Group (computing)

In computing, the term group generally refers to a grouping of users. In principle, users may belong to none, one, or many groups (although in practice some systems place limits on this.) The primary purpose of user groups is to simplify access control to computer systems.

Suppose a computer science department has a network which is shared by students and academics. The department has made a list of directories which the students are permitted to access and another list of directories which the staff are permitted to access. Without groups, administrators would give each student permission to every student directory, and each staff member permission to every staff directory. In practice, that would be very unworkable – every time a student or staff member arrived, administrators would have to allocate permissions on every directory.

With groups, the task is much simpler: create a student group and a staff group, placing each user in the proper group. The entire group can be granted access to the appropriate directory. To add or remove an account, one must only need to do it in one place (in the definition of the group), rather than on every directory. This workflow provides clear separation of concerns: to change access policies, alter the directory permissions; to change the individuals which fall under the policy, alter the group definitions.

Group

Group may refer to:

Groups of people

In science and technology

In mathematics

In chemistry

In computing and the internet

Other uses in science and technology

Other uses

Millennium Group

The Millennium Group is a fictional secret society featured in the crime thriller television series Millennium. Having begun life as a Christian sect at the end of the 1st century AD, the Group grew into a far-reaching network which, as the 3rd millennium approached, presented itself as a private investigative firm liaising with law enforcement organizations. Despite being fraught with internal schisms, the Group tried on several occasions to artificially instigate the end of the world as the year 2000 approached.

The Millennium Group's role as an investigative organization was based on the real-life Academy Group, a society of retired law enforcement agents in the United States. The presentation of the Group varied as the series progressed, with its role changing from that of a benevolent investigative group to an antagonistic mystic sect. The Millennium Group has met with negative responses, with its vacillating depiction being a focus of criticism both from critics and from series star Lance Henriksen.

Cloud computing

Cloud computing, also known as 'on-demand computing', is a kind of Internet-based computing, where shared resources, data and information are provided to computers and other devices on-demand. It is a model for enabling ubiquitous, on-demand access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources. Cloud computing and storage solutions provide users and enterprises with various capabilities to store and process their data in third-party data centers. It relies on sharing of resources to achieve coherence and economies of scale, similar to a utility (like the electricity grid) over a network. At the foundation of cloud computing is the broader concept of converged infrastructure and shared services.

Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort.

Millennium (disambiguation)

A millennium is a period of 1,000 years.

Millennium may also refer to:

Religion

Transportation

Software

Books

Comics