What is Cloud Computing?
Cloud computing is becoming a buzzword. It refers to a computing system in which tasks are assigned through a combination of connections, service and software over a network. This collective of connections is known as ‘the cloud’. Computing at this level allows users to sort through a vast amount of data. For example, Google is currently the forerunner of cloud computing due to its need to produce accurate and instant results for the millions of search queries it receives every day. Other companied have developed web based operating systems that look and feel like Windows.
Advantages of Cloud Computing
One of the advantages of cloud computing is that both small and medium sized businesses can instantly obtain the benefits of the enormous infrastructure without having to implement and administer it directly. This also permits accessibility to multiple data centers anywhere on the globe. It also means that as the need for resources increases, companies can add additional service as and when needed from the cloud computing vendor without having to pay for additional hardware.
Key characteristics
- Agility improves with users able to rapidly and inexpensively re-provision technological infrastructure resources. The cost of overall computing is unchanged, however, and the providers will merely absorb up-front costs and spread costs over a longer period.
- Cost is claimed to be greatly reduced and capital expenditure is converted to operational expenditure. This ostensibly lowers barriers to entry, as infrastructure is typically provided by a third-party and does not need to be purchased for one-time or infrequent intensive computing tasks. Pricing on a utility computing basis is fine-grained with usage-based options and fewer IT skills are required for implementation (in-house).
- Device and location independence enable users to access systems using a web browser regardless of their location or what device they are using (e.g., PC, mobile). As infrastructure is off-site (typically provided by a third-party) and accessed via the Internet, users can connect from anywhere.
- Multi-tenancy enables sharing of resources and costs across a large pool of users thus allowing for:
Centralisation of infrastructure in locations with lower costs (such as real estate, electricity, etc.)
Peak-load capacity increases (users need not engineer for highest possible load-levels)
Utilisation and efficiency improvements for systems that are often only 10–20% utilised.
- Reliability improves through the use of multiple redundant sites, which makes cloud computing suitable for business continuity and disaster recovery. Nonetheless, many major cloud computing services have suffered outages, and IT and business managers can at times do little when they are affected.
- Scalability via dynamic ("on-demand") provisioning of resources on a fine-grained, self-service basis near real-time, without users having to engineer for peak loads. Performance is monitored, and consistent and loosely-coupled architectures are constructed using web services as the system interface.
- Security typically improves due to centralisation of data, increased security-focused resources. Security is often as good as or better than under traditional systems, in part because providers are able to devote resources to solving security issues that many customers cannot afford.
- Sustainability comes about through improved resource utilisation, more efficient systems, and carbon neutrality. Nonetheless, computers and associated infrastructure are major consumers of energy. A given (server-based) computing task will use X amount of energy whether it is on-site, or off.
Source:
http://www.brighthub.com/environment/green-computing/articles/10026.aspx
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2007/tc20071116_379585.htm
Contact Microsolve today to learn more about cloud computing >
|
