Cloud Computing: Your Data, Any Time, Any Place

By Hariharan Ramakrishnan:

The cloud computing is on the go; computing has become easier and quicker for people with cloud computing. Earlier conventional computing had to work with the huge hardware (machines) with the specific software to compute the data and so computing had to be stationary with a particular machine. This inception of cloud computing era has led to mobilized access to data and applications. Technically cloud computing is defined as the service of data (storage) – access through specific applications to any device like PC, mobile, laptop etc. through the internet. It is a service which serves as servers, storage and applications to various users from a common cloud. The metaphor “cloud” means the internet.

Thus the cloud computing has given advantage to people to access their data with the applications with improved speed and better manageability and less maintenance. Users are able to share their data between them as the network is connected and common to all. Thus the place of work has been virtualized with the aid of cloud computing. The aim of cloud computing is to make any consumer activity as fast as high-performance power used by defense and research facilities. Large groups of servers are annexed usually with low-cost PC technology for accessing and sharing data for cloud computing to occur. Virtualization maximizes the power of cloud computing with all the above.

Advantages provided by cloud computing:

-People are enabled to access their desired data irrespective of what they are and what device they use. Say with PC, mobile phone in any place with just the internet.
-Virtualization of data center which allows servers and data to be shared. Thus the data can be moved from one server to another without any physical process, so improved accessibility.
-Maintenance is simpler because cloud applications can be accessed from any device and need not installed in all the devices.

Cloud Computing Providers:

There are no definite standards framed for implementing cloud computing in networking servers and application software. Therefore companies have defined their own cloud computing technologies.

IBM’s Blue Cloud has adopted open source software which has networked computers with Web 2.0 capabilities like mash-ups or mobile commerce.

Apple’s Mobile Me, now iCloud, provides options to store and manage data like music, photos, apps, calendars, documents, and more.

Amazon has released cloud applications called Cloud Drive and Cloud Player. Cloud Drive offers people 5 GB of storage which can be accessed from a maximum of 8 specific devices. Any data can be downloaded and stored in Amazon’s Cloud Drive and used by Amazon applications in any of the recognized Android devices. Cloud Drive is music streaming application which allows their users to play their music stored in the Cloud Drive from a computer of an Android device with internet access. It supports browsing music by song titles, albums, artists, genres and playlists.

Thus technology has stepped to the next step with virtualization of data centre and workplace with sharing of information and access with any device from any place.