I hope everyone in Canada and the United States had a good long weekend last week and enjoyed their vacation time – it’s important to celebrate the holidays and spend time with our loved ones as the world slowly peeks around the corner from months and months of lockdowns.
As we move forward in July, just a reminder to let us know about any tech gadgets you’d like reviewed or discussed for our next gadget show on our Tea and Tech Podcast out on July 27th.
What’s in a name?
The “Cloud”
This is a term that has come to be a buzz word in many organizations but the reality is that it refers to servers that are accessed over the Internet globally, along with the software and databases that run on those servers.
Cloud servers are located in data centres all over the world and, by using hardware this way, individuals and organizations do not have to manage physical space. This also negates the need for large hub rooms at companies or a robust IT department to run all the software, patches and break/fix issues.
“The Cloud” enables users to access the same files and applications from almost any device. The computing and storage takes place on servers in a data centres, instead of locally on the single user device such as your phone.
As a prime example, this is why you can log into your Instagram account on a new device and still find all your content available (photos, videos, and conversation history etc)
It works the same way with cloud email providers like Apple, Gmail or Microsoft Office and with cloud storage providers such as DropBox, iCloud and Google Drive – all applications that are based on your sign on from any device not something that is device specific. It’s like a master key for your information as opposed to a specific key that you need when you log on to your device.
Early In 2010 President Obama’s administration laid out a 90-page document, that drafted the potential security requirements needed to help federal government agencies adopt cloud computing technologies and services.
The document, titled “Proposed Security Assessment and Authorization for U.S. Government Cloud Computing,” looks to identify security and risk assessment requirements that must be met in order for the government to move to the cloud. These are noted in the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program – known as FedRAMP 1.
Back in 2010, cloud computing gained traction in main stream IT departments, and it was reported that Amazon may generate 500 million dollars in new data centre cloud revenue with the potential of hitting 750 million. 2.
with the potential of hitting $750 million dollars by the next year in 2011.
Bloomberg analysis shows that as of the end of 2020, the Amazon organization billed approximately 13.5 billion dollars of profit in their web hosting services alone.
So as you can see – cloud systems are big business now and likely to stay that way!!
There are some very important up sides to cloud computing such as:
- A reduction in infrastructure costs
- The consolidation of data
- A defence against disasters at the local level (COB)
- Collaboration – something that proved VERY important when COVID hit the golbe, and
- Compliance regulations
Along with convenience though comes some very real aspects of security breaches and looking back we can see how those have impacted some of our daily lives. Microsoft, LinkedIn, Yahoo, Apple iCloud – just to name a few – have all been victims of security breaches in their cloud environment …. remember the example of some famous people being in the news when information and photos were posted due to a security breach.
The main point as a takeaway for cloud infrastructure is this though – it makes sense to centralize a main amount of information in order to access it on demand.
The trick is to know when and how to move between cloud services and your own personal hardware in order to have the information that you digitize make the most sense for you and potentially your organization.
Join us Next week when we will go deeper into cloud networks and discuss redundancy and solution based software as a service – also known as SaaS.
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