The Applied Research of Cloud Computing Platform Architecture
In the E-Learning Area
Zhang Guoli
School of Electronic Information Engineering
Liaoning Technical University
Hu Ludao, Liaoning
e-mail: zgl_lesli@126.com
Abstract—This paper firstly introduces the characteristics of
the current E-Learning, and then analyzes the concept and
characteristics of cloud computing, and describes the
architecture of cloud computing platform; by combining the
characteristics of E-Learning and learning from current major
infrastructure approach of cloud computing platform, this
paper structures a relatively complete set of integration and
use in one of the E-Learning platform, puts the cloud
computing platform apply to the study of E-Learning, and
focus on the application in order to improve the resources'
stability, balance and utilization; under the conditions, this
platform will meet the demand for the current teaching and
research activities, improve the greatest value of the E-
Learning.
Keywords-E-Learning; Cloud computing; Architecture;
Teaching Resources Integration
I. INTRODUCTION
E-Learning as an important mode of learning today, plays
an important role in creating a good learning environment of
personalization and being well adapted to the current
education model no matter when and where can, it also
supplies with a convenient communication environment and
rich resources for learners. However, the current E-Learning
infrastructure is not yet complete[1], does not adequately
provide for the E-Learning system dynamic allocation of the
necessary computing and storage capacity; and the majority
of E-Learning system being used was not well interacted,
shared data with the others; and as knowledge has not been
processed by systematic arrangement ,digestion and
absorption, it leads to duplication of teaching resources,
construction and low utilization, so that the information
resources in distance education become isolated island on the
network. In this context, a new type of service computing
model----cloud computing platform for E-Learning provides
the required information technology, so good compatibility
for information technology; and the cloud computing
platform also provides the necessary foundation for
integration of platform and technology environment for a
variety of scattered of teaching resources, under the existing
conditions as much as possible to meet the demand of the
teaching, research activities for resources. Moreover, cloud
computing for the E-Learning provides new ideas and
solutions to achieve interoperability between functional
modules of the resources and systems, highlighting
978-1-4244-5586-7/10/$26.00 C 2010 IEEE
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Liu Wanjun
School of Software
Liaoning Technical University
Hu Ludao, Liaoning
e-mail: zgl_lesli@126.com
cooperation, resource sharing and long learning services and
other functions.
II. CHARACTERISTICS OF E-LEARNING
E-Learning or Electronic Learning, is translated as
"digital (based) Learning", "electronics (based) Learning",
"network (based) learning", etc. The variety of perspectives
of different translations: First, it emphasizes an Internet-
based learning; second, to emphasize electronic; third, to
emphasize on E-Learning in joining digital content and
network resources together, emphasize using technology to
transform and guide the education. Some experts and
scholars on the E-Learning gives a more comprehensive
explanation: "E-Learning uses the Internet or other digital
content for learning and teaching activities, which takes full
advantage of modern educational technology provided with a
new mechanism of communication and resource-rich
learning environment to achieve a new way of learning "[2].
Among them, the key factors of E-Learning are reusing,
sharing resources and interoperability.
Compared with traditional teaching methods, E-learning
is a good carrier of the content. Through a variety of teaching
resources effectively organizing, sequencing, processing, it
forms a web-based teaching and better than traditional
teaching and learning environment, and is able to take full
advantage of a variety of teaching resources. At the same
time, E-learning for teachers and students, between students
and students provides an interactive learning environment
and it can effectively enhance students’ critical thinking and
analytical skills, develop students self-learning ability. From
the perspective of teaching resources, E-Learning is open.
E-Learning for learners provides rich learning resources and
selects learning materials and learning opportunities. This
feature makes online education has more options than
traditional education [3].
III. CLOUD COMPUTING
A. The concept of cloud computing
In IBM’s technical white paper, “cloud computing” [4] is
defined as: “Cloud computing term is used to describe both a
system platform and a type of application. A cloud
computing platform is to be deployed dynamically on-
demand, configuration, reconfigure and deprovision, and so
on. In the cloud computing platform, the server can be
physical servers or virtual servers. A high-level calculation
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cloud usually contains a number of other computing
resources, such as storage area networks, network devices,
firewalls and other security equipment. In describing the
application of cloud computing, it describes a scalable
application through the Internet. Any user can access a cloud
computing application through appropriate equipment and a
standard browser.”
In cloud computing, the applications needed by users are
not run on users’ personal computers, mobile phones and
other terminal equipment, but on a large-scale cluster of
servers running on the Internet. The user does not deal with
the data stored locally, but stored in the Internet data center
inside. The normal operation of management and
maintenance of these data center is taken charge of
enterprises which provide cloud computing services, and
ensure strong enough computing power and storage space for
the users. At any time and any place, any user can connect to
the Internet terminals. Therefore, whether businesses or
individuals, they can achieve on-demand in the clouds with
the use.
B. The characteristics of cloud computing
The features and advantages of Cloud computing are:
x Powerful computing and storage capacity. Cloud
computing locates the computing and data in a large
number of distributed computers, the sea of clouds in
the tens of thousands of computers is to provide
powerful computing power and huge data storage
space, put the “cloud” as a service available to users
via the Internet.
x High availability. Through the integration of mass
storage and high-performance computing power,
clouds can provide a higher quality of service. Cloud
computing system can automatically detect the node
failure and exclude it, do not affect the normal
operation of the system.
x High security. In the cloud computing model, data is
storied intensively. Relying on one or more data
center, the managers manage the unified data,
allocate the resources, balance load, deploy the
software, control security, and do the reliable real-
time monitoring, thus guarantee the users’ data
security to the greatest possible degree.
x Virtualization. Virtualization is the most important
characteristics of cloud computing. Each application
deployment environment and physical platform is
not related. It is managed, expensed, migrated, and
backup through virtualization platform. It put the
underlying hardware, including servers, storage and
networking equipment, comprehensive virtualization,
in order to build a resources pool of shared,
distributed on-demand.
C. The system architecture of cloud computing platform
The architecture of Cloud computing platform can be
divided into three layers, from the bottom to top it is
followed by Based management system layer, Shared
Service Interface Layer and Access Layer[5][6]. The
architecture model is shown in Figure 1.
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Figure 1. System Architecture Model of Cloud Computing Platform
There, the Based management system layer is mainly to
solve the sharing of computing resource, it can be used as the
E-learning resource library. It includes hardware, storage,
operating system and some other IT infrastructure and
resource pool. It uses the hardware and software
virtualization technology, coordinating action between the
multi-level frameworks, to ensure stability and reliability of
infrastructure. At the same time it provides the basic network
supported environment and provides the basic realization
environment of service-oriented architecture, but also
supplies the computing and storage capacity for the higher
level. This layer ensures scalability and efficient use of
resources for the cloud computing platform, provides
computing resource, memory resource and data storage
resource for the cloud computing application.
The Shared service interface layer is mainly to solve the
manner in which the external provision of services, presents
a powerful, high scalability, high availability of distributed
applications for the users. And it is the Based management
system layer’s network expansion, involving unified
management, distributed scheduling and security controls for
large amounts of data or computing resources. This layer is a
software system of an actual run of storage, maintenance and
provision of data, it is a collection of objects of storage
medium, processing and management system, and it is the E-
learning web development/resource integration platform. In
addition to the content network storage and maintenance, this
layer also provides standard interfaces and content of the
API for the higher layer. When resources in the library have
a rich accumulation and a certain amount of knowledge
systems, there is a need for resources package to form an
independent resource platform to the upper access.
Access layer is the use of cloud computing means to
achieve some specific applications; it is the last application
platform to supply service for customer. It can divide into
different application areas according to the specific needs of
customers, such as office software service, personal space-
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based service, and e-commerce and so on. At this level,
cloud computing provides more convenient access to the
E-learning resources.
IV. APPLICATION OF ARCHITECTURE BASED ON CLOUD
COMPUTING PLATFORM ON E-LEARNING
E-Learning is not simply using the Internet to learn. It
provides the solutions containing the technology of system
standardization and management means. On cloud
computing platform, network technology, modern
communication technology, information organization
technology and the technology of information management
systems should be made full use of for the building of E-
Learning. A teaching platform can be built by way of open
architecture and modular design in which teaching resources
are shared in high degree, communication is extremely
smooth, and cross-platform operations can be executed. a
collection of a variety of media and new learning features,
teaching tools. According to the system architecture based on
cloud computing platform and the feature of E-Learning, the
application of the architecture on E-Learning is discussed
from the perspective of hierarchy architecture.
The application of the system architecture based on cloud
computing platform on E-Learning is composed of three
layers [7] [8]: Infrastructure layer of E-Learning platform,
Layer of platform integration and Application layer. The
architecture is shown as figure 2.
Figure 2. Cloud computing platform system architecture for E-Learning
Structural model
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Infrastructure layer is composed of information
infrastructure and teaching resources. Information
infrastructure contains Internet/Intranet, system software,
information management system and some common
software and hardware; teaching resources is accumulated
mainly in traditional teaching model and distributed in
different departments and domain. Infrastructure layer is the
place of management information pool that contains kinds of
electronic resource, digital library, courseware library and
equipment and facilities information database. Under cloud
computing model, the layer provides management
information for upper layer’s resource consolidation. The
scheduling, combination and utilization of the teaching
resources are implemented according to the consolidation
results of the management information.
The function of the layer of platform integration is to
integrate varieties of resources belonged to different
organizations and different platforms in infrastructure layer.
These integrated resources form the basis of teaching
activities. The dispersed, isolated and small-scale teaching
resources are managed in different way using cloud
computing model in order to implement the share of teaching
resources. The integration of teaching resources is achieved
mainly by data warehouse, data mining and information
organization technology and combined with scientific
management theory. The layer of platform integration also
provides the interface of teaching resources managers, users
and the Application layer. It is the displaying platform of
resource consolidation results.
Application layer is the specific applications of
integration the teaching resources in the cloud computing
model, including interactive courses and sharing the teaching
resources. The interactive programs are mainly for the
teachers, according to the learners and teaching needs, taken
full advantage of the underlying information resources after
finishing made, and the course content as well as the
progress may at any time adjust according to the feedback,
and can be more effectiveness than traditional teaching.
Sharing of teaching resources include teaching material
resources (such as equipment facilities), teaching
information resources (such as digital libraries, information
centers), as well as the full sharing of human resources. It
can achieve overall scheduling, allocating and utilization of
the most teaching resources; improve the teaching efficient
use of resources.
By then, users only need an Internet web browser or
mobile phone and other mobile devices to get the interactive
experience, mobility and storage services. In the cloud
computing model, E-learning service and data can be shared
within the framework to the maximum to avoid the
duplication of educational information system’s development.
V. CONCLUSIONS
The E-Learning platform in the cloud computing model
is based on the web, integrating text, graphics, video and
other multi-media resources, so it can create a good learning
environment for learners. At the same time, it uses a large
number of the current-date information technology to
manage the traditional teaching resources integrate in order
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to improve the utilization rate of resource. The advantage of improvement of the quality of teaching and learning
cloud computing platform architecture applied to E-Learning activities for changing the pattern of teaching.
is mainly reflected in: (1) the cost of education information
system construction can be reduced. The tasks of the web-
related and the data center in educational institutions will be [1]
able to complete in the case of using the cloud computing
services, and you can save costs that will be spent on the
expensive hardware devices, frequent maintenance and
[2]
upgrades. (2) The "island" phenomenon can be effectively
eliminated in the education information system. Cloud
computing architecture provides enhanced management
mechanism, automated deployment and high-level [3]
virtualization, so the learning process and learning resources
can be reused in the case of integrating the teaching [4]
resources. (3) The teaching methods are convenient and
flexible. According to their actual conditions, the two sides
can choose different times and different locations to [5]
complete the curriculum design and self-study by using a
variety of teaching resources and the editing tools on the
platform of cloud computing model, so many knowledge can [6]
be acquired. (4) Most computing tasks to be accomplished in
the clouds by using the cloud computing services, so that the
computer can be accessed to the Internet in the school, [7]
teachers and students can access the resources at any time.
Based on the above study, cloud computing platform can
[8]
be widely used in distance education and the online training
of business professionals. A lifelong learning environment
should be built possibly to facilitate the development of
information technology in education and ensure the further
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