Computer and Technology

There is a lot of talk in the media about cloud computing. If you don’t know what it is, you should! In fact, you are most likely already using some cloud-based applications.

Ever hear of gmail? Webex? Microsoft Windows Live? YouTube? eBay? Sure you have. Those are some sites that get the idea across. Cloud Computing is using resources that exist on someone else’s computing platform to run your applications. That means that you can worry less (if you trust the host) about how much processing power, memory and storage that you have.

What’s the benefit to Cloud Computing?

There are several upsides to using applications that exist in the cloud, including:

Anywhere Access Access your applications from anyplace that has an internet connection with your own equipment, or through shared access computers like those in an office or library.

Pay for What You Use Cloud based services are provided either free (paid through some advertising) or on a pay as you use type of model. This is great because you can easily scale up or down based on your needs. Got a new initiative that you need to roll out? Great – ramp up quickly using someone else’s platform. Do you have an area that you want to close or change? Not so great, but at least you don’t have the sunk cost of custom hardware/software platforms to worry about.

Shared Innovation / Shared Support Software developers are heavily incented to continually improve their products. This is because the product improvements can be taken advantage by many users at the same time since they are part of a shared platform. Since the applications are live, if there are improvements or fixes that are implemented then you get access to them as soon as they are enabled.

How should I prepare for Cloud Computing?

Since your data and software is being hosted elsewhere, your connection to the Internet becomes more important. You don’t want to push your applications to the cloud only to have your processing slowed by slow Internet!