Cloud computing is an emerging computing technology that uses the internet and central remote servers to maintain data and applications. Cloud computing allows consumers and businesses to use applications without installation and access their personal files at any computer with internet access. This technology allows for much more efficient computing by centralizing storage, memory, processing and bandwidth.

It is one of the latest trends in the IT industry and has succeeded in making people think twice before building up their specialized IT departments. Normally a server has an operating system installed in it. The user has his own programs, documents, softwares installed in it. If he uses another server, he’s not going to get the data stored in the original one. In the concept of Cloud Computing, there exists a centralized Operating System. The user has to log in and use the system. The entire data that he wants to store or process is stored in a central server and to get a direct access to those data all that the user has to do is to login with his id and password.

Cloud computing is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet. Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure in the “cloud” that supports them.

Cloud Computing: Need and Effectiveness

An entrepreneur has big ideas to streamline his business and pull his sales up so as to maximize his profits. And to do all these, his ideas need a number of business applications. But these business applications have huge complexities behind them. They need a data center with office space, power, cooling, bandwidth, networks, servers, and storage. And a team of experts to install, configure, and run them. They need development, testing, staging, production, and failover environments. This leads to a complicated software stack.Moreover a small upgradation can bring the whole system down! Now this is for one application. When we multiply these headaches across dozens or hundreds of apps, it’s easy to see why the biggest companies with the best IT departments aren’t getting the apps they need. Small businesses don’t stand a chance.

Cloud computing is a better way to run a business. Instead of running the applications oneself, they run on a shared data center. When one uses any application that runs in the cloud, he just logs in, customizes it, and starts using it.

Businesses are running all kinds of applications in the cloud these days. Cloud-based applications can be up and running in a few days, which is unheard of with traditional business software. They cost less, because one doesn’t need to pay for all the people, products, and facilities to run them. And, it turns out they’re more scalable, more secure, and more reliable than most apps. Plus, upgrades are taken care of for the user, so his applications get security and performance enhancements and new features—automatically.

The way one pays for cloud-based applications is also different. Forget about buying servers and software. When one’s applications run in the cloud, he doesn’t buy anything. It’s all rolled up into a predictable monthly subscription, so he only pays for what he actually uses. Finally, cloud applications don’t eat up the valuable IT resources. This lets one focus on deploying more apps, new projects, and innovation.

The advantages of Cloud Computing are summarized and listed below:

• Fast to get started
• Costs less
• More scalable
• More secure
• More reliable
• No server/ storage needed
• No technical team needed
• No upgradation needed
• User friendly
• Applicable to both consumer and business applications
• Added option of custom-built apps.
• Multi-tenancy
• Flexible: one can customize by his specific needs
• Applications get added features and enhanced performance automatically
• Nothing to buy-predictable monthly subscription
• Don’t eat up the valuable IT resources

Thus we can conclude that Cloud computing is a simple idea, but it can have a huge impact on your business.

With all these advantages, it’s difficult to think of reasons why we shouldn’t consider switching to a cloud computing IT environment. We have significantly fewer in house IT costs, we pay only for the computing resources we use, and cloud computing networks are often more secure than traditional business systems. And with the new collaboration abilities created by a cloud computing enabled workspace, we’ll be able to accomplish work more efficiently than ever before.