Cloud Computing - What is it?
In another article on Cloud Computing, our MD Sean Elliot talks about what Cloud Computing is, why it's here, some examples & why you might condider using Cloud services. It's not all sweetness & light though.
You’ve probably heard the term Cloud Computing – it’s been on the news and is being touted by many technology providers as the “next big thing” in computing, especially those providers making significant investments in cloud offerings and services!
So what exactly is it? Wikipedia’s definition is “The provision of dynamically scalable and often virtualised resources as a service over the Internet, on a utility basis” – does that help? Well what that actually means in essence is computing facilities provided from the internet, rather than from locally based hardware, and paid for in the same way as you pay for gas, electricity or water, i.e. computing facilities delivered and paid for as if they were another utility service.
Some industry experts are comparing cloud computing to the advent of the electricity national grid in the late 19th century - businesses of all sizes stopped generating their own power with steam engines and dynamos, instead coming to rely on a newly built electricity grid to access power resources. Cheap power from electric utilities changed the way businesses operated and set off a chain reaction of economic and social transformations.
While the electricity analogy is useful in helping to explain how the cloud delivers computing power on demand, the comparison goes only so far. The electric power grid has become a regulated monopoly. It’s very unlikely that computing resources on the internet will ever become monopolised or as closely regulated. Additionally, existing utility firms provide services and that’s it – they don’t look after any of your business valuables for you for example. I’m sure if they did, you’d want to know exactly where they were and what security arrangements they had in place to protect them from loss as well as what come back you had on them if they did lose them. In the context of cloud computing, the key business valuables relate to your data – files, emails, documents, etc. Consideration of the importance of data to a business is vital when analysing whether a cloud solution is right for your business.
So why is cloud computing happening? Cloud computing models are being driven by the phenomenal growth of a number of pioneering online businesses and services – Amazon, Google, Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and Twitter to name but a few. The computing resources and facilities these organisations need to service the astronomical volumes of data and user traffic involve massive datacentres crammed with thousands servers and data storage. Pioneered originally by Amazon, they realised that not all of these computing resources was being utilised and that they could rent out the excess. This has progressed to companies such as Google and Microsoft building enormous datacentres world wide specifically to deliver computing services on a rental or utility basis.
What cloud computing services are being offered? There is an increasingly vast array of providers offering cloud based solutions to businesses. Some notable examples are:
· Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Suite (which includes Exchange)
· SalesForce.com
· Google Apps
· NetSuite
· Sage Online
· Online backup services
Why would you consider cloud computing? There are a variety of appealing benefits, including:
· OpEx vs CapEx business model
· Any where, any time access
· Scalability
· Collaboration and remote working
Is it cheaper and what are the risks though? These are key questions and in fact careful due diligence is required to assess both the cost effectiveness and suitability of any cloud computing solution for your business. There is a checklist of issues to consider as part of this due diligence, not least of which relates to the quality and resilience of your broadband connection to the internet – if your connection fails, there is no cloud access and no service. The status and development of broadband connectivity in the UK is a key factor in the cloud computing model and unfortunately the UK is lagging behind a significant number of other countries – in a recent survey the UK was ranked 31st out 66 countries for broadband speed tests. The UK Government is well aware of the issues, hence their Digital Britain initiative – this is a subject which merits another article on its own!
Tags:
cloud computing