There has been a lot of talk about the Cloud and Cloud Computing has been the buzzword for quite some time. But what actually is the cloud? Do you understand it? Do you use it? Should you? Should your business?
At its core, Cloud Computing is about storing and retrieving your data (personal or business) within your own piece of equipment on the Internet. You can access it anywhere with a data/internet connection, just like a webpage. It will not matter if your office is physically closed while you are trying to squeeze in that little bit of work on your phone or tablet. All changes will be saved and ready to be picked up when you get back to your desk in the morning. Colleagues, collaborators around the world will be able to view the changes and updates if accorded with the appropriate usage rights.
Comparing it to something you might be more familiar with. Think Gmail and how it works. None of your emails are actually being stored on your hard drive or device. They are all stored in the Gmail server and you are able to access them anytime you desire. Your read/send/receive changes are applied instantly and remembered for you. Every time you log into Gmail, from the mobile or from the desktop, the emails are all there, in their respective folders and with their read status all correctly updated. That’s Cloud Computing.
Where is “Cloud Data” stored?
The confusion sets in because individuals tend to point the sky when speaking about Clouds and they do the same when referring to Cloud Computing. Like all forms of data, the data for Cloud Computing needs to be physically stored somewhere. Companies which offer Cloud Storage have dedicated data centers and specialized equipment to maintain the availability and integrity of the data that is stored on their equipment. In essence, Cloud Data or your data is stored on someone else’s equipment, whose entire business focus is the availability, integrity, and security of your data!
Cloud Computing providers, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, have huge server farms and infrastructure, spread across different geographical locations around the world to ensure that your data is available to you in the quickest and most efficient manner. If a disaster hits a particular location, they will have the necessary failovers to provision your data from another remote location.
If all that sounds like an improvement from your current position and you would like to find out how you and your business can leverage on the advances in Cloud Computing and Cloud Data Storage, in particular for advances in Collaboration, Redundancy, Security, and Availability, please feel free to contact us.
Get ready to up-scale your business and be cloud-ready today!
ManagedIT.SG is an IT Support, IT Solutioning and Managed IT Service Provider specializing in serving Small Businesses in Singapore. Call us at +65 6748 8776 and let us manage your Small Business IT today!