I consider myself one of the few lucky people living on God’s earth today for the simple reason that I always get a chance to chat with people from all walks of life as part of my career, thereby putting me in a position to keep learning new things every day.
Last week, I had a chat with a passionate Information and Communications Technology consultant, who wants to see more small businesses succeed by taking advantage of all the technology tools available today, especially cloud technologies.
She said to me, “I can’t imagine how any small business today will not take advantage of the cloud. The cloud makes it cheaper and easier to manage and scale a business. Besides, small businesses can get a whole lot of value for a fraction of what it costs to buy and install physical equipment?”
I may have shared her points so simply but I wish you were there with us during that conversation. She was so passionate and vocal about her convictions. After that extremely fantastic chat, I decided to write about the cloud in a way that a layman would understand and particularly, how to stay safe while using cloud services.
When you hear of cloud computing, what comes to your mind? Is it something in the cloud up in the sky? I remember a true life story of a senior bank executive who quipped, “If we put our servers in the cloud, how do we deal with the elements? What becomes our lot when it rains?”
Jokes apart; the cloud is more or less a terminology that can simply be described as off-station or off-site. This is because cloud servers are still located in physical structures using a series of networked servers and equipment in order to cater for a large number of businesses and organisations across different geographical boundaries.
Businesses can choose to deploy applications on public, private, hybrid clouds or the newer community cloud.
Let me clearly state that I believe that cloud technologies are super awesome; in fact, they are the way to go. Back in the days, I used to worry a whole lot about the data on my personal computer or smartphone. What happens to my data if it gets missing? I don’t worry anymore; thanks to the cloud. Yes, I will be hurt if it gets missing because it will cost me to replace them, but I will lose little or no data.
So, yes; I agree with this ICT consultant that the cloud takes off quite some — Finish Reading on the Punch Website
