Yes folks…more fun with cloud computing. While I’m waiting for the new banner exports to load into Moodle, I thought I would write something for all of you out there (what is it like 2 people reading this).

I was trolling the interwebs yesterday and I found this EC2 Ubuntu Starters Guide. Notice that when you use the Ubuntu AMI (Amazon Machine Image) you have to update the instance every time. Who has time for that (not that I know how long it takes, but still)?

In good news though, I got an email from Amazon saying:

We’re excited to announce the initial beta release of our AWS Management Console, a web-based, point-and-click, graphical user interface that makes it even easier to access and manage AWS Infrastructure Web Services. The initial release provides an online interface for Amazon EC2, with additional AWS services scheduled to be added in the coming months. The console presents an intuitive, global picture of your cloud computing environment so that you can control your AWS resources without programming directly to an API.

There is a tutorial on how to use the Amazon Web Services Console. I watched it and I am excited to use it since it looks pretty simple. And the screencast gives nice step by step instructions which is super helpful for any newbies. Also I love that the guy who is doing the screencast is a Web Services Evangelist. I hope one day that’s in my job title.

So now even a layman can have access to a server without knowing anything at all about servers. This is a scary thought to some. I actually read an interesting article on this idea of lay people (in higher education) having access to things like servers and the like; below is the citation:

Yanosky, Ronald. “From Users to Choosers: The Cloud and the Changing Shape of Enterprise Authority.” The Tower and The Cloud. Ed. Richard N. Katz. Educause. 126-37.

Its an interesting idea, giving all control over to departments that want it. Amazon Web Services (and VMWare) can help do this for IT departments. This article goes over what that means for the IT department. Where do they now sit in the grand scheme of the IT world.

Anyway…check out the screencast and if you have nothing else to do with your life, read the article. All very interesting.