Internet reading assignment - Week 7

From the AccessScience article for assigned reading, I took the important impact of the Internet on communication. We take advantage of e-mail and chat as everyday forms of communication with out realizing the complicated theory behind these resources. Files are encoded and decoded and sent through many different channels just to send a simple e-mail from one user to another. I wanted to read more on the Internet and communication, which brought me to an article called The Social Impact of Internet Use, which summarized a psychological experiment were the impact of the Internet on relationships was studied. The researchers found that, despite their predictions, increase use of the Internet did not really lead to larger social circles and those who used the Internet relatively heavily felt that it stressed them out. The researchers believe that this is because they heavy Internet users felt obligation towards communication online, maybe because these relationships take longer to establish and grow than those cultivated through traditional means.

While this absolutely is important to consider, I thought it would be interesting to continue reading into how the Internet would effect our field of engineering. The first thought that came to mind was the recent popularity of the cloud. According to the article I read, Cloud Computing will Surpass the Internet in Importance. This article addresses the Internet and its important impact on communication, but takes this further. It states that cloud computing will allow younger, less fortunate nations to access software and other resources that were previously only available to affluent nations. The cloud offers the opportunity to create "a universal cloud," if we push hard enough. This could lead to the sharing of information, and therefor communicating, across the entire globe. This led to me to wonder how this effects the quality of life of engineers who use the cloud, and how this sharing of information effects professional relationships in the field of engineering. While the cloud will be great for sharing information and collaboration on projects, a lot of this will be completed online using the cloud. Will this necessarily lead to stronger projects? Could the cloud have negative impact on the quality of projects produced? It will be interesting to see how this develops as the cloud becomes more and more integrated into the field of engineering.

The internet, clouds, AEC

The required reading this week focused on some of the technologies that make the internet possible. These include the alphabet soup of TCP/IP, ISP, PPP, DSL, ADSL, DNS, etc. What I find particularlly interesting about the internet is the consortium of interest groups that have been responsible for bringing the internet where it is today, and that will direct the internet in the future. For example, the internet was originally developed for the defense industry, but has since been commercialized over the past 30 years. Within those 30 years were companies like Microsoft, Cisco, Yahoo, and AOL which managed to shape the internet in to what it is today. Currently, one of the largest internet buzzwords is the idea of "cloud computing." This is something that has gained support from the largest players in the industry, such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, and even our beloved Autodesk. Consequently, I decided to do a little more reading in to where internet technology is going, specifically with this new cloud model.

The first article I read was called "What cloud computing really means." While many people have different definitions of cloud computing, this article tries to determine just what cloud computing is.  After reading this article, I've come to the conclusion that there is not just one definition, rather there are several definitions depending the application. For example, one of the most common applications of cloud compution is the idea of "Software as a Service," providers (SaaS, for short). SaaS is the idea of delivering a single application through a browser to many users. This technology uses a multitenant architecture and allows the user to use the service without the hassle of installation, software servers, or in some cases, licensing. A great example of this today is Google Apps. Another application of cloud technology is called "Web Service in the Cloud." Through this hybrid esque technology, application programming interfaces (APIs) are made available which allow a program to access data stored in a cloud. An example of this is a stock trader using an API to access stock quotes and data through a program which is stored locally on the trader's computer.

Since cloud computing has become the word-du-jour lately, I decided to see how the AEC industry can benefit from cloud computing on the internet. According to the article, "Debunking the Myths About BIM in the “Cloud”", "now we are starting to consider computing resources not as actual tools but rather as a utility that is ubiquitously and infinitely available, similar to electricity or water." I think this has some interesting applications to the industry, specifically with the documentation side of things. We've spent a lot of time in this course discussing BIM, and I can't help but wonder to what extent will BIM adopt cloud technology? Is there a day in which BIM will run as a "SaaS" application, where the user accesses BIM software simply through a web browser? Or will BIM remain this sort-of hybrid system, where files may be store on a cloud, but the hardcore processing, rendering, and database administration is done locally on a user's workstation. These are questions that only time will tell.

Ultimately, the best way I've read to summarize new cloud technology is the question of, "do you take the data to the user or the user to the data?" The former method suggests the way the internet has been structured over the past 30 years, while in the future, the user will be taken to the data.

Internet reading_R7

“Internet Fundamentals and Cyber Security Management,” was a pretty comprehensive writing on the internet from its inception to the format, architecture, standardization and security. One part also mentioned in the Access Science reading was the domain name system which categorizes the IP addresses like a database of information into several main domains: edu, gov, mil, int, net, org and com. According to the author, the internet is a system of networks comprised of interconnected networks with about 150 million hosts in the world (493). As far as Internet standardization, there are several including the ISO and the ITU-T; the latter formed by a United Nation committee. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and several other agencies regulate the internet.

           
“A Brief Guide to the History of the Internet” provided a 54 year spanned timeline of the history of the Internet. Some of the facts were interesting, other facts I was vaguely familiar with. Based off of the Access Science reading, this is what I got out of that; transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) are essentially how the data is broken down and sent to the right location (Venkatesh). Domain name system is a way to categorize sites into various domains like edu, gov, mil, org and others. Intranets are common among private institutions and use TCP/IP networks as well as FTP and Telnet; telnet allows a user to access and use a host computer.

Internet Reading

            The Internet reading on Access Science this week was the least informative required reading article. It appears to be very outdated, even for the 2008 copyright date. The information in the article was all information that I have read or heard before. Internet technology has advanced rapidly over the last decade so a future reading in this class on this topic should be much more recent.

            The second article I read was “Multi-Disciplinary Design Collaboration for Developing a BIM Model Using a Hybrid Client-Server and P2P Network Model.” This conference paper proposes a collaborative Client-Server/P2P hybrid network model for interdisciplinary BIM design. The goal of this Internet-based model is to improve efficiency and interoperability between design teams in different disciplines. A global Client-Server network would connect different teams and manage permissions for editing. A local P2P network would allow individual members of one team to concurrently work on the project. The BIM model would be divided into sub-models consisting of related components, increasing efficiency. As a team finishes work on a sub-model, they send it to the next team. When revisions are required, it can be sent back to the other team for changes. All data would be transmitted in the same format and backup copies would be automatically saved when the model is sent between teams.

            This paper addresses the major problem of coordination between multi-disciplinary design teams which is essential for intelligent design.  However, it is only a theoretical model that does not test the proposal or address the interoperability technical issues. This hybrid network model shows how the Internet can be used to increase efficiency and coordination for design of intelligent buildings. It would be interesting to see how well the model could work in a real application. The main obstacle for its implementation is interoperability, finding a way to transfer data between teams in the same format.

R7 - The internet

This week’s reading was all about the internet. The assigned reading divulged all the basics about the internet, such as acronyms, history, and how it works. It inspired me to do some research on two topics: IP addresses and DNS servers. The first article I read is titled ‘Understanding the Inevitable Switch from IPv4 to IPv6’. The second article is titled ‘How Domain Servers Work’.

The first article is about the impending switch from IPv4 to IPv6. Originally, it was agreed upon, in 1980, that the universal standard for internet protocol addresses would be IPv4. This standard leaves open about 4 billion possible addresses to be assigned. As you can imagine, these addresses are being used up quicker than ever. This was not an issue when computers were connected to the internet via dialup. Addresses could be assigned and unassigned as needed. Today, broadband connections require more permanent addresses.  It is not a matter of if, but when the switch to IPv6 will occur. With the IPv6 switch, comes 2^128 addresses to be assigned. This is not the only benefit to the switch. IP counterfeiting becomes incredibly more difficult to perform, and the connection becomes much more reliable. IPv6 will also prioritize data delivery, which means that streaming a video would not be affected by another simultaneous download.

The second article is about how domain name servers work. Specifically, sites such as google.com are assigned IP addresses that navigate to the requested information. For example, a user will type into an internet browser the requested domain name, e.g. google.com. Once the user requests the website to be loaded, the request is sent to a DNS server, or Domain Name System server. The server will check its cache to see if the requested domain is assigned to a specific IP address. If the server is unable to find one, the request will be sent to another DNS server. This occurs until a server is able to forward the user to a specific IP address or the system determines that the address cannot be resolved. If a domain is unable to be resolved, this simply means that the servers cannot find an assigned IP address to forward the user to. This article also goes into much more detail about domain names, and is a good starting point for anyone interested in the topic.

Overall, I found the articles to be very interesting. Anyone that is interested in exactly how computers or servers interact with each other should read these articles.

R7- The Internet

This week the assigned reading was on the Internet in AccessScience where is discussed the internet in-depth from its history to the different ways to connect to the internet through either dialup, DSL or Broadband, ways to communicate on the internet, and also how the internet is being utilized and will be utilized in the future. This article on the internet made me think of the concept of cloud computing and I found this video on Cloud computing where the concept is explained in a manner for the general public and while the video does not go into all that great of a depth, the concept of cloud computing and its appeal are explained in a manner that is easy to understand and makes the viewer want to learn more about cloud computing. One of the biggest points that the video on cloud computing makes is the simplicity of the system and how one is able to get their small business up and running in a few days whereas if they were using a traditional network system, it would be a minimum of a few weeks. Additionally, since the cloud is accessed remotely, there is no need to employ an IT staff since all bugs, routine maintenance and software updates are handled by the cloud employees and that service is included in the monthly service charge for using the cloud.

One connection between the cloud video and the main article on the internet is how far the speed of the internet has come. Cloud computing would not have been a viable solution in the early 2000s when a 56k dialup modem was considered "fast" and downloading a megabyte of information took more than a few seconds. Cloud computing could be considered a wireless form of a in inter-office network such as an intranet and after the presentation in class from Travis Peyton this past Tuesday on controls systems and how wireless is the way of the future and makes everything easier when dealing with installing a system in an existing building. Cloud computing can be thought of the same way, why have a wired network in-house when you can simplify the entire process and have a computer with just a power source and internet access and be ready to go by outsourcing the task of IT to a cloud company such as salesforce.com. There is the question of security for cloud computing but there will most likely be solutions for that or ones on the way if there are not.

Overall, the internet has allowed us to make large steps in terms of technological development where the the future most if not all tasks will use the internet to some capacity.

Internet and Intelligent Buildings

This week’s reading gave us a better insight into what the internet is, it’s history and what all of those acronyms mean like IP and TCP. The two articles I found for this week involve sensors, buildings and the internet. 

The first article I found was actually a YouTube video titled Dust Networks: Helping Build Smart Cities of the Future. It featured something called a dust networks and how they can be used for intelligent buildings and intelligent cities.  Dust networks are vast networks of tiny computers nearly microscopic in scale that can record information around them and sends that information to a computer. One example the video gives is that dust networks can be placed on train tracks to see if a particular train is running on time.  In a buildings like an office building these sensors can recognize a when an employee walks in can automatically get his/her computer up and running by the time he/she sits down at their desk.   These devices that make up the dust networks are designed to be very small, low power and affordable technology.  The realties seem to be far off for right now but this could be the next big leap in technology.  They also do not go into detail on how these networks would be installed. 

The second article titled "Design of energy consumptionmonitoring and energy-saving management system of intelligent building based onthe Internet of things,"  discusses how the Internet of Things can help make buildings more intelligent. This Internet of things is essentially a sensor network that gathers information about things like a specific building user, lighting, weather and more.  The first part of the paper discusses what makes an intelligent building and the energy saving benefits it can provide. The second part goes into what is this “Internet of Things”, which is the process of objects such as sensors and computers talking to each other and having some connection between the two.  The third part discusses how this can be used to make buildings run more efficiently.  The author breaks down this system in three layers, a sensor layer where the building gathers information through sensors, a network layer that connects these sensors to each other and to computers to interpret the data and finally an application layer that puts into action the information the computer interpreted from the data by the sensors.  This could be something like a daylight sensor, if the sensor picks up information like if it is cloudy out or nightfall it can send that data over a network (wired or wireless) to a computer that can interpret that data and tell the building to turn on the lights.   The realities for this seem to be in our reach but there are still some technical issues that need to be dealt with such as wireless network performance and data management.