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The Web as the Ubiquitous Computer Vishnu S. Pendyala, Synopsys Simon S.Y. Shim, San Jose State University

With the convergence of mobile smart devices, cloud computing, and software as a service, the Web is enabling anywhere, anytime computing.

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ince the advent of the World Wide Web two decades ago, software applications and application architectures have undergone a paradigm shift— from supporting simple information access and networking needs to hosting complex business environments. Now, with the convergence of mobile smart devices, evolving business models of cloud computing, and software as a service (SaaS), the Web is becoming the Ubiquitous Computer capable of realizing one of the grand visions of technologists: anywhere, anytime computing.

THE CONCEPT The Web hosts increasingly powerful computing resources at affordable prices. These resources are not limited to power-hungry hardware but also include diverse software applications that in some cases would overwhelm the connecting client device if they were hosted on the client itself. As Figure 1 shows, such applications range from simple word processors to all-encompassing enterprise resource planning (ERP) suites. Mobility is a crucial aspect of ubiquitousness. As more applica-

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tions outgrow the local machine and migrate to the Web, all the user needs to harness this power is a connecting device such as a notebook PC, smart phone, or plug-and-play (PnP) device. Given the limited battery life of mobile technologies, all computing must be done on the Web. This demand simplifies maintenance of the applications and makes them cheaper. The new avatar of the Web as a classical Von Neumann machine at a high level is therefore helping to bridge the gap between entrepreneurial and technical skills on the one hand and resource availability on the other. Users only have to lease the hardware and software resources available on this Ubiquitous Computer as required at granular prices based on actual usage. In line with this trend, Google recently unveiled Google Apps, a suite of applications licensed at $50 per person annually (www.google. com/apps/intl/en/business/index. html). This strategy has the potential to attract users of desktop products that run on conventional PCs such as spreadsheets and word-processing software. Published by the IEEE Computer Society

LEADING FACTORS Sof t ware on demand, which underlies the SaaS concept, has been around since the time of application service providers. What makes the concept scalable and efficient is the service-oriented architecture (SOA). Composite applications can easily be built and deployed using the SOAP protocol, which enables remote, distributed Web service components to interact with one another over the Internet. SOA is not a requirement of SaaS, but when SaaS runs on top of SOA, discovery and interactions between different applications on the Web are much more efficient. A single instance of an application can serve several users connecting to the server hosting the application. This is a significant enabling factor for the Web as the Ubiquitous Computer. Network infrastructure plays a big role in bringing the advantages of SaaS to individual users as well as to businesses. The “cloud” that hosts SaaS applications, often used as a metaphor for the Internet, has been growing incessantly. With broadband access now a household utility, bandwidth is no longer a constraint 0018-9162/09/$26.00 © 2009 IEEE

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to many users. The application servers and connecting devices can exchange huge amounts of data freely, providing seamless interactions. The user feels like working on the local system even when using the Web as the Ubiquitous Computer, thanks to the abundant network bandwidth. Any technical solution must align with a business model to be successful. SaaS is successful because it models software like a utility. Just as we use and pay for electricity and water only when we need them, without having to provision and maintain expensive reservoirs, capacitors, or transformers ourselves, we “turn on” software and pay for only as much as we use without having to buy and maintain expensive resources to run the applications. From a user’s point of view, this model offers convenience, reasonable cost, accessibilit y, and freedom from maintenance. From an application providers’ perspective, it offers better licensing control, easy updates, and higher customer satisfaction. Big industry players have made major investments in SaaS technology. For example, Microsoft and Google offer applications similar to MS Office online. Google set up an exclusive website (http://code.google. com) offering tools, tips, and tutorials for Web application developers. SAP provides SOA-enabled ERP systems that allow calling ERP from within other applications. Amazon provides cloud-computing resources over the Web. Substantial research will likely continue in this area, giving users more benefits and further enabling the Web as the Ubiquitous Computer. Another major trend is hardware miniaturization. With more user applications and data readily available over the Web, a wide variety of Web access devices and notebook PCs are trading off computing power for size and portability.

E-mail Spreadsheets Word processing

Search Calendar

Calendar Hard drive

Spreadsheets

Conferencing ERP On-demand licensing CRM E-mail Word processing Search Processors

E-mail Calendar

Figure 1. Applications are moving from the local machine to the Ubiquitous Computer.

ADVANTAGES Cost savings is probably the best impetus for the Web as the Ubiquitous Computer. Users do not have to hire technical experts to install or maintain hardware and software environments; any simple device capable of connecting and communicating with the server is sufficient. In addition, sharing results in synergy. The large pool of users results in significant economies of scale, and resource utilization improves substantially, as individuals need not budget for maximum utilization when typical usage is only a fraction of the peak utilization. Moreover, the infrastructure can be hosted in locations offering cost benefits. A nother major adva nt age is independence from hardware and operating system profiles. Users no longer have to worry about upgrading their resources to catch up with later versions of the application. Upkeep of the hosting environment is the provider’s responsibility, which is likely to result in more reliability. Users can collaborate better and also access the applications from any location, a great boon in today’s era of globalization. The Ubiquitous Computer can reach places where wires and expensive infrastructure cannot.

Corporate servers are usually better protected from virus attacks than individual users’ machines. Applications running on servers comprising the Web as the Ubiquitous Computer are therefore better protected. Applications for individual users automatically get all the security that businesses provide to their applications and infrastructure.

CHALLENGES When personal data is available on the Web, privacy can be an issue. As users shift from rich computing devices to simple access devices, they surrender some control of data to service providers. What’s to prevent SPs from using data mining software to peek into our daily lives? How can we ensure that only users have access to their personal data? One alternative is to auto-encrypt all data on the Web and control the passwords to decrypt them. However, data-encryption and related protocols often impose a heavy load on Web servers and require long processing times. Security can also be a bottleneck. The same broadband networks that make the Web the Ubiquitous Computer are susceptible to malware. What if a distributed denial-of-service attack cripples website access? SEPTEMBER 2009

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Regulations, priorities, and perceptions differ from country to country, further complicating security. Another issue is how to manage the migration from conventional PCcentric environments to the Web. Beyond the technical challenges this paradigm shift imposes is the need for society to overcome a psychological hurdle. Some companies are already addressing this issue. Google, for example, provides migration and synchronization tools to facilitate the switch to their online offerings from desktop products. There is also a need for open standards in every way the Web is used as the Ubiquitous Computer. Users will become increasingly dependent on the Web and its providers. As such, they could feel trapped and helpless when providers change their terms of service or operational methods after some time—for example, by imposing new restrictions on usage or disabling a functionality for several months to improve it. Providers might also choose to remove a functionality that it offered free for years but retain and even enhance its priced counterpart. In such cases, the providers at a minimum should mitigate users’ plight by directing them to new providers. The worst fear is that a provider will go belly-up after the user community makes significant investments of time and effort in the infrastructure. The computer industry has been ambitiously building a network of SaaS relationships. This ecosystem’s success will hinge not only on providing varied and efficient applications but also on addressing privacy, security, and trust concerns.

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here is plenty of ongoing development in the mobile and SaaS areas. The native versus Web applications debate is steadily shifting toward the latter. Wireless broadband speeds are increasing, and access is spreading. The infrastructure is becoming more

amenable to supporting mobile Web applications. Users will see less difference between applications that run on local machines and those that run remotely in the cloud. Once this difference is completely erased, it is going to be the Web that will host the applications all the way. Quite a few frameworks, such as ASP.NET, provide a client component to help build applications on the Web that can be accessed using a mobile device. In addition, the World Wide Web Consortium has launched the Mobile Web Initiative (www.w3.org/ Mobile) to enhance interoperability and usability of the Web from mobile devices. The Web is clearly the way to go for mobile technology. The area of ubiquitous computing has also been booming lately. The marriage of ubiquitous computing and SaaS in the Web will result in myriad new conceptual uses of the Web as the Ubiquitous Computer. An estimated 1.4 billion phones worldwide can connect to the Web, and this number will only increase. Moreover, many of the four billion mobile phone subscribers in developing countries cannot afford more powerful computing devices such as PCs, but need their phones to communicate. This implies that computing must be made accessible from devices ideally limited to just the display, a keyboard, and a little processing power, running thin clients. The Web as the Ubiquitous Computer has the potential to make substantial computation accessible to these users when they use phones as connecting devices. Vishnu S. Pendyala is a senior engineer with Synopsys, an electronic design automation company based in Mountain View, Calif. Contact him at [email protected]. Simon S.Y. Shim is a professor in the Computer Engineering Department at San Jose State University. Contact him at [email protected].

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