What you need to know about cloud computing

Cloud computing refers to the use of Internet services by an end user who has no control over the technologies behind them. Cloud is a metaphor for the Internet.

Recently, companies have come to like and rely on cloud computing services instead of spending huge capital on their own servers, storage, networking and security equipment.

Some Cloud providers include Google’s cloud services, Amazon bookstore and Apple’s iCloud services. Typical examples of cloud services would be accessing email accounts such as Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo mail and Facebook where personal information, pictures, books, music are kept somewhere but anytime we log in then we enjoy these email services. It is a system which synchronises all services on one platform.

Furthermore, Cloud computing can be explained to be like electricity where if a person needs electricity, he or she plugs a device into an outlet and at month’s end we receive a bill. There is no need to worry about the source of electricity or its generation.  Most of the web servers where websites and web applications are hosted make use of cloud hosting. Nobody knows actually where the account data and details are archived but all we do is just log in, access and log out. We can even go ahead to say that cloud computing is making information technology (IT) a utility.

Dissolving physical possessions into the cloud is certainly convenient. This will make us less covetous and more inclined to share. The other side of the cloud computing is that those previously inanimate possessions can talk about you behind your back. For instance, when you watch a movie online, the company’s servers know who you are and what you watch, when you watch it, and possibly where you’re watching from. To enhance advertisement, cloud providers can use our information to improve and optimise their services to make recommendations, for example, tomorrow your data could travel to third parties. Scenario: Itunes could combine its own data with commercial data banks to tell a musician the number of women aged 18-30 who are buying the music in a particular area or country.

In my perspective, cloud computing is a great technology which is saving companies who might lose data on their own servers. This is what I call parallel computing where data is stored on different servers at different places (sometimes different countries) but connected in such a way that when a server crashes, other servers can restore the same data. Cloud computing is getting out of hand as a result of fast moving technology against space for gazillion data. In April this year, Amazon’s servers knocked out many of its cloud clients due to an outage and this generated lots of criticisms.

By Joshua Anquandah

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