Cloud Computing

One of the actual trends is “Cloud Computing”. There is no definition for “Cloud Computing” but many tries to define it. Wikipedia says “Cloud computing is an example of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet” whereas Forrester describes “Cloud Computing” as a pool of high scalable and managed IT-infrastructure which holds applications for customers and charges it for usage.
Saugatuck Technology explains that Cloud Computing includes on-demand-infrastructure (computers, storage, networks), on-demand software (OS, Applications, Middleware, Management- and Development tools) that can be allocated dynamically to the needs of business processes. Saugatuck points out that it is possible to create and manage complete business process within the cloud.



This sounds a bit difficult and not understandable. One of the most common cloud-application might be Gmail. Gmail is Google’s Email service. Google offers the Gmail address as well as the application to read and write emails on gmail.com.
When you use several computers, like most of the student do, you will realize that it is a convenient way to have access to the personal mails and attachments during your daily work. You can log-on on every internet-connected computer and use this service.
Comparable to Gmail you realize that Google Docs is another cloud-application that even allows collaborating on documents.

You can realize the impact of cloud-computing to the market when you see that even Microsoft is developing MS Office Live, as a cloud-application.
Firms think about moving their applications from their servers into the cloud. This is the reason why SAP develops a cloud-application, based on their SAP IDES 6.0. The benefits of the software are the same as the local software, you don’t have to care for the servers and therefore you can save money for IT Infrastructure as well as for manpower. The costs of this software depend on the usage of the software: You will be charged for working hours on the systems. When you don’t work, you don’t have to pay.

The Swiss Federal Office of Informatics and Telecommunications evaluated the SAP IDES 6.0-application. The cloud-application was configured within some hours, whereas establishing the configuration for a local installation usually takes up to a month. They tested it for 12 project days. The costs were at 8700 Swiss Franks (around $8500) including initial costs, usage and supply costs. Usually you have to spend more than $8500 for the IT infrastructure, without the software.

These examples show the advantages of cloud-computing. Like usually, there is a second side of this technology. By using the cloud-services, you are dependent to the supplier. If they have problems with providing their service, you can access your files or application. Gmail user might have recognized this problem when Google’s service has not worked for half a day.
Another important thing to consider is that you transfer private or business data to servers, located somewhere, and connected via the Internet. You don’t know whether someone listens to the data on the way to the server or cracks the server and gathers this sensitive data this way. There is a risk that company or private data get public or, due to data loss on the providers’ servers, or even get lost.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_client