the cloud · Page 4 of 8

Benefits of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is the future of business as “downloading” programs becomes a thing of the past. No longer do you need to access the physical computer where an application runs because it’s already waiting for you on the internet.

Cloud computing caters to the masses, allowing several people to access the same thing at once or whenever they need to. Businesses are moving to the cloud for several reasons, the number one being that it improves efficiency and profits.

If you’re still on the fence about whether your business should incorporate a cloud, here are just a few reasons that will convince you that the disadvantages of cloud computing are non-existent.

Flexibility

As your business grows, it will require more bandwidth that a cloud-based service can meet instantly. Clouds have a vast capacity that will allow your business to meet all the demands in an efficient amount of time. According to this recent article, if your needs increase it’s easy to scale up your cloud capacity, drawing on the service’s remote servers. Likewise, if you need to scale down again, the flexibility is baked into the service.

Disaster Recovery

The worries of a computer crashing and all work being lost is nothing to worry about with cloud computing. With a cloud-based service, issues are resolved faster than businesses without one. When your company has an issue, the providers can take care of it faster than anyone else, allowing you to focus all your energy and attention on your customers.

Software Updates

Companies take most of the working month managing site security and other related tasks. Cloud computing suppliers do the server maintenance that include security updates that free up your time for other things.

Collaboration

One of the biggest benefits of having a cloud is that anyone that you want to be able to access it, can. Everyone can sync documents and work on them all within the cloud, allowing anyone else access to the same documents. This increases collaboration allowing no limit to how much your business can grow.

Anywhere is Your Office

As long as you have internet access, work is possible from anywhere. Not only does this positively affect how quickly accessible anyone can be, but workers’ life-balance and productivity will increase as well.

Document Control

Companies without a cloud are subjected to the grueling process of forwarding e-mails back and forth, waiting for servers to update, and several other things that are completely avoidable. With a cloud, multiple people can work on a file at a time in several formats. All the documents are in one location and everyone working can communicate with each other effectively. This increases productivity, communication, and efficiency for your business.

Security

There are endless security benefits to having a cloud. No matter what happens to any of the computers in your business, nothing is ever lost in the cloud. Protection through the cloud allows for maximum security; even if someone could access your company’s physical computer, they’d need cloud information.

Cloud computing does more than just increase profits. With maximum security, increased collaboration and communication, your business will be able to meet the demands of your ever-growing business. Put yourself ahead of your competitors with a cloud computing service to handle any and every problem that may come your way.

A Brief History of Cloud Computing

When you think of cloud computing, you may think of 21st-century ideas and technology. This recent article answers the question, “What exactly is this nebulous concept?”

The short answer is that it’s somewhere at the other end of your internet connection – a place where you can access apps and services, and where your data can be stored securely.

However, the concept of cloud computing has a long history that began as early as the 1950’s and 1960’s.

Understanding the history of cloud computing helps see how those early concepts made it what it is today.

The 50s

Massive mainframe computers came into being in the 50’s and were used in schools, large corporations, and even government organizations. Due to the size and expense of owning one of these machines, companies needed a solution to allow more than one user access. Creating “dumb terminals” so multiple people could access the giant mainframe computer was the beginning of modern-day virtualization, thus the beginning of cloud computing.

The 70s

As technology improved in the 70’s and mainframes became a thing of the past, people were able to have their own distinct computers, but still be connected via a network. This sharing of some of the resources while still being able to have each machine contain its own memory and processor were introduced by IBM as an operating system called VM. This took the idea of accessing a mainframe to a new level and allowed more than one computing environment to reside in one physical environment.

The 90s

The next big leap in cloud computing came in the 1990’s. With the commercialization of the internet, the average user was able to manage and use services online. As computers became more affordable for the average user, more and more people began having computers in their homes, though it wasn’t until the mid 90’s that technology advanced enough and became affordable enough for the masses. With sufficient bandwidth finally available, companies were finally able to connect their employees.

Y2K

The year 1999 saw many milestones, one of which was the introduction of the concept of enterprise applications via the web. In 2002, Amazon began providing several cloud-based services and by 2006 offered the first widely accessible cloud computing infrastructure. Cloud computing evolved quickly from grid computing to utility computing, to SaaS and finally to cloud computing. By 2009, with the introduction of web 2.0, Google and other companies began to introduce browser-based cloud applications.

Today

Cloud computing as it is today offers environments for companies that allow them to effectively employ their own clouds, either private or hybrid. They no longer rely on public clouds and are able to increase overall performance. IT teams now have increased visibility to the back-end of their system. Cloud computing has seen huge changes throughout history and will continue to evolve.

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Types of Cloud Computing

As society transitions into the age of technology, cloud computing is gaining traction as one of the number one ways to do business on the internet. While there are several benefits such as disaster recovery, document control, and security, it’s important to know the different types of cloud computing to see which one will work best for your business.

According to this article, in order to truly understand how the Cloud can be of value to an organization, it is first important to understand what the Cloud really is and its different components.

The Internet, along with its various processes, is filled with technical terms and instructions that are hard to understand.

We’ve broken down the types of cloud computing for you to decide what you would like to try

First, let’s establish a definition for cloud computing: what is it? It’s basically computing based on the internet. Files are shared, stored, and edited over the internet for various people to access.

There are 4 main clouds that are classified based on location, that are further classified as you will soon see. These four are public, private, hybrid, and community clouds. Let’s take a look at these a little closer to understand what they are all about.

Public

In the public cloud, the host of the cloud has primary control over it. This cloud is shared between organizations, and the customer has no control over it.

Private

This private cloud is dedicated to a particular organization or host and isn’t shared amongst other organizations as opposed to the Public cloud. While private clouds are more expensive, they offer more security in comparison to Public clouds. There are two types of Private clouds:

On-premise: This is also known as an “internal cloud”. It provides protection, but is limited in size and scalability. On-premise private clouds are best used for processes that require complete control and configurability of the infrastructure and security.
Externally hosted: These types of Private clouds are used exclusively by one organizations. One difference between this Private cloud and a Public cloud is that it is hosted by a third-party that specializes in cloud infrastructure. They are cheaper than on-premise private clouds.

Hybrid

As you can probably guess, this type of cloud is a cross between Public and Private clouds. Critical applications that require maximum security will be hosted on Private clouds while less security concerned applications will be on the Public cloud. This can also be called “Cloud Bursting”. For companies that handle a large computing requirement, this can ensure things run smoothly. The organization will use their own computing infrastructure for normal usage and the cloud will handle higher loading requirements.

Community

This type of cloud includes computing infrastructure that is shared between organizations of the same community. To clarify this point, think of all the government organizations in the state of Florida. They may share a computing infrastructure on the cloud to manage data related to citizens residing in Florida.

Consider the size of your business, the traffic is acquires, and the biggest problems you would like to avoid when handling company information. Do you need maximum security? Do you share an infrastructure with multiple organizations? Incorporating the cloud into your business with maximize efficiency, as well as profits.

For more information about the cloud, or how to incorporate the cloud, contact us today.

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Cloud-Based IT Support: 3 Reasons Why Your Business is Ready

You Want Mobility

Do you and your staff find it challenging to conduct business when traveling or working from home? Requesting specific files or other resources may take longer than expected when they are only available on one computer in the office. What if a specific file is sitting on an employee’s computer and they are on vacation? Cloud computing lets you and your staff have access to your business data from any internet connected device.

You Want to Reduce IT Costs

The maintenance costs involved with maintaining an in-house IT data center can increase quickly. Hardware replacements and software upgrades add up fast. Utility costs can also fluctuate. Your IT department can evolve into one of your largest monthly expenses. A cloud-based solution eliminates a significant amount of maintenance costs. With cloud computing, you can expect a fixed monthly cost regardless of how much IT support you have used in a month.

You Want to Upgrade Your Technology

Has upgrading your hardware and software been placed on the back-burner for too long? If so, your business if probably relying on outdated technology. This could lead to security issues and equipment failure. Moving to the cloud helps to ensure you and your staff have access to the latest technology. Your service provider will handle the purchasing and maintenance of all hardware and software. They are also responsible for security so you can rest assured that your company data is secure 24 hours a day.

If you are ready to increase your workflow and boost your productivity, cloud computing is a cost-effective solution for any size business.

Contact us today to learn more. Our cloud-based solutions will enable your company to operate from any desktop, tablet or device from anywhere in the world.

How to Use Cloud Computing

Cloud computing gives you access to vast amounts of data and has been credited with increasing the range of services that businesses can offer with greater flexibility and optimum use of IT resources.

According to this article, in the simplest terms, cloud computing means storing and accessing data and programs over the Internet instead of your computer’s hard drive.

There are many ways to use cloud computing to enhance the ability of companies to meet their business goals.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Instead of investing in massive hardware servers, a business can choose to load their software onto virtual servers (i.e., infrastructure) which act like your own servers but exist in the cloud (distributed over remote physical servers). Virtual infrastructure can give you nearly limitless storage and can be completely scalable as your needs grow.

Moreover, instead of purchasing your software, a business can choose software (i.e., platforms) in the cloud on virtual servers that can run on PCs in the office but can utilize much greater resources than the PC can provide.

Private and Hybrid Clouds

If your organization needs maximum flexibility, you can make us of a private cloud. These private clouds are really reserved space for your company’s own individual use on a system of remote servers accessed through a network like the internet. Private clouds can run on your own proprietary software. You may choose a hybrid cloud option as well, where some less demanding operations are run on a public cloud (shared servers) and more demanding operations are run on a private cloud.

Testing and Development

If your company is developing infrastructure, use of the cloud may be the best test and development environment. The cloud can give you large-scale computing power before having to invest in the physical assets, manpower and time to create your own server system. Cloud computing can tailor environments for your requirements as you need capacity.

Big Data Analytics

Retailers and suppliers are now extracting massive information from millions of consumers’ buying patterns. This helps them target their advertising or to provide more complete customer services. Furthermore, social networks are supplying vast raw material for analysis of behavior patterns that organizations are using to develop products and derive meaningful information. Then, the cloud provides the potential to collect and store these enormous data-bases.

File Storage

Similarly, the cloud can offer the possibility of storing all your working files. Additionally, without having to invest in enormous equipment expenditure. Storage expansion on the cloud costs much less that equivalent storage expansion on your own equipment.

Backup and Disaster Recovery

Cloud storage is a widely used solution for data backup and recovery in case of disaster. Using cloud storage means that your entire business system can be duplicated off-site. That way it can be recovered in the event of damage to physical equipment on your site. Also, Cloud backup offers the additional advantage of being secure and off-site. Your files will be backed up even if there is damage to your physical facility.

4 Corner can offer complete IT support from its offices in Fort Lauderdale, Miami and New York.

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