Case Wo Sending Computers into the Cloud Since the modern electronic computer was invented in the the trend has been toward reducing the size of th computer while increasing its capability. The logical end of remove the physical computer a ogether, this trend is hile that isn't likely to happen in business, companies hav found ways to make their central computers disappear Central computers still exist, of course, but if you look round business offices, follow the cables from a desktop wireless router through walls and down halls, you may not ind a central computer. What you'll find instead in more and organizations are signals going "into the cloud." That more saying refers to cloud computing which provides computin Internet that are services and database access over accessible from anywhere in the world rather than from a specific computer in a specific location. Deutsche Bank (DB), the German financial services firm made a decision to send its computers into the cloud. As Alistair McLaurin of its Global Technology Engineering grou put it, the bank "wanted to create something radically different, to "challenge assumptions around what centrall provided IT services could be and how much they must cost. DB created a system in which computing is done by virtual machines WMs): software managed slices" of real computers that behave in every respect like a full computer but that hare the hardware of one real computer with many other VMs. A virtual machine is an extension of the familiar concept of running more than one program at a time. In a VM, you run more than one operating system at a time, with each completely isolated from the others. The result is substantial savings in hardware cost and everything that go with it, such as space and electricity. By putting the computers that host their virtual machines in the cloud, DB freed themselves from the constraints of being at a particular physical location. DB can thus optimize the use of these virtual computers across the entire company Another advantage of the virtual approach is that someone who needs a new computer doesn't have to purchase one. Instead, they can use a virtual computer inside a real computer that the company already has: such a VM is easier to set up than a new system. In fact, a user who is a permanent employee, who wants a new Virtual Machine for their own use only, can do it by visiting one Web site, lecting an operating system IWindows, Solaris, or Linux and clicking three buttons. The new vM will be ready and available for them within an hour The open Data Center Alliance recently chose DB as the grand prize winner of its Conquering the Cloud Challenge The specific basis for the award was the way DBs doud