Ready or not, cloud computing is here

There’s a new front in the world’s endless struggle for survival: environment security. With drastic changes in weather patterns triggered by global warming, man faces the twin threats of dwindling food supply and natural disasters. To win this fight nations must band together for comprehensive action.

At least two dozen typhoons batter the Philippines per year, and these have become more furious of late. Storm Ondoy’s direct hit on the capital in Sept. 2009 exposed how ill-prepared the government is to cope with calamity. When a month’s usual rainfall poured down in only six hours, agencies were cut off like everyone else. Floods, garbage, and power and communication outage paralyzed rescue and relief. Has government learned enough from Ondoy to reorient itself, pass new laws, and train frontliners? Has it remapped the land to identify not only disaster-prone areas but also water and food storages? Has it begun to educate and drill citizens on standard procedures and synchronized actions?

The answer: obviously not. Officials seem to have a fatalistic attitude towards catastrophes, and so do not deem policy and preparedness vital. RP will perish with this attitude.

Awareness of environment security must start at the top of all branches of government. The Judicial-Executive-Legislative Advisory Council can expand its role from rule of law to national security. Thence environment security can spread to cabinet implementation, lawmaking, and jurisprudence. A wide range of concerns needs looking after, from air and water quality, to preservation of forest and marine biodiversity, to even earthworm infestation of the Banaue rice terraces.

The Armed Forces, being already geared for strategic security and tactical operations, must be retooled for environment security. And the process must start at the top as well — with the defense department and the general staff. Training can be done at the National Defense College, the Command and General Staff College, and the Philippine Military Academy. The thinking can be inculcated in all military units, even the ROTC once it is revived.

* * *

Ever heard of “cloud computing”? If not, better read up. This latest wave in the PC revolution is sweeping the worldwide web. It is changing the way we do homework, messages, business and most other things.

With cloud computing we are all being connected — to the Internet and to each other — via low-power gadgets but ultra-fast connection. We are now able to use programs, play games, and save data no longer in our computers but in the “cloud” network of software. Even mobile phones enable us to view family photos, travel maps, or emergency directories without having to buy the software that run and store them. The cloud does it for us, either free in exchange for ad views or at minimal subscription fee. Try, for instance, Google Docs (docs.google.com) or Kodak Gallery (www.kodakgallery.com).

And it’s just the beginning. Experts see the day when we will all be carrying pocket or tablet (I-Pad) computers-cum-phones with no exclusive operating systems. We’ll turn these on and use open-source OS from the cloud server, then “borrow” software in order to write e-mail, edit videos, set appointments, exercise Pilates sequences, prepare spreadsheets, almost everything. Computing will be so much simpler.

Remember when mainframes took up entire buildings to process and bank data? These gave way to office and home desktops with the rollout of the microprocessor and the programming by a geek and his high school chum. Before long companies began to network employees onto common programs, files and printers via central servers; homes got wired as well via Internet service providers. But it was still cumbrous. With no standardized hardware and software, PC networks proved as inefficient as the old giants. Servers became single-purpose machines that required constant upgrading, and users had to go to the store to buy needed software. The industry grew 50-fold in a decade, but wastefully. For every dollar spent on software today, another eight dollars are being squandered to make it work or adopt new uses. But people soon wised up to the idea that all they need is a basic handheld battery-powered device. Thousands of miles of fiber-optic cables laid in the 1990s guarantee fast, reliable connection of the device with others, through the cloud. The network of cables can beam software from the cloud to make the devices do hundreds of things.

There’s a hitch in RP, though. Telcos are not up to speed with world trends, but eons behind customer expectations. Connection is spotty. One telco’s decrepit landlines bog down with the rains; its own subcontractors steal another’s. A wireless provider recently launched a WiMAX, but can’t make it run near bodies of water, which are everywhere in this riverine archipelago. Its main competitor lacks antennas and towers to put up a good fight. And a cable company keeps promising to come out soon with 6-Mbps home links, but can’t seem to do so. Oh well....

* * *

 “A dignified exterior can sometimes be indicative of a calcified interior.” Shafts of Light, Fr. Guido Arguelles, SJ

* * *

E-mail: [email protected]