‘Cloud Computing’ is you get to hear a lot these days, what is cloud computing? What it can do to you and your business.
What exactly is cloud computing and where is the cloud?
In the initial days of internet, it was often depicted on charts as a cloud. In today’s world data and even programs don’t have to be on your machine; but can be hosted on a remote computer or server accessible through internet – or ‘in the cloud’.
Cloud computing simply means taking out the major computing task from your machine, and rather perform it online on some other high end machine, and bring a bunch of benefits to you and your organization.
Today especially small businesses are able to access the high quality infrastructure once only available to few larger organizations with huge upfront investment in technology. Your hosted service provider with expertise in computing looks after all the technology needs, whether it may be software or hardware. You only have to access your applications or documents over the internet.
Many popular programs like ERP, CRM and Email and office suites are available on cloud and many of which are free. Irrespective of the application you choose cloud computing brings you the following benefits…
- Save Cost: ‘pay-as-you-go’ eases cash-flow by saving you from upfront CAPEX cost.
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Support: With your service provider taking care of all the updates and maintenance you simply have to use the application. You are always on the latest version of the software available.
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Storage: Your data is secured and storing data online is cheaper than having it on your PC.
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Reduced risk: Backing up your data is the responsibility of your service provider. You get all the high end physical and logical security for your data which is not always possible to have it our own premises.
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Access anywhere: Access all your data from anywhere any time from any device via internet.
Even though cloud computing is new, hosted solutions are becoming more mature and prevalent. In future only basic software required to run your device will be available on your device and rest of the data in the cloud. Going online or cloud can keep your organizations financial feet firm on the ground. Leaving you to do only what you are good at your business rather than looking after IT.