Cloud Computing: Business through clouds

Introduction:

In this blog, I will talk about what cloud computing is and what are its advantages. Starting with the definition I will walk you through some of the examples of cloud computing and later its business implications.

Have you ever visualized laptops without any storage device and access and share data stored somewhere else? This distant dream has now become a reality because of the tremendous progress made by technology and internet over the past two decades. Its “cloud computing” that has revolutionized the manner in which one can store and access data.

When I first heard the term "cloud computing", a strange thought crossed my mind. I thought data will be stored in cloud somewhere in the air and users can access it from any corner of the world.  Well, such technologies might exist in future, but per se cloud computing is defined as a model that enables users to access computing resources such as applications and services provided by service providers over the internet and from anywhere.

For the first timers, the diagram below would be useful to understand the very basics of Cloud Computing.

       Cloud Computing at a glance

Several applications, platforms and networks storages at the center form a cloud offering services and different devices from different locations access this cloud to use these services. Cloud Service Providers own this storage space and allow users to connect to these services or applications through varied security and access options.

 

The cloud can be modeled in 3 ways, namely Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).  It can then be deployed as a Private cloud, a Community cloud, a Public cloud, or a Hybrid cloud. These deployment models vary in terms of accessibility and security.  

Let’s delve further deep into Cloud Computing and look at some of its usage.

The best example of cloud technology would be Google Doc, which allows users to create and edit documents online without the need of any storage device, thereby promoting collaboration and ease of use from anywhere. All you need is Internet access.

Amazon’s E2C, an example of Virtual-IT, allows programmers or developers to use the computing capacity provided by Amazon web-server and merely configure the capacity based on their computing requirements.

ICloud from Apple offers network storage. Using iCloud users can not only store documents but also store music and video files on the cloud server and access them whenever required from their mobile phone or any device connected to internet.

The biggest advantage of cloud computing is that it helps companies to overcome huge capital investment in IT-infrastructure. Cloud computing offers pay-for-use model and highly scalable data solutions for one’s business needs. This enables small to medium size companies to circumvent large investments in IT-infrastructure as they can rent the required services from cloud service providers for the required duration of time and also pay only for the resources used.

Building IT-infrastructure also consumes more time. But with cloud services, small companies can readily use the services from the available cloud servers and concentrate mainly on their business. Thus, with the increased agility in business processes, company’s revenues increase, while infrastructure costs reduce.

Another significant advantage is that cloud computing allows accessibility to the server from any location making the business processes location independent. For example, Netflix is able to deliver its streaming experience to customers across the globe with the help of Amazon’s AWS which leverages cloud computing.

As more and more companies seek benefits from cloud computing, capital investment or access to information will no longer be an obstacle. Creativity to utilize the cloud technology effectively will give company an edge.