The idea of cloud computing is that a service you use is not physically installed and running on your own computer servers on your own premises. Instead, the service runs on someone else’s servers on someone else’s premises.
You access that service over the web from your web browser or sometimes from an application installed on your PC.
Why is it called “cloud”?
It’s called cloud because you often say that the service is running in the cloud, which is a euphemism for “I don’t have the faintest idea where it physically is and I don’t much care”. Cloud is really just a marketing term for “somewhere out there in the internet”.
What kind of application or service can run in the cloud?
Most services can run in the cloud. A good example is a hosted Exchange service. This is a cloud service where someone else runs and maintains Microsoft Exchange on their own servers and you access that Exchange server from either your web browser (Outlook Web Access) or Outlook installed on your PC. The benefits to you are fairly similar to the benefits you get from any Cloud service:
- you don’t have to manage the server yourself
- you don’t have to worry about backups (that’s usually provided by the service)
- you don’t have to worry about disaster recovery (if a meteorite crashes into your office tomorrow then provided you weren’t in it at the time you can move into a new office the next day and you haven’t lost any email)
GMail is another example of a cloud-based email system, but the cloud isn’t just for email. You can use cloud based services for anything from backups to accounting systems, you can manage your warehouse with cloud based systems or even use cloud based CRMs.
Cloud services can be very useful for small businesses because there is usually no up-front cost. There’s no big server to buy and no expensive software license to cough up for before you can get started. It’s also very easy to keeping upgrading to the latest version of the service.
What’s the drawback of the cloud?
Like everything, the cloud does have some drawbacks.
- You are handing over responsibility and physical possession of your data and services to another company, which means you need to be confident they are going to look after it securely, back it up, provide disaster recovery (what if a meteor hits them?) and not go out of business and leave you without access to vital data.
- With a lot of cloud services, you can only access your data and use the service while you are on line. If your internet connection goes down, you are cut off from that service. The cloud has become popular in the last few years because internet access has become faster and more reliable. This used to be much more of a drawback.
- In most cases, anyone can access your data over the internet if they have your username and password. That means you and your staff have to be really careful about secure password policies. No Admin, 123 or the whole world can get at your data.
- The per-user costs can be quite high. For a larger business with a lot of users it might be worth buying Exchange (or whatever) up front and installing it yourself rather than paying a monthly fee for each person in your business.
None of these problems is insurmountable and the cloud is definitely a very useful resource, particularly for small businesses.
We certainly plan to add cloud functionality options to Qlockwork in 2010, but we’ll never make it compulsory. We have too many users who don’t want their Qlockwork data to leave their business.
