What is cloud computing?

Everyone is talking about “the cloud.” But what does it mean?

Business applications are moving to the cloud. It’s not just a fad—the shift from traditional software models to the Internet has steadily gained momentum over the last 10 years. Looking ahead, the next decade of cloud computing promises new ways to collaborate everywhere, through mobile devices.
Life before cloud computing

Traditional business applications have always been very complicated and expensive. The amount and variety of hardware and software required to run them are daunting. You need a whole team of experts to install, configure, test, run, secure, and update them.

When you multiply this effort across dozens or hundreds of apps, it’s easy to see why the biggest companies with the best IT departments aren’t getting the apps they need. Small and mid-sized businesses don’t stand a chance.
Cloud computing: a better way

With cloud computing, you eliminate those headaches because you’re not managing hardware and software—that’s the responsibility of an experienced vendor like salesforce.com. The shared infrastructure means it works like a utility: You only pay for what you need, upgrades are automatic, and scaling up or down is easy.

Cloud-based apps can be up and running in days or weeks, and they cost less. With a cloud app, you just open a browser, log in, customize the app, and start using it.

Businesses are running all kinds of apps in the cloud, like customer relationship management (CRM), HR, accounting, and much more. Some of the world’s largest companies moved their applications to the cloud with salesforce.com after rigorously testing the security and reliability of our infrastructure.

As cloud computing grows in popularity, thousands of companies are simply rebranding their non-cloud products and services as “cloud computing.” Always dig deeper when evaluating cloud offerings and keep in mind that if you have to buy and manage hardware and software, what you’re looking at isn’t really cloud computing but a false cloud.

About more Cloud Computing

1. What is Cloud Computing:

The term 'Cloud Computing' was born in the middle of 2007. The word 'Cloud' is a metaphor to describe the Internet. So it can be explained simply as computing (applications, storage, services etc.) residing on the Internet which the users connect to.

For example, if you are using web applications from big firms such as Google or Microsoft, it means that you are using Cloud Computing. The web applications such as Gmail, Google Calendar, Hotmail, Salesforce, Dropbox and Google Docs are all Cloud Computing services because when connecting to those services, the users will access to massive integrated server groups on the Internet.

2. Why using Cloud Computing:

Generally, large corporations install certain applications on servers to provide lower costs (shared storage, management, architecture etc.) and distributed connectivity (e.g. global access). With Cloud Computing, resources are shared, so a single email server may serve 500 companies instead of 500 companies needing to buy their own internal email server for example. Therefore, it reduces the cost arising from individual companies hosting their own services locally. As saying above, the word 'Cloud' refers to the Internet.

Currently, many companies have posted their applications to the Internet and have integrated features through a web browser allowing connectivity from different computing platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux etc.)

3. What does Cloud Computing have to do for your business:

Easier: If usually run their applications on their own servers that are placed in their offices, it requires local effort for maintenance, the cost and the time to keep things running continuously and upgrading. If they use it, they will still use the same applications but the applications will be implemented on an Internet facing server. In many cases, the maintenance, upgrading and running of the server is handles by a data center or application provider. Further, they can also let their users or associates use the applications without having to install anything to their computers.

More efficient: Have you ever thought that your company will use Office 360 or Google Docs instead of Microsoft Office or Open Office? From cloud services, the company doesn't have to spend large amounts of money on licensing fees, maintenance, updating etc. It's all carried out without them needing to be too concerned.

The drawback of office application based cloud computing is that it is completely dependent on a reliable internet service. Also a slow internet connection can make the experience unpleasant if there are long delays between doing different function.

Much cheaper: There are no capital expenditures upfront (no need to buy servers etc.) and most services grow as your needs grow so you only pay for what you need. The cost is also easier to bear for the small companies.

Flexible: A global solution designed to suit your needs. It is quickly adaptable if your needs change. You might add or remove users and set up regular or spike access time.

Secure: More sophisticated security system but interdependent with the company operating the servers and may not be suitable for confidential data.

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