EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT CLOUD COMPUTING

 WHAT IS CLOUD COMPUTING

What is the cloud? Where is the cloud? Are we in the cloud right now? These are all questions you've probably heard or even asked yourself. The term "cloud computing" is everywhere.

In the simplest terms, cloud computing means storing and accessing data and programs over the internet instead of your computer's hard drive. 

Ultimately, the "cloud" is just a metaphor for the internet. It goes back to the days of flowcharts and presentations that would represent the gigantic server-farm infrastructure of the internet as nothing but a puffy cloud, accepting connections and doling out information as it floats.

What cloud computing is not about your hard drive. When you store data on or run programs from the hard drive, that's called local storage and computing. Everything you need is physically close to you, which means accessing your data is fast and easy, for the one computer, or others on the local network. Working off your hard drive is how the computer industry functioned for decades; some would argue it's still superior to cloud computing, for reasons I'll explain shortly.

The cloud is also not about having dedicated network attached storage(NAS) device in your house. Storing data on a home or office network does not count as utilizing the cloud. However, some NAS devices will let you remotely access things over internet, and there's at least one brand from Western Digital names "My Cloud", just to keep things confusing.

For it to be considered "cloud computing", you need access your data or your programs over the internet, or at the very least, have that data synced with other information over the web. In a big business, you may know all there is to know about what's on the other side of the connection; as an individual user, you may never have any idea what kind of massive data processing is happening on the other end in a data center that uses more power in a day that your whole town does in a year, The end result is the dame: with an online connection, cloud computing can be done anywhere, anytime.

COMMOM CLOUD EXAMPLES

When it comes to home use, the lines between local computing and cloud computing sometimes get blurry. That's because the cloud is part of almost everything on out computers these days. You can easily have a local piece of software ( for instance, Microsoft Office) that utilizes a form of cloud computing for storage ( Microsoft OneDrive). Microsoft also offers a set of web-based apps, Office, that are web-only versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote accessed via your web browser without installing anything. That makes them a version of cloud computing.

Some major examples of cloud computing you're probably using:

Google Drive:

This is pure cloud computing service, with all the storage found online so it can work with the cloud productivity apps. Google Drive is also available on more that just desktop computers; you can use it on tablets like iPad or smartphones, which have separate apps for Docs and Sheets, as well. In fact, most Google services could be considered cloud computing: Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Maps, and so on.

Apple Cloud:

Apple's cloud service is primarily used for online storage, backup, and synchronization of your mail, contacts, calendar, and more. All the data you need is available to you on your iOS, iPad OS, macOS, or Windows devices. Naturally, Apple won't be outdone by rivals: it offers cloud-based versions of its word processor, spreadsheet, and presentations for used by any iCloud subscriber. iCloud is also the place iPhone users go to utilize the Find My iPhone feature when the handset goes missing.

DropBox:

This service has been a simple, reliable file-sync and storage service for years, but is now enhanced with lots of collaboration features ( which will cost you and your business, as the free version has gotten a bit skimpy).

The aforementioned file-synchronization/backup service, and others like Box, iDrive, and  SugarSync all work in the cloud because they store a synced version of your files online, but they also sync those files with local storage. Synchronization is a cornerstone of the cloud computing experience, even if you do access the file locally.

CLOUD HARDWARE

The primo example of a device that is completely cloud-centric is the Chromebook. These laptops have just enough local storage and power to run Chrome OS, which essentially turns the Google Chrome web browser into an operating system. With a Chromebook, almost everything you do is online: apps, media, and storage are all in the cloud. Because of that, they tend to be inexpensive and that's made them incredibly popular for education. The latest, made since 2017, will even run Android apps.

You can even try a ChromeBit, a smaller than a candy bar drive that turns any display with an  HDMI port into a usable computer running chrome OS. Asus still sells one.

What happens if you're somewhere without an internet connection and you need to access your data? This is one of the biggest complaints about Chrome OS, although its offline functionality has improved.

The Chromebook isn't the first product to try to approach. So called "dumb terminals" that lack local storage and connect to a local server or mainframe go back decades. The first internet-only produce attempts include old NIC(New interned Computer), the Netpilance IOpener, and the disastrous 3Com Ergo Audery. You could argue they all debuted well before their time dial-up speeds of the 1990s had training wheels compared to the accelerated broadband interned connections today.

That's why many would argue that cloud computing works at all: the connection to the internet is as fast as the connection to the hard drive.

AGAINST THE CLOUD

In a 2013 edition of his feature What if?, xkcd-cartoonist Randall Monroe tried to answer the question of "When if ever will the bandwidth of the internet surpass that of FedEx?" The question was posed because no matter how great your broadband connection, it's still cheaper to send a package of hundreds of gigabytes of data via FedEx's "sneakernet" of planes and trucks than it is to try to send it over the internet.(The answer he concluded is the year 2040.)

Cory Doctorow at boingboing took Monroe's answer as "an implicit critique of cloud computing." To him, the speed and cost of local storage easily outstrips using a wide-area network connection controlled by a telecom company(your ISP).

That's the rub. The ISP's, telcos, and media companies control your access. Putting all your faith in the cloud means you're also putting all your faith in continued, unfettered access. You might get it, but it'll cost you. The more bandwidth you use, the more it costs.

Maybe you trust those corporations. That's fine, but there are plenty of other arguments against going into the cloud whole hog. Consider the potential for crashes. When there are problems at a company like Amazon, which provides cloud infrastructure to big name companies like Netflix and Pinterest, it can take out all those service. And more. When Amazon's S3 service got misconfigured in 2017, it took out all hefty chunk of the entire internet across the board. The problems typically lasts for only hours, but that's not much consolation at the time.

To be honest, it doesn't matter. Cloud computing may be a little bit like the Wild West, where the rules are made up ad you go, and you hope for the best, but it's here to stay. The money made by the cloud is immense, the ease of use speaks for itself.