Cloud Computing

A place where you can access apps and services, and where your data can be stored securely is called cloud and this process is called cloud computing.

The cloud is a big deal for three reasons:

• It doesn’t need any effort on your part to maintain or manage it.
• It’s effectively infinite in size, so you don’t need to worry about it running out of capacity.
• You can access cloud-based applications and services from anywhere – all you need is a device with an Internet connection.

I don’t need a hard disk in my computer if I can get to the server faster… carrying around these non- connected computers is byzantine by comparison.

—Steve Jobs, 1997

History of Cloud computing 

The Internet has its roots in the 1960s, but it wasn’t until the early 1990s that it had any relevance for businesses. The World Wide Web was born in 1991, and in 1993 a web browser called Mosaic was released that allowed users to view web pages that included graphics as well as text. This heralded the first company web sites – and not surprisingly, most of these belonged to companies involved in computing and technology.

As Internet connections got faster and more reliable, a new type of company called an Application Service Provider or ASP started to appear. ASPs took existing business applications and ran them for their customers. The ASP would buy the computing hardware and keeping the application running, and the customer would pay a monthly fee to access it over the Internet.

But it wasn’t until right at the end of the 1990s that cloud computing as we know it today appeared. That’s when salesforce.com introduced its own multi-tenant application which was specifically designed:

• to run “in the cloud”;
• to be accessed over the Internet from a web browser;
• to be used by large numbers of customers simultaneously at low cost.

Since then the cloud has grown and grown: in 2013 worldwide spending on cloud servicets ran to an estimated $47 billion. And that’s set to more than double to over $108 billion by 2017 as companies invest in cloud services as the foundation for new, competitive offerings.

How cloud computing works

With a cloud app, you just open a browser, log in, and start working.

That means a field sales representative using cloud-based CRM can get all the information they need from their mobile device. Contact notes can be updated in real time so they are always fresh and complete and available to others – no more waiting to get back to the office to type it in. And sales managers know exactly which deals will close and when, from their desktop machines in their offices, or their tablets or phones when they are out and about.

Who uses the cloud?

Without the cloud, life would be very different. It’s become so integral to our everyday lives that most people use it without even realising. In fact for many people life without the cloud would be unthinkable: without it there would be no Facebook, no Twitter, no Gmail, and no Spotify.

The cloud has transformed the business landscape too. Today millions of organisations around the world rely on cloud services for everything from document creation and backup to social CRM and accounts, and just about every application imaginable in between:

• Companies with over 25,000 employees use an average of 545 cloud apps or services;
• Over 1.2 billion people around the world use Facebook;
• Over half of all Internet users rely on cloud-based email services like Gmail and Yahoo! Mail to send and receive their messages.