Open Source and Cloud Computing

Question 1

What defines OSS

Answer 1

the fact that you can look at and potentially modify the source code, usually free*

Question 2

Why do people choose open source

Answer 2

CRASS Cost, reliability, agility (Time to market), sercurity, and scalibility

Question 3

What are first copy costs and MC and how do they relate to software

Answer 3

there are huge sunk costs to make the first copy of a software because of the effort to develop it (these are called first copy costs), MC is about 0

Question 4

What does the absence of production capacity restraints mean?

Answer 4

an unlimited amount of copies can be sold

Question 5

What makes software a good business to be in?

Answer 5

No MC, so if you pick a winner in software you can make a pile of $$$

Question 6

What are some examples of Open source software

Answer 6

Firefox, OpenOffice, Gimp (replaces Photoshop), MYSQL, LAMP

Question 7

Why do companies support the OSS wave?

Answer 7

make $$$ by selling support services anc consulting services, OSS can drive hardware sales, form industry standards, or attract third party developers

Question 8

Who were the winners and losers in Mobile MArket OS market share from 05 to ‘11

Answer 8

Nokia’s Symbian was the big loser, Android the big winner, iOS was a second place winner

Question 9

Who founded Linux where and when

Answer 9

Linus Torvalds, founded Lnux in ‘91 in Finland

Question 10

Who are some of the main funders of Linux and why?

Answer 10

IBM GOOG OEMs fund to bring down MSFT

Question 11

Who are some of the firms that prfit off of linux

Answer 11

Red hat (makes Mods to Linux and provides support) Oracle (provides consulting and support)

Question 12

What is Copyleft

Answer 12

a play of the word copyright and is the general method for making a program free and requiring all modified and extended versions to be free as well

Question 13

What are some of the challenges OSS makes to software firms

Answer 13

how can we compete with free, should we go Open souce, how can we innovate with free

Question 14

What are some of the drawbacks of OSS

Answer 14

some products are complex, some have higher TCOs that paid products, legal and licensing concerns, concern about the avaliability of crisis mgmt and support, concern about the stability of the development team

Question 15

Why did GOOG buy motorola?

Answer 15

they wanted to get all of their patents so that they could better defend themselves from AAPL and MSFT. The smartphone maker was a bonus

Question 16

What does the Encyclopedia example prove

Answer 16

The internet & especially Open source is making software/information cheaper and more democratic

Question 17

What is distributed computing

Answer 17

a form of compiuting where systems in differnt locations collaborate and communicate to complete a task

Question 18

What are the two different ways the word server can be taken

Answer 18

the piece of hardware that is configured to respond to the requests of other computers
the software program that fulfills the requests of othter computers

Question 19

What is the client server systema nd how does it work

Answer 19

Client server system iks the two pieces of software that make a request (client) of anotehr computer (server) and the server comes up with a repky & sends it back. If too many clients start requesting at once a server can be overloaded. One server can serve more than one client

Question 20

What are Web servers, Application Server, and Database servers and how to the interact

Answer 20

Web server listens to client requests and decided which app server to activate, the app server houses the underlying application and may request information from the data base server to display products or other info stored in the database

Question 21

What is the P2P system and how does it differ from the client server system

Answer 21

Peer-to Peer is a distributed application structure that divedes tasks among peers, all participants are aequal (unlike Client-server) making this system more robust. B/c all parties are equal they all contribute computing resources like bandwidth, storage and computing power (again, unlike client-server)

Question 22

What is an example of Peer to Peer system

Answer 22

Napster which enabled users to share MP3 files on each others harddrives adn was eventually shut down by lawsuits

Question 23

What is Cloud computing

Answer 23

a means of replacing computing resources with resources provided over the internet (can be hardware or software)

Question 24

What is SaaS and ASP

Answer 24

Software as a service is software that is made availiable by a third party (an ASP/ Application SErvice provider) over the internet

Question 25

What makes could computing feasible?

Answer 25

Virtualization/ the ability to make one computer do the work of many by dividing its resources and creating virtual mini computers

Question 26

What is unique about virtualization on applications

Answer 26

the applications arr bundled with their own OS and everything they need to be ready to GO!!!

Question 27

What is the SaaS business Model

Answer 27

Most provide a usage based pricng model like a subscription, some make $ off ads, some use fremium model

Question 28

Who are 2 famous example of the Freemium Model

Answer 28

Dropbox, and EA’s Fifa Online game (also helped eliminate pirating)

Question 29

What are the benefits of SaaS

Answer 29

Lower costs, Lower risk, Fast deployment, variable cost instead of sunk cost, higher quality (per Service Level Agreements {SLA}), remote access

Question 30

Risks of SaaS

Answer 30

Dependence on SIngle Vendor (if they go under, you screwed), might not have all of the features of the deskttop version, reliant on Internet connection, data stored offsite creates legal issues

Question 31

What are the 3 different variations of the cloud and abbreviations

Answer 31

IaaS/Infastructure as a Service/ renting hardware, you supply software and OS
PaaS/Platform as a Service/ a development paltform that you use to create software that will be run on someone elses machine
SaaS-you know

Question 32

What is cloud bursting

Answer 32

whena private network gets overloaded during peak times, an outside cloud kicks in to pick up the slack