What Is Cloud Computing and Top 5 Cloud Services You Should Be Aware Of!

If you are a regular internet user or newspaper reader, you might have come across a term “Cloud Computing”! Any idea what is it? You might be having slight idea about it just like me!

I for instance, had vague idea about cloud computing and never tried getting more knowledge about it; until in one of the interviews one guy asked me about it. I gave some answer very confidently as I was sure about it; but later on when I checked, I was totally poker faced as the definition which I gave for cloud computing was actually the definition of centralized architecture.

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Nevertheless on that day I read everything about cloud computing and now writing this post for thousands of users like you or rather me, who wish to learn more about cloud computing.

In this post, I will tell you about all the concepts related to cloud computing in brief and then we shall have a look at top 5 cloud services available in the market.

Cloud Computing:

Cloud Computing is the approach of delivering software or business solution as a service instead as a product. In cloud computing, all the resources, software or information and data are provided on remote computers over internet and thus user’s computers need not keep everything in its memory, reducing disk and resource usage. In short, cloud computing is an approach in which everything is available at server side (all the programs, resources and data) and thus your computer can work without any extra memory usage or processing power.

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End user is the most benefited person in this approach as his PC remains free of any sort of performance issues. This approach is very similar to “Software as a service” approach. Another advantage of this approach is unnecessary clatter is separated or eliminated from user’s side and thus even a beginner can do much more with available resources as complexity is reduced.

Many companies are nowadays shifting their businesses on cloud as it provides them ultimate control over their software or solution and in turn they can manage it more easily than giving out periodic updates to clients.

Let us have a look at top 5 cloud services:

1. Amazon Web Service:

Amazon Web Service is a bunch remote computers grouped together to offer cloud computing. Despite the recent outage, Amazon cloud service continues to attract more customers, both small companies as well as their bigger counterparts. Customers can use Amazon Web Service on “Pay-as-you-go-model” and thus it places customers in total control. Customers can decide what amount of memory and processing power is necessary and can opt for that.

2. Windows SkyDrive:

This is probably one of the best service providers in the market and we all can guess the reason. The service is offered by operating system giant Microsoft and thus this service comes by default in its upcoming Windows 8. Microsoft is probably the only provider (as far as I know) who provides free 25GB cloud storage to all users (Windows Live ID required). Office 365 is another service under which Microsoft provides all the office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and so on) solutions. So small businesses can use all such services anywhere without actually installing them. It is one of the most affordable services as all you have to pay is $6 per month. It is best suited for small businesses.

3. iCloud:

Apple unveiled this brand new service in last quarter of 2011. This service is coupled with wide array of other services such as online storage, accessing various office related services online. So you can store music, images, apps, documents on its clod which can be later accessed from any Apple device situated anywhere across the globe. Just like its competitors, it also allows multiple users to access or edits emails/documents online. iCloud is the best service for you if you are fan of Apple products and use any one of their devices.

4. Google Apps:

Google too, eyeing the untapped potential in this segment; has started providing cloud services to all sorts of businesses. Google offers very similar data plans as that of Microsoft. Under this service you get customized e-mail addresses, spam and virus protection, Google docs and 24×7 customer support, just like any other provider.

5. DropBox:

This is the last service provider at which we will have a look at. The most noticeable thing about this cloud provider is that despite of being a non-established company (as compared to Apple, Google and Microsoft), it is attracting many customers towards itself. The files stored on DropBox online storage can be accessed from any operating systems or mobile platform. To lure more customers, it provides 2GB of free disk space after which it charges $9.99/month for first 50 GB and $19.99/month for 100 GB. This service provider lets you do many things yourself if you wish to as it gives you total control of your website. DropBox even have created mobile applications so that users can access their files or store their mobile information in cloud.

So this is all about cloud computing, that we will see today! If I have goofed up something, please let me know as I am just a beginner in cloud computing area.

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