The technology called cloud has been looming over for some time now and giants like Google and Apple are already trying for its domination. While Apple believes that for now this technology best complements one’s digital life by syncing and storing content across the different devices, Google says that Cloud technology is for everything, whether it is your data, operating systems or computing power.
It can be safely said that after Internet and email, cloud computing is going to be the single largest innovation that is going to bring a big change in the entire universe again. Many different definitions have been ascribed to cloud computing but one common theme that all the definition shares is that Cloud technology provides access to applications, resources and data through internet on demand.
Internet – In all places and Always
If it is still not a priority on your monthly expenses bill then you should start bracing for its contingence; yes, you can have access to cloud only through internet. Access to Internet is fast becoming a necessity in anyone’s digital life. The idea of being connected in all places and always is only reinforced by the fact that how mobile computing has seen a relentless growth in last some years. You would see the advantage with your own eyes when you and your employees wouldn’t be restricted to the work stations to get some data or information. It would be available wherever you are.
External Storage Vs Cloud Technology
All our information and data is primarily stored on internal hard drive or external storage devices such as external hard drives, thumb drives, rewritable/recordable discs and many more. With cloud technology taking over, it wouldn’t be a surprise if we stop seeing these devices on the shelves anymore. In Cloud storage, multiple virtual servers are used to store data and these servers are usually hosted by 3rd parties. If you or your company require your data to be hosted, you would need to lease or buy storage capacity from these vendors. There are many benefits of using cloud storage. Some of them are as follows:
- You need to pay only for the amount of storage you use
- You don’t have to invest in buying your own storage devices, especially if you are a company.
- One also gets rid of additional headache of backing up the data, as all of this is taken care by the provider company.
Elastic Resource Capacity
One thing that makes Cloud Computing different from other traditional types of distributed computing is the way the storage and computing resources are scaled up and down. Users are not bound to tap from some fixed set of resources; rather they can remove or add capacity according to need. The best part is that they only have to pay for what they have actually used. Unlike the utility pricing, where the users are required to pay as they go, elastic resource capacity allow users to pay as they shrink or grow.
Management Automation
There is one major difference between a Cloud computing platform and traditional corporate data-centers, and that is standardization. While typical data-centers host every available version of every OS and database that is known to man, creating enormous management overhead, a cloud computing platform usually standardizes on one hypervisor (Xen, VMware etc.), one kind of CPU (predominantly x86-based), a single OS and one single database, usually MySQL. There is one obvious business benefit of standardization: remarkable reduction in operating costs.
Managed Operations
For businesses, Cloud Computing, ultimately, is all about allocating human resources to those tasks that have direct impact on the business and not make these resources too much involved with managing the company’s infrastructure meant to support the business. Cloud Computing, as such, advocates that model where a company’s infrastructure is not just owned by a 3rd party, but also managed by the 3rd party. Data backups, software upgrades, and so many other kinds of tasks that are required to be done on a day to day basis becomes the responsibility of the 3rd party.
In conclusion, we can safely say that cloud computing is the future, may it be for small or large businesses, corporate centers or average users.
This guest post is contributed by Kevin Moor, who writes for a site, which is seeking ways how to speed up pc.