Cloud Computing

At first the term could computing can be quite a difficult term to comprehend – what is is the cloud? What dos it do? And where does it exist? Now the answer seems to be quite simple; the ‘cloud’ is merely another term for the internet. Cloud computing basicaly involves third parties providing businesses with the use of software and facilities via the internet so that the business does not need to own this software themselves. Software does not exist in servers at the location of the business but rather in the cloud. There are many benefits to managing IT in this way and with many market leaders such as Microsoft, Google and Yahoo getting involved it is set to be the way of the future. There a number of glaring advantages.

First off, not having as many servers on-site can vastly reduce the workload of the IT department, giving them more time to spend on benefitial activities such as aquiring new licences rather than spending hours de-bugging software problems and conducting maintenence. These problems are taken off the hands of the business.
Also reduced costs involved at start-up offers easier access to the market for new businesses. Licencing costs amount only to fraction of the huge cost of installing vast IT harware services. Costs are not only cut at the initial stage but also in the future through depreciation and out-dating. With cloud-computing, users always have access to the most recent software versions.

The mobile capabilities of cloud computing are one of the most exciting, especially in our current mobile computing orientated environment. What will excite managers is the notion of being able to access all their business applications through a web browser from any location. This would only previously been achievable through very high powered devices.

However as with all relaively new computing concepts there are a few incorporated issues. For example, one such issue for the business is how to integrate the data stored on their own servers with the data that existists within the cloud. For a business the idea of having data on their own servers and possibly differing corresponding data at another location will be a nightmare. Luckily companies such as Informatica are currently providing integration solutions to this problem.

References:
www.informatica.com
www.informatica.com