What exactly is cloud computing? (It has nothing to do with rain clouds)

Cloud computing is actually something that can be hard to define, but we will try. In layman’s terms, cloud computing embodies the concept of ‘software as a service’ where instead of having desktop productivity applications (such as MS Word, Excel etc), you are able to use web/cloud-based applications to accomplish the same tasks (ever heard of Google Docs? GMail?). Or instead of requiring a fully-speced desktop computer with a fast processor and copious amounts of RAM, you can instead have a thin-client which connects to and runs everything off a server, including the familiar Windows interface (perhaps using software such as Microsoft Terminal Services or Citrix). The computer you would be connecting to might even be ‘virtualised’, running on a large data server which runs tons of other ‘virtual computers’ – this can be accomplished with a product called VMWare for example.

There is an excellent article on Joyeur, which talks in much more detail about the technical intricacies of computing in the cloud: http://www.joyeur.com/2008/05/08/cloud-nine-specification-for-a-cloud-computer-a-call-to-action

As well, this video provides a wealth of useful information from industry experts



The premise behind cloud computing is two-fold. One, it is designed to enable productivity be centralising all applications and data in one place, allowing for multiple people to work on the same document at the same time for example. And two, it is supposed to reduce the need for large-scale investments by firms in IT systems because everything is being served ‘by the cloud’.

The applications we see today are only the beginning – the cloud evolves everyday, and one day soon, you may find yourself lost in it.