Although you may not hear about it every day, cloud-based computing is being mentioned more often in the news these days. Why? Cloud services are becoming more of a reality with each day that passes.
However, what is Cloud Computing? The best way to think of cloud computing is to imagine doing something that you would normally do on your PC or laptop without having the to use all of the hardware and software in the PC. All the computation takes place somewhere else while your PC and browser are just used as an access device.
– For instance, last time I talked about Google Docs, a service from Google which allows you to create and share information documents in an environment similiar to Microsoft Office, but without having to buy any software. All it takes is a web browser and an Internet Connection.
– Another example is the online backup service which I frequently recommend, Mozy. Mozy installs a small peice of software on your PC, but the rest of the action takes place in the “Cloud”. This is where your files are securely backed up, somewhere on the Internet in a secure data center..
– Now, services from Amazon.com (the S3 Simple Storage Service and EC2 Elastic Computing Cloud) and other providers are allowing you to access storage, computing power and other resources without having to own them. Think of it as renting computing power and capacity on a pay-as-you-go basis. This is similar to buying electricity from the electric utility or paying for water from the local municipal district.
Even though you may not realize it, you are probably already using some services which could be though of as Cloud Computing.
In the future, it appears that all the most people will really need is a netbook or smartphone with internet access to be able to perform common computing tasks.
For a more detailed introduction to Cloud Computing, look here or here.
What do you think? I Cloud Computing here or does it still have a ways to go?
