early code came from NASA's Nebula platform as well as from Rackspace's Cloud Files platform. As an open source offering and along with other open- source solutions such as Cloud. Stack, Ganeti and Open. Nebula, it has attracted attention by several key communities. Several studies aim at comparing these open sources offerings based on a set of criteria.[3. On March 1, 2. 01. IBM announced the IBM Smart. Cloud framework to support Smarter Planet.[3. Among the various components of the Smarter Computing foundation, cloud computing is a critical part. On June 7, 2. 01. Oracle announced the Oracle Cloud.[3. While aspects of the Oracle Cloud are still in development, this cloud offering is poised to be the first to provide users with access to an integrated set of IT solutions, including the Applications (Saa. S), Platform (Paa. S), and Infrastructure (Iaa. S) layers.[4. 0][4. In April of 2. 00. Google released Google App Engine in beta.[4. In May of 2. 01. 2, Google Compute Engine was released in preview, before being rolled out into General Availability in December of 2. Similar concepts[edit]Cloud computing is the result of the evolution and adoption of existing technologies and paradigms. The goal of cloud computing is to allow users to take benefit from all of these technologies, without the need for deep knowledge about or expertise with each one of them. The cloud aims to cut costs, and helps the users focus on their core business instead of being impeded by IT obstacles.[4. The main enabling technology for cloud computing is virtualization. Virtualization software separates a physical computing device into one or more "virtual" devices, each of which can be easily used and managed to perform computing tasks. Patent US5. 90. 38. Personal online banking with integrated online statement and checkbook user .. BACKGROUND1. Field of Invention. The present invention relates to systems, methods, and software products for online banking, and more particularly, to systems, methods, and software products for online banking that integrates end user checkbook activities directly with bank statement transactions. Background of Invention. Online banking systems have been repeatedly promised, but rarely delivered in recent years. A lengthy summary of some of the problems the banking industry has faced in delivering online banking is found in Lawlor et al., U. S. Pat. No. 5,2. 20,5. One of the key issues in delivering online banking is ease of use. Ease of use is predicated on many factors, including the ability of the user to identify the banking information of interest and execute desired banking tasks without error or difficulty. Generally, users perform four main tasks in checkbook and online banking applications: Account Management- -This activity includes viewing bank account data from the bank, such as cleared transactions and account balances, initiating requests to bank to generate fund transfers between accounts, and supporting tasks such as requesting information from the bank on certain accounts or transactions. Bill payment- -Initiating requests to the bank to pay a vendor a certain amount by a certain date. Related tasks such as making payment inquiries may also be performed. Checkbook transactions- -Accounting for checks, withdrawals, debit card purchases, and the like, that the user does on a regular basis. These transactions must be accounted for and integrated with the account data from the bank for an accurate reflection of the user's account. Current balance calculation- -Determining how much money the user really has available in their account, based on cleared and uncleared transactions (including other checkbook transactions). The current balance is calculated, typically by the user or sometimes by the application, by taking the latest account balance given by the bank and adding/subtracting any uncleared transactions in the user's own checkbook. Extensive consumer and usability research indicates two key areas of usability concerns with these various tasks. First, customers view banking, bill payment and the determination of their current balance as interrelated tasks. Accordingly, they want related banking task and banking information to operate together in an online banking product. In fact banking tasks, such as obtaining balance information, cleared transactions, and so forth, are often used to provide information to support the bill payment tasks. Second, customers have difficulty using an online banking system when it is necessary to navigate from one user interface to another user interface in order to complete some task. Navigation difficulties increase both the time required by the user to complete the task, and the likelihood of error in completing the task. An example of a typical user task makes clear the need for integration of banking tasks and banking information. A typical scenario is payment of bills, which may include a large credit card bill. The user will typically decide how much of the credit card bill to pay based on currently available funds, taking into account cleared transactions, and uncleared transactions, such as other bills being paid. To complete this task with an online banking software product, the user needs to perform the following steps: Determine current balance in the account based for cleared transactions. Review in the checkbook to determine actual current balance, based on the uncleared transactions, and cleared balance. Determine if they need to transfer money from another account to pay the bills. Enter the bill payment requests including, calculating how much of the credit card to pay from the actual balance. Use the requests to pay the bills. Send the request to transfer funds. From the user's perspective, this banking activity is clearly an integrated one, since the user must integrate three tasks- -writing checks to pay other bills, obtaining cleared transactions and current balance from the bank, and determining a combined current balance based on this information- -before writing the credit card bill. Accordingly, there is a need to provide an online banking software product and system that supports the integration of these tasks and their underlying information components. There have been various approaches, as summarized in Lawlor et al., to making online banking easy for consumers to use for bill payment and checkbook maintenance. These approaches fall mainly into two categories, typically tightly associated with the type of company that is delivering the online banking software and system. Generally, there are personal finance products from personal finance software companies, and banking products from banks and other financial institutions. Products in both of these categories are generally deficient at integrating banking tasks and banking information in support of user's actual needs. First, online banking software products from personal finance software companies are typically "checkbook- centric." Most personal finance software products employ the checkbook as the underlying user model. As a result, all transactions, such as paying bills, writing checking, depositing or transferring funds, are done through a checkbook- like user interface, even if the checkbook metaphor is not particularly appropriate for the task. For example, Quicken® 5. In FIG. 1, there is shown a user interface 1. The entry screen has a number of icons that are invoked to perform different functions, such as the checkbook register 1. FIG. 2 illustrates the user interface for the checkbook register 1. Prior to the availability of online banking, the user would enter all of their various transactions into the checkbook register 1. In the checkbook register type user interface the user sees all of their transactions, including both cleared and uncleared transactions mixed together. This is seen in FIG. R" in the column labeled "Clr"), and the other transactions are not cleared. Further, the balance 1. The user has no separate balance information for just the cleared transactions immediately available, which as noted above, was the first item of information the user typically needs during bill payment. Once online banking became available, this type functionality was added as an additional feature in many checkbook products, to both automate reconciliation of uncleared transactions in the checkbook against the bank's own records of cleared transactions, and to provide electronic, online payment of bills. Typically, an online banking module is provided in which the user can view the bank's current account balance in a user interface display separate from the checkbook register 1. As shown in FIG. 1, there are separate icons for checkbook register 1. Selecting the online banking icon for the online banking module 1. FIG. 3. In this interface, the user only sees the cleared transactions which have been downloaded from the bank with the Get Online Data button 1. The balance 1. 15 here is based only on the cleared transactions, the bank having no information about the user's recently entered, and uncleared, checkbook transactions. To use the online information for bill payment, the user must download certain transactions to first reconcile their account. Once the transactions are downloaded, the checkbook register 1. The only difference that appears to the user is the indication in the checkbook register 1. This is shown in FIG. R" in the "Clr" column. To use both sets of the data, the user would have to switch back and forth between the different user interfaces. Electronic bill paying, which is often touted as a desirable feature of online banking systems, is typically enabled, but often as an extension of the user's checkbook. That is, bill payments are treated as checks, and entered in a separate user interface. FIG. 4 illustrates a typical example of an online bill payment interface 1. This interface 1. This separation of function hinders the integration of bill payment, account management, and checkbook tasks. For these reasons, in these types of software products, there is no persistent view of the bank's online statement, as such.
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