Every time you do a Google search, you use a form of cloud computing, since you are using the Internet to access storage and computers located in massive warehouse-sized data centres. More generally, cloud computing allows an organisation to outsource the management and location of its IT equipment to such facilities. Because they use commodity PCs and disks, shared power and cooling, and 100% automation of operations., overall costs are a factor-of-five less.

The Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering has formed a Working Group on “Cloud computing at peta-scale” to construct a roadmap for Australia to guide effective use of this emerging disruptive technology in business, government, and science. Its membership of fifteen is drawn from Fellows and others in universities, CSIRO, and NICTA, with strong engagement from Google, IBM, and Microsoft Research in the U.S.

This seminar will characterize cloud computing, raise some geo-political issues in the use of clouds located abroad, and provide a status report on some of the projects in the Working Group.