Just received my article - I'll let you folks be the judge.
If it hasn’t occurred to you yet that everything we do is becoming mobile, then let me introduce you to the world of cloud computing. If you are a newbie to this majorly potential concept, then you will be quite interested to read this article. Why? Because the concept is the IT industry’s next big thing and is a very fascinating concept which will be the star topic to your next in-depth conversation with anyone you come across. Knowing or unknowingly, we use cloud based applications on the go every single day! The potential of “working in the cloud” is so much that Hewlett Packard (HP) decided to completely sell off its hardware (wtf?) development to some other company and then completely focus on software and cloud based services. Cloud computing is that big of a deal!
What does working in a cloud and cloud computing mean?
Cloud computing is basically a way to access your data and apps from anywhere provided that you have an internet connection. You can also define it as an online storage system which you can access with your smartphone or any other mobile device. Let’s take an example an example and see what exactly cloud computing is. I own an HTC 7 Mozart, which is a windows mobile smartphone. Gmail is like the hub of my work and I am required to do constant edits, add-ons and review certain data which is generally saved on one of the Microsoft Office software with the inbuilt app on my windows phone or by using Google Docs! With the help of cloud computing, I can read my mails, respond to it, review the documents sent by my colleagues, edit it, and send it back to him/her and a lot more. ‘Cloud’ is an IT term for internet. Basically, I am working in the cloud (with the help of mobile devices) most of the time because cloud computing is how I get most of my job done. Critics say that we will be working in the cloud entirely soon enough as technology advances.
How big is cloud computing going to be?
The VP and general manager of Google, Dave Girouard said that Google is investing hell loads of capital and man power to make sure that Google can protect our data better than we can ourselves. Hewlett Packard, one of the biggest companies that sell both hardware and software is selling its hardware sector and plans on focusing its entire resources and capital on cloud computing and related software. A lot of websites and app developers are investing on cloud computing and using the term working in the cloud to generate income and traffic. Amazon, Google Apps, Hosting.com, Nimbuzz and a lot of others are some cloud computing companies that plans on making it big with the term ‘working in the cloud’.
Moving your business into the cloud – Pros & Cons
Working in the cloud is still being developed as we think about it. Sure, the entire concept is not perfected at the moment, but moving into the cloud is still more effective than most solutions available in the market. So gear up your individual, business and entrepreneur behinds for the next level of computing! But before that, let’s check out the pros and cons of working in the cloud.
Pros:
• You can access your files from anywhere on any mobile device (smartphones, netbooks, tablets, etc.) if you have access to the internet. The same files can be accessed on multiple devices and can be shared with your colleagues or anyone you want to share with.
• You have the option to store your data on multiple cloud based servers just to make sure that the files that you have stored are safe.
• Files can be accessed no matter what the computing platform or operating system that you use. Be it Windows or Linux or Apple OS X or Android or anything for that matter, you will be able to access your files from any of those platforms.
• On the business side, cloud computing is highly automated, which means that you won’t need man power looking after your servers, updating them, fixing errors, worrying about the servers crashing, etc.
• This can also help organizations reduce costs on servers drastically and they also provide increased storage at the same time. You get increased storage at much lesser cost.
• Cloud computing produces infinite scalability and flexibility. You can now choose the applications, bandwidth and the number of users allowed to use the data instead of adding on more servers, man power and power usage!
Cons:
• Security and Privacy issues are the top priority for companies to look over when it comes to working in the cloud. At the moment, it sure is an issue but companies are spending enormous amounts of money and sweat to take care of this issue, which is becoming better by the day.
• Your cloud storage account could be hacked and all of your data might be lost. This is up to you to make your account as secure as possible with the tools or options provided by the company.
• Relying on the cloud services can turn out to be a problem because they cause significant downtime and outages issues. Before signing a contract with the cloud company, make sure you know about all of their performance issues entirely!
• Certain application performance can vary based on the cloud you chose. If it is a private cloud, then you are good but if it’s a public cloud, then application performance would not be in your favor.
While there may be certain cons that would not go in favor of moving into the cloud, the pros will soon enough cause the cons to become negligible in comparison. Soon enough, more than half the businesses/entrepreneurs/individuals in the world will be working in the cloud.