Lesson 2: Cloud and Data Storage an Retrieval

February 18th, 2021

The main objectives of this lesson were: 

• To identify and differentiate the different cloud services that are offered and be able to select the most appropriate one according to needs
• To know how to manage documents and folders in the cloud, as well as make backups, share them with other users and work as a team with others incorporating online information
• To be able to generate dynamic activities while virtually interconnected, in order to achieve or encourage the learning of some content or skill in the students 
• To create your own blog as a teacher and professional.

We talked about specific concepts such as Cloud Computing. It is a paradigm that makes it possible to offer computing services such as storage, content creation, blogs, etc. over a network, which is usually the Internet. Therefore, everything that a computer system can offer is offered as a service. Some features of cloud computing are: on demand service, you use it when you need it, network Access (Internet), shared resources, used by multiple clients and scalability, allows elasticity of resources. And there are three types of clouds, public, private and hybrid. 

Cloud storage is a computer network-based data storage model, where data is hosted in virtualised storage spaces, usually provided by third parties such as Google Drive or OneDrive.  

Furthermore, we learnt about the three different types of delivery models of cloud computing: Software as a Service (SAAS), platform as a Service (PAAS) and internet as a Service (IAAS). 

• SAAS: To use it you do not need to install software, it is accessible via web browser, you can access it from anywhere, it is available for multiple end users and it is excellent for collaborative work. Some examples are Drive, Office 365, etc.
• PAAS: It is a programming language execution environment and users can create and distribute their own applications. Some examples are: Windows Azure, Google App Engine, Google Play, etc.
• IAAS: It offers computing architecture and infrastructure and computing resources, all in a virtual environment. Some examples are: Amazon EC2 or GoGrid.

Later in the class, we needed to do a group exercise to create a folder for our didactic unit and share it with all the group members in OneDrive, we also needed to create a word document and put it into the folder so we can have a space where we can all write the different ideas and research that we are finding throughout these couple of weeks. All you need to do to create a folder is log into your OneDrive through your university account, click on new and create a folder. Then, you need to share it with all of your group members through the share button and create a word document in the folder so it is already shared with each member. 

For the individual exercise of that class, we also had to design this blog to be able to post all of the different steps we take in order to create a final product about our didactic unit. We had to create an individual blog for this subject where we can make posts on the topics studied in it and the different activities we do in class. We had to configure the layout, theme, settings and we had to write a presentation of you for the description of the blog and a first post about the first lesson we did along with the individual exercise on the use of Diigo. Overall, I learnt a lot of different things I did not know before such as all the different types of cloud computing and its different features.