Everything You Want to Know About Cloud Computing!

Alot of people agree that cloud computing is the future. We have seen a huge increase in cloud talk lately. Microsoft announced their "Cloud OS", "Microsoft Cloud" the final name is to be released in a few weeks at their dev conference. Google has had us cloud computing for a while, whether you knew it or not. Gmail, Google Docs, Google Reader, just about anything Google offers except sketch-up and chrome. Although chrome supports their cloud pretty well, maybe like an OS?

So we have all these clouds floating over our heads. There are tons more down the road were just getting into this next step in tech. Amazon has there cloud floating around, Microsoft is on the way, Goggles money cloud has been up there a while. What do I use? Will all cloud document's work together? Are the company's reading my documents when I save them on there server? What if the server is down?! What if all the clouds explode? AHHH!!!

A little overwhelming I know, Have no fear! I have been reading up, taking note and trying to myth bust and support the cloud! Allot of people in the business are still opposed to cloud computing. Putting there data on a company's server is most of the argument. I agree with this argument to a certain extent. If its something you wouldn't want anyone to know ever. Cloud computing isn't the place for that information. Some people act like everything they touch should never be seen by anyone but them ever! Not that anyone at Google would look at it, chances are they wont. There is always that off chance of a corrupt worker that grabs a million or so documents and then leaves. Or the idea that Google was only created to watch everything we do!

So my first tip for cloud computing, Tax information, anything personal, I would back up on hardware. Cloud computing is not meant to replace everything we know about computing. Allot of people say it will replace installing application's on our machines and go fully to the web. Even more so now that Google apps have offline support. If this is the future it won't happen very soon and even if it does, no one is coming over to take your applications away so deal with that information the same way you do now.

Downtime, This is a big issue on the subject. Goggles Gmail had some outages. That's always brought up. Outages happen i didn't even experience the Gmail outage my Gmail has never not been available to me. Think about it there was an outage, but what's the state of your Gmail? Its the same. It comes back up you collect the mail you missed and all the old stuff is there. I would not fear downtime In a few hours, business goes back to normal.

What if the service's loose my work? This is unlikely but never say never. BACK UP! you back up your regular work so why not backup work done in the cloud. Never assume it will be there forever, It may only be there as long as the company or service is in business. With Google not sure if i would worry about money problems anytime soon. Cloud by cloud backing up could be a new concept. Back up on Google, and Microsoft! there is an idea, combine that with hardware and you've got a cheap raid 5 setup!

So to get on with my closing statement's here, Embrace the clouds but always make sure that data your putting up there is,

A. Not too personal

B. Also stored on more than the cloud, Hardware Pref.

C. Have a good time and don't sweat the scary cloud myths that float around.

I have prepared you for the worst. It's not even that hard!

To those who are still like what good is cloud computing then? The idea in my opinion is that it is made so that you can log in and access everything in your daily work flow from any browser. Say your at a conference and you just got there, Your supposed to be speaking in three hours but you forgot your speech! No fear you saved it on a cloud computing service, Just grab your laptop or net book and give it a quick download and or print. Wasn't that easy?