Cloud Computing

It can be defined as “Computing in which access is gained through internet to data and files, or software applications which are stored on remote machines owned by somebody else”. In general terms Cloud Computing can be for anything that involves delivering hosted services over the Internet.

Cloud computing has distinct characteristics that differentiates it from hosting is that, the service is on demand; a user can have as much or as little of a service at any given time; and the service is fully managed by the provider. A good example of Cloud computing is you online email service of Yahoo!, Gmail, or Hotmail; where the vendor houses all the hardware and the software necessary to support the email service. The only thing required is an internet connection thorough which you log-in using a web browser. You can access it from anywhere as it is not physically installed on your computer.

Cloud computing is catching on very fast and it is not just a fad any more-simple reason being that the traditional computing  is very expensive and requires a variety of hardware and software to be purchased and a whole team of professionals to keep it running at client level. With cloud computing client side management of hardware and software is eliminated and it becomes the responsibility of the vendor-which means the clients only pays for what it has used, upgrades are automatic, and applications can be scaled up or down easily. With Cloud computing you just need open a browser, log-in and start using the application or update your data or files.

Cloud computing can be very beneficial for small or mid-sized businesses, as they don’t need to purchase lot of hardware and software to run their business applications and storing of data. Business can store their information in the cloud and pay only for the space utilized.

Benefits of Cloud Computing includes:

• Cost Savings — Cloud computing can bring hardware costs down, where businesses won’t need to buy the fastest computer with the most memory, or a large hard drive. Instead, an inexpensive computer terminal including a monitor, input devices like a keyboard and mouse and just enough processing power to connect to the cloud system would be sufficient. Cloud service providers do the system maintenance thus further reducing maintenance requirements.
• Scalability/Flexibility — Businesses will be able to start with a small operation and grow to a large operation, and then scale back if necessary. The flexibility of cloud computing allows businesses to use extra resources at peak times, enabling them to satisfy consumer demands. Cloud computing gives its subscriber’s wide access to computer applications. The will not have to buy a set of software or software licenses for every employee. Instead, the company could pay a metered fee to a cloud computing company.
• Reliability/Mobility — Cloud service providers use multiple redundant sites which can support business continuity and disaster recovery. As systems are accessible from anywhere, workers have increased productivity.

Conclusion:

Cloud computing provides many options for the everyday computer user as well as large and small businesses. It has opened up the world of computing to a broader range of uses of resources by giving access through any internet connection.

Cloud computing is a model for enabling everywhere, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services). Clients would be able to access their applications and data from anywhere at any time. They could access the cloud computing system using any computer linked to the Internet. Data wouldn't be confined to a hard drive on one user's computer or even on a corporation's internal network.

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