The meeting, that will take place on 25 January, at FAO Head Quarters in Rome, will focus on yet another very interesting topic in the world of information technology: Cloud Computing.

Participants will learn together what it is, see examples of its use in the world today, and finally discuss how/where it can be applied within FAO’s information systems.

 

AGENDA

1.    Introduction and ISAF background.

2.    Presentations:

•  Cloud Computing, description and world applications today (Amazon Cloud, Google APPS,…).
• D4Science and gCube, general framework and architecture (license, technology, hardware,…).
  
  Presentations by Nicholas Waltham (OEKM), Pasquale Pagano (Researcher at CNR), Anton Ellenbroek (FIPS), Marc taconet (FIPS).

3.    Concrete examples related to typical FAO information management issues: documents/records/content management, GIS, collaborative web-based IS integration, etc.

 4.    Group discussion:

• Potential for collaborative development of applications (SDMX example).
• Skills and investments required to contribute to gCube development. 

5.    Open floor discussion.

 

BACKGROUND:

The Information Systems Architecture Forum (ISAF) is a forum, open to all, for the informal discussion of knowledge information systems; experiences, knowledge, plans, activities and achievements. ISAF is not the mechanism for IT policy, approval or endorsement.

 

“Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.” In other words, it’s a PC-virtual-sharing.

Ups: it is possible to improve performance and lower the cost of operations by leveraging cloud computing. Downs: no international standards for data portability, cloud interoperability, and security.