“Cloud computing,” as it is called, is a new and much-needed technology that provides resources over the Internet, and they extremely accessible and informative as a service to those who use the service. With this infrastructure (or cloud), subscribers are able to access relevant business applications by using a web browser, and both their data and the related software are stored on an off-site server. The system networks groups of servers, generally at low cost, and its special connections delegate data-processing tasks from one to the other.
Why Businesses Need Cloud Computing
Today, government agencies, the military, research laboratories, and universities use supercomputers to perform complex tasks such as analyzing climate change, solving medical problems, and ensuring our national security. Cloud computing, which makes trillions of calculations per second (as compared to the 3 billion computations per second processed by a powerful desktop PC) is intended to provide similar power. This means that its users can estimate the risk in businesses ventures, store patients’ medical information, and analyze sales data by making use of the Internet, or perform other tasks that are essential to their organization’s success.
As a rule, this concept involves some combination of: platform as a service (PaaS), software as a service (SaaS), and infrastructure as a service (IaaS). For the typical business, overall computing costs remain the same, and the provider of the service absorbs the upfront costs, spreading them out over time.
How Cloud Computing Works
Accessed through the Internet, the off-site cloud computing infrastructure is usually provided by a third party, and less technological skill is needed for the user’s in-house implementation. This should be weighed against possible security risks (although data storage is centralized), along with loss of access and control. On the plus side, those who use cloud computing achieve location and device independence, and they can use a web browser to access various systems from any site with a variety of devices.
Some Other Advantages to Using Cloud Computing
● Costs and resources are shared in a sizable pool of cloud computing users, and the infrastructure is centralized by the provider, resulting in lower costs for them.
● The user’s peak-load capacity increases, and efficiency and the utilization of their in-house systems (which are often under-utilized), is also vastly improved.
● Because of its reliability at multiple sites, cloud computing infrastructure provides business continuity and helps to ensure disaster recovery for the user.
● Resources are provided on a “scalability” basis, the system is closely monitored, and businesses do not have to plan in-house for those times when peak loads will be needed.
● Those who provide the service are able to devote their resources to resolving security problems, which many businesses could not afford to do.
● Carbon neutrality, better utilization of resources, and more efficient systems often result in improved sustainability of the user’s computer system.
What Cloud Computing is Like
Cloud computing is frequently confused with utility computing, grid computing, and autonomic computing, and many providers actually rely on grids, have some traits resembling autonomic computing, and employ billing methods similar to those used by utilities. However, these same providers, which have evolved in recent years, have a definite tendency to expand on that base, and the best systems have virtually no centralized billing systems or infrastructure. Among these are volunteer computing (SETI@home) and various well-known peer–to-peer networks (Skype, BitTorrent).
Major providers of cloud computing services include Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, Vmware, Amazon, IBM, and Sun Microsystems, and they are also being provided to individual users through large organizations such as Proctor and Gamble and General Electric.
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