Is your head in the clouds?

The market seems optimistic towards cloud computing and there is good reason for it. Cloud computing offers a viable solution for computing needs that can potentially lower cost, improve performance, provide users with instant software updates and universal access to documents.

Imagine a system that no longer requires you to purchase software at a big box retail store or through a download. Imagine if the software could exist in the cloud and the cost of the software could be spread among the many users.

Additionally, not having to load more and more software onto your system, means that your system could be used for running essential software. This would lead to improved system performance and potentially further financial gain because systems would not need to be updated or replaced as often.

And speaking of updating. Every time you use cloud computing, you would be using the most recent version of the software. Software updates would happen automatically and the end user would not need to remember to update software or set systems to automatically update the software.

Users would have universal access to documents. This would mean that as long as an Internet connection was available, people would not need to stress over remembering to save a file on an external device prior to leaving the office for the day. If they needed to access the file at home later, they would have access via the cloud.

Picture from dataversity.net

Although the cloud has many benefits, it is important to note that there are some concerns regarding cloud computing. Accessing data or applications from the cloud requires a near constant Internet connection and may not work well over slow connections.

Securing data has been a concern since the beginning of the digital age. As we move into the cloud, information security will need to become a top concern and strong information security programs will be vital for every organization that utilizes cloud services.