Week Fourteen: Clear

This week is the last week in ISM3004, and I'm not sure if it's because of the project or because of finals coming up, but this week was a little bit harder to retain. But I did understand the information, and found it to be useful since it can not only help to save money, but to save space and your data! 

From RAID storage systems, to virtualization, to thin client computing, each has its own price range and its different abilities to help save and store data. I thought the idea of RAID storage systems were quite interesting since its purpose is to contain multiple drives into one. There are multiple RAID systems, two work differently from each other, RAID 1 and RAID 0, while RAID 5 and 6 help to combine the two, but each work at different speeds with other slight differences. I also found this article that helps to explain RAID as well:http://compreviews.about.com/od/storage/l/aaRAIDPage1.htm.

This week we also discussed virtualization and thin client computing. Virtualization seems nifty because it allows the user to run multiple virtual computers within one actual computer. Such as being able to run both Windows and Linux while running the Mac OS, all at the same time on a Mac. This not only saves space, but it also greatly increases productivity. Just as Professor Olson states in the lecture, the T.A.C assistants greatly benefit from using this because they have the ability to help users who have any of the platforms instead of being restricted to only Windows, only Linux, or only Mac OS. Thin client computing (as pictured above) is also a great space saver as well as information saver because it allows all the data to be sent to a central system instead of having a hard drive within the computer itself.