Walking on a Cloud

‘Cloud computing,’ has been getting a lot of press recently, for those who have been following it. To some, it’s confusing, to others, logical. Some might not have even heard of it, at all.

Cloud computing is a fairly loose term which is used to describe the current direction of IT infrastructure.

Very basically, Cloud computing refers to the sharing of resources by multiple (or ‘a cloud’ of) computers, rather than having to rely solely on one PC to handle certain applications.  Or, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Cloud computing is “a computing capability that provides an abstraction between the computing resource and its underlying technical architecture (e.g., servers, storage, networks), enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.”

A few major benefits of Cloud computing include:

• Cost - The platform aims to reduce expenditure on software, hardware, and service providers, whilst being billed on a utility (gradual, or by usage) basis.
• Flexibility - Device and location independence allows users to access all information from various locations and devices (such as from cell phones).
• Storage - More data can be stored when compared to personal systems.
• Agility - The user’s ability to quickly and inexpensively rearrange the technological infrastructure greatly improves.

Criticism has been somewhat limited, as more and more companies are considering outsourcing Exchange hosting. However, some of the problems cited by skeptics have been pertaining to security and privacy. Despite this, proponents argue that security in the Cloud should be as good as, if not better than outside it, as providers can devote resources to security solutions that others can’t afford. Furthermore, the greater the area and number of devices over which the data is dispersed…the greater the complexity of its security.

As usual; time, and market share, will tell.