Cloud Computing is like Cable TV

Cloud computing is one of the hottest buzzwords in IT field. This concept is not new — Users are already using cloud technology for last 10 years. The best examples, widely used by individual users and organizations, but not specifically known as cloud solutions, are Gmail, PayPal, Facebook, Dropbox, Salesforce and many others.

However, using cloud based services for simple tasks like email or file storage, and using it to run entire IT department of your company, are two different concepts.

Cloud technology is just like the telephone network, or TV cable system, where you can enjoy your services without knowing how these technologies work enables you to use the system without having to worry about how it is build, maintain or managed. All underlying infrastructure is hidden from the end users, and the expectation is for it to work.

Currently 37% of US businesses are estimated to be using cloud based solutions in their regular work. A new research predicts that 4 out of 5 businesses will fully adapt the cloud technology, by year 2020. Currently many cloud based models are aimed at small and big businesses — including, but not limited to, public cloud, private cloud, fully managed cloud, and hybrid cloud. Many IT departments are moving towards public clouds like Amazon AWS and Microsoft’s Azure for its low-cost features. Companies who have concerns over data security, are moving to private cloud technologies, although they need to spend extra dollars for the hardware, software and support charges.

Many IT departments companies are turning to Hybrid clouds, a relatively new concept, as an intermediate step, before moving everything onto the cloud. This helps them to keep cost and risk low, as they can keep the existing hardware & software infrastructure, and add external cloud resources in stages over a period of time. This somewhat addresses their main issues like performance and security, while taking advantages of cloud services, like high availability and distributed computing.

While, in some people’s minds, there are still issues and concerns about cloud technology, a growing number of IT departments are moving towards cloud based services. For any company, irrespective of its size and location, a logical, well thought, step-by-step approach, would take care of all such concerns, and create new business models using cloud.