Forschungspraktikum 1+2: Computational Social Science
Session 12: Cloud Computing
Agenda
- Using cloud computing for data analysis
- Exercise: Working with Google Colab
What is Cloud Computing?
“Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computing resources (such as storage and infrastructure), as services over the internet. It eliminates the need for individuals and businesses to self-manage physical resources themselves, and only pay for what they use.” (Google)
Benefits of Cloud Services
- Easily manage large datasets and computational needs
- Pay-as-you-go models reduce infrastructure costs
- Share and analyze data seamlessly with teams
- Access tools and resources from anywhere
- Integration with various software and frameworks
Google Colab
- Free, cloud-based Jupyter notebook environment
- No setup required, GPU availability, easy sharing
- Go to colab.research.google.com
- Sign in with your Google account
- To switch from Python (standard) to R, go to Edit > Notebook Settings > Runtime type > R
- To upload data, click on the files folder in the bar on the left
- However, consider data protection, privacy, and copyright issues!