How Cloud Computing Will Change Landscape Of Small Business
Tuesday, April 20, 2010, 12:24 AM | Leave Comment
Here is how the story goes and has been passed on from one generation to the next, from parents to their children and then theirs. But the story will never tend to end. It will never die. Folks would just keep adding to where it was left off and the dynamics of the business will keep changing as a result. That’s for sure.
Once upon a time, there existed a company called International Business Machines which churned out big computers called mainframes, sometimes known as big iron.
Terminals were attached to it and folks would work at their terminals communicating with one big machine. That business is still thriving like never before and the company is making huge profits from its operation.
Then came mini-computers – the likes of PDP-11 and VAX-11 – produced by the once thriving company called Digital Equipment Corporation. They were a lot cheaper than big iron and a lot easier to work with. Here again, folks would work at their terminals communicating with one mini-computer.
Next came the concept of client-server computing whereby an application was distributed between many clients and one or more servers. In essence, the application was partitioned into tasks or work loads between server and its clients.
Fast forward to NOW, the trend is towards cloud computing and is based on the huge network of the Internet. Without Internet, Cloud Computing will not be where it is at today. In other words, the concept of cloud computing has thrived in the presence of the Internet.
Some say cloud computing works like an electric utility. You use as much as you need and pay as you go along using it. You pay only when you use it.
The cloud can have a variety of applications which you don’t see. You don’t see the hardware and software and you don’t care either. As long as you get to use a certain utility or a piece of software, that’s all you care about.
So then Cloud Computing has a totally different model for delivery – from wherever it is delivered – and consumed – whoever uses the utility. As a deliverer, cloud computing must be in a position to give the users more on demand whatever that may be.
The Internet has created an environment where we can get information on anything and anywhere we want. Businesses on the Internet would never have been created obviously if Internet was not present. Cloud computing can be considered, at a minimum, a product of this huge network of networks.
Cloud computing occurs when an Internet/intranet-based infrastructure enables self-service, on-demand access to a shared pool of computing resources (e.g., servers, storage, applications). These resources can be quickly and elastically provisioned by users, because the cloud’s management has implemented systems for metering usage and automating resource allocation.
Who is in a position to benefit from the cloud
Just about anybody and any company who can fulfill certain needs of clients satisfactorily. Let the deliverer make money from delivering their services and let the users benefit from using those services a lot cheaper without worrying about upgrading hardware and/or software. Presumably, they will always get the latest and the greatest.
Wikipedia states
The majority of cloud computing infrastructure consists of reliable services delivered through data centers and built on servers. Clouds often appear as single points of access for all consumers’ computing needs. Commercial offerings are generally expected to meet quality of service (QoS) requirements of customers.
In a Nutshell
I didn’t know much about Cloud Computing. I did some research and I thought I would share it with you. The cloud will help many smaller companies access the types of services that used to be available only to the enterprise.
