Stanford VLAB: Cloud Computing

Tonight Stanford’s VLAB is hosting an event regarding Cloud Computing, a new way to give burgeoning web-based companies a start. Much like the distributed computing idea, made ever popular by SETI@Home and its successor, BOINC, people want to harness the computing power we have out in the world and provide it to those who may leverage their power.

One of the primary concerns, however, with cloud computing is the safety and confidentiality, as well as the integrity, of data that has yet to be adequately explained. Whereas with BOINC, the data is essentially non-confidential, cloud computing will often be dealing with applications that depend on confidential information to be successful. It will be interesting to see the responses of the panel on this topic.