CMT3313 - Week 18 Post - Cloud Computing

Introduction

Representing the Internet as a cloud in networking diagrams has been done for years now, but lately the term "The Cloud" has become a buzz word.

But what is "The Cloud" exactly? Is it the same thing as the cloud image we are used to making use of in diagrams?

What is it?

Well it got its name thanks to the diagram yes, but its not exactly the same thing. "The Cloud" actually refers to any computer processing or storage provided over the Internet.

A good example of cloud computing is Google Drive (previously known as Google Docs) where you can store your data in "the cloud" (actually you would be storing it in Google's server farm) and work on or create new word, spreadsheet, presentation or form documents online.

Google Drive provides both SaaS (Software as a Service) and Storage Services and meshes them together. With this technology you can easily synchronize multiple computers to the same data.

Advantages

Cloud computing has grown impressively in the last few years and this all boils down to the attractive advantages it provides to its customers, some of which are:

• Reduced Costs - Customers don't have to worry about buying and maintaining expensive hardware
• Increased Storage - Companies can afford to store more data on the cloud than on their own computers as the service providers will take care of providing enough storage for their clients (this effects the subscription fee, but this would still be more cost effective than buying your own storage devices)
• Highly Automated - Applications hosted on the cloud are updated by the service provider (Example: Google Drive never asks you to install the latest update, it's just always up-to-date with the latest version)
• Mobility - You can access your data from anywhere you like as long as you have an internet connection.
• More efficient use of the IT department - Because the IT guys don't have to worry about keeping the software up-to-date, licensing or maintaining the hardware, they can focus more on innovation and more business required tasks.

Disadvantages

• Down Time - If the service provider suffers from down time, so do you and yes even the biggest players in the cloud computing industry occasionally have their bad days:Cloud Computing Service Outages in 2011. Apart from this, cloud computing also depends heavily on your internet connection, therefore if your connection is down you might as well go home.
• Security - If you choose a serious service provider, this would probably be more of an advantage that a disadvantage as these companies are guaranteed to have the latest state of the art security software and hardware installed. Software and hardware which you most probably don't afford, if you are a small business and not feasible to maintain. But at the same time there is still that sick feeling that your company's data is out there on the internet and most probably the best hackers are trying to hack into it while you sleep!

Conclusion

To conclude this post, after doing this research on cloud computing, my opinion on  the subject is that yes, cloud computing is a good thing and it has its attractive advantages, but don't jump on the wagon just because everybody is doing it. Evaluate the disadvantages, see if you can live with having your data on the internet and then take the responsible decision whether or not shift to cloud computing.