Why People Have Their Heads, in the Cloud

Posted: April 25th, 2011

The Cloud. We’ve been hearing a lot about it lately, but what exactly is it and what does it mean for you? Chances are you’re not sure, especially if your first introduction to the cloud is through those terrible Cloud vs. Claude commercials by Microsoft, which tell us more about how moronic and downright creepy Claude is, than actually telling us anything useful about cloud services.

Well in truth, cloud services can mean many different things, and even though the popularity of the term is just reaching its peak now, cloud services in one form or another have been around since the dawn of the internet. As an example, e-mail services such as Hotmail are considered a cloud service.

Essentially, any service that is performed directly online, on another company’s servers, is considered a cloud service. For individuals, this often means storage of files or data, or running programs through a remote server. These features can be useful for several reasons. In the case of storing files online, it provides you both with an easy way to share those files with friends, and also a backup copy of your files, in the event you lose the originals and don’t have another copy.

In the case of running different programs, you have the benefit of being able to access the program from any device, as opposed to software, which would need to be installed on each device. This is taking on much greater importance in our world of internet connected mobile devices. In addition, it allows you to run programs that would also be difficult for your computer or device to run on its own.

A great example of this type of service is the gaming service Onlive, which lets gamers play any game they want, directly on the Onlive servers, with no installation required. With many games pushing the power of most PC’s to their limits, and taking up scads of hard drive space, this service has been generating an appropriate amount of buzz.

For businesses, this type of service takes on even greater importance. Businesses are often required to maintain large databases and networks, and these often require constant upkeep and scrutiny from a team of IT specialists. The headache of maintaining these massive servers and repositories of bits and bytes cannot be cured with a simple Tylenol. It can however be cured by letting someone else deal with that headache (hopefully they also have Tylenol on the cloud).

Of course, cloud computing does present some of its own issues. One such issue is that should the service experience an outage, or even worse, should the service go completely under, it would leave those users in quite a bind. This has been one of the main reasons cited by gamers about Onlive; the fact that they don’t actually own anything, and it could all be taken away from them at any moment is a large detriment in their eyes.

Security on the cloud is another major issue. If you’re going to be putting personal files, or other important information on the cloud, especially in the case of large companies, you run the risk of that information being breached.

Despite these misgivings, the cloud is the wave of the future, and offers possibilities for just about every web user. So don’t hesitate to look into it and find those cloud services which could be of use to you. That is, unless you want to leave everything in the hands of that rascal Claude!

Dave

Softarama team

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