Example Of Report On Cloud Computing

Do you need data storage for you company files that are accessible anywhere you go? Or do you need a storage for your documents that you can access even if you don’t bring with you your storage devices? Do you need to bookmark an online book where you can directly place your notes? Cloud computing may be the one you are looking for. Cloud computing is a new technology where you can do all of these and it has been a major hype in the internet today.
Cloud computing is technically defined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as “a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.” (NIST, 2011) This does not differ much to definitions given by other organizations as to what cloud computing really is. In layman’s term, cloud computing is a new paradigm where things are done through the combination of links, software and services that are available through the internet. The internet serves as a cloud of servers that is responsible for giving its clients their needed supply services rather than giving them the product and allows the users to have different access levels. Accessing these services is very convenient as it is already available in most of the technological devices used today like the Android phones, blackberry, iphones or the tabs and the laptops. (searchenterprisedesktop.com)
How cloud computing works can be aligned to the needs of a company. For example, you are the owner of a medium size company and all of your employees needs a computer with specific license software for each. Buying each of the computers with their required hardware and software requirements could require a huge amount of budget from the company. Cloud computing can be utilized to reduced the expenses of the company while giving the same services needed by the employees. Cloud architecture consists of two sides like any other application, the back end and the front end. The front end is what is visible to clients while the back end consist of “cloud”. Applications in the front end does is not necessarily the same with other computers as this depends on the needs of the users which is the reason while different clients have different user interfaces. On the backend, dedicated servers for each application available to the different clients are put up where administrators keep track of the loads following a set of protocols. A company involved in the provision of cloud computing services generally requires a lot of storage space as it is also their responsibility to provide backup copies of their clients dat. (Ehow.com)
Regardless of the cloud computing company you choose, cloud computing will always be virtual. The massive pool of hardware resources and data storage makes the cloud of the technology where you can store your data in the remote servers instead of your own computers. These are also flexible and scalable, meaning you can pay and request for only the services you currently need. When after three months, you need additional storage space of additional programs but you can request for such and be readily available to you at upon request. (rackspace.com) Other characteristics of cloud computing is that it has broad network access, meaning, access is allowed through the use of several heterogeneous devices such as laptops, desktops or even devices that you can bring on the road like tablets. You have the option to control what you pay because of its capability of measured service. It $100 is all that you can afford to pay, then the cloud computing provider will give you service worth your money. Aside from these, you can select the applications most applicable to your needs because it has resource pooling, where every imaginable application around the world is available. (NIST, 2013)
One of the most common use of the technology today is SaaS where a “single application through the browser is delivered to thousands of customers using multitenant architecture.” (Knorr, 2013) Utility computing, which has been used by big companies like Amazon.com is another. Cloud computing also provides web services which can be tapped by other developers like Google Maps, which is readily available to numerous websites. It also provides capability of developers to utilized the development environments available of on the cloud rather than installing their own where they will not be sure if the application they created if compatible with what’s on the cloud. Manage Service providers are also key services offered in the clouds where security services are readily tapped. (Knorr, 2013).
So why do you need to shift to cloud computing? There are several advantages of utilizing the cloud instead of coming up with your own systems and hardware resources. Improving resource allocation and performance is one advantage. This is because, all computational resources are centralized and the computer you used reduced to a mere interface where you can use to send and receive data. Basically, a storage device is not needed because everything flies to the clouds. With these, it is inherent that hardware costs will be greatly reduced as you will not need or the company will not need to purchase powerful and expensive hardware resources to be at par with the services provided on the clouds. Faster updates and maintenance will also be realized as you will not have the burden of downloading and installing updates because this will be the responsibility of your provider. (Mahony, 2011)
However, with the several advantages set forth by this new technology, still there are some disadvantages. One major concern is the question on security. Margaret Rouse wrote that “Because of the cloud's very nature as a shared resource, identity management, privacy and access control are of particular concern. With more organizations using cloud computing and associated cloud providers for data operations, proper security in these and other potentially vulnerable areas have become a priority for organizations contracting with a cloud computing provider.” (techtarget.com) There is also the question of how you control your system due to the elastic nature of system. Of course, sometimes there are also limitations of what you can do with the applications but since you are not the ones maintaining these you cannot do other wise. In addition to these disadvantages, because it depends and requires and internet connection, what you can do with it may be controlled by the speed of connection that you have. (expedient.com)
The use of cloud computing still depends on the needs of a person or a company. Although, it is the trend today, analysis must be always made first before deciding to shift.