Instant messaging software and the Blackberry are not the only things revolutionizing today’s business world. Cloud computing has joined the likes of such and opened up a new era of communications trends. You don’t need to be an internet-junkie or tech-savvy connoisseur to know what and understand how to use it. Vanessa, our Senior Partner, wants to apply this technology to our firm and has asked me to start this blog and initiate firm-wide support. Let’s get everyone started on what this is first.
So what spurred this new concept? Is it a bunch of ROMs and WWWs, and a collection of networks and systems? Traditionally, the IT industry has always needed a way to optimize capacity and capabilities while minimizing expended resources. Cloud computing can do just that and this is perfect based on our firm’s size.
The military, governments, universities and research labs possess supercomputers powerful enough to perform complex calculations for the purposes of war simulations, weather changes and robotics design. Normal businesses should also be able to utilize these capabilities, and the brainchild of this concept is cloud computing where all of these capabilities can be harnessed by networking large groups of servers that use low-cost consumer PC technology, with specialized connections to spread data-processing chores across them. See here for an article in Business Week published back in November 2007 about the evolution of cloud computing.
So what exactly is cloud computing? Cloud computing can be defined as “anything you do with a computer online that is not stored locally on your actual computer.” As a complex topic, the definition is still in a state of flux but what has come out of the general concept of cloud computing are different functions and layers of cloud computing. The four most popular ones are:
1) Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) which allows users to holds applications online, and not on enterprise computers. This is the most popular and well known type of cloud computing.
2) Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) allows an ecosystem of developers that create innovative applications.
3) Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) gives users the ability to backup devices and use cloud computing to store their data to complement their core computing infrastructure. It’s almost like a rental storage garage in the real world.
4) Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) packages data and creates a comprehensive dashboard for sales people.
Will cloud computing revolutionize the business world as much as Blackberry? Probably not… But it will definitely be comparable to the likes of instant messaging. I will do some research and my next post will explain how our firm can benefit from this cloud computing phenomenon. Cheers for now 
