Grand Central

# re: Does Cloud Computing do anything new?

Hey Adam!

Great point actually.
I like the way some people take the time to try to understand something better instead of just add the term into their lives not really getting what it's all about.

And honestly, what is anything about if we can't apply its concept into our reality? in a way that makes sense for us?

In a way, I agree with you: most of it just got in a massive level and that's why it's been such a big deal. There are more options and more buzz around it.

But it was only possible to get this popular because users actually see advantage on it: the big thing about Cloud Computing is to have "Everything-as-a-service" and this is quite of change, when you get more and more people developing apps that, before, you'd have to pay to have access to, download, install it.

Now they're many available and ready to use!
Also, even though online storage was already available before, it was never taken this serious: companies are considering to keep their massive date in the cloud - which demands great connection structure and security, to say the least.

So because of it, all the interacting areas are also growing and evolving to keep the idea of being in the cloud as safe and viable as possible.

For us, it's time to finally appreciate some great tools to make routine easier.

I invite to take a look at icloud and let me know your impressions of it.

Maisa. 11/21/2008 6:18 AM | Maisa

# re: Does Cloud Computing do anything new?

Essentially, the cloud is having someone else manage your application's hardware infrastructure through a service they host.

If we're talking about huge volumes of data, then we're talking about setting up, managing and operating upon different aspects such as subnets, RAID arrays, UPS and backup mechanisms, power supplies, firewalls, networks, user administration, security etc. There is a lot of upfront and overhead costs for getting this kind of infrastructure up. Racks are really complicated and expensive to set up and manage. Consider a startup that would need to store or operate on huge volumes of data and they would bust a lot of time, energy, man power and setup costs just to get this up and running. So much of their VC money would be busted on these kinds of setup costs. This would be even true for large companies that would have such tasks to worry about.

It's for these kinds of scenarios that cloud computing presents itself as a solution. 11/21/2008 3:55 PM | George P. Alexander Jr.

# re: Does Cloud Computing do anything new?

I completely agree! That was what i was talking about in my previous blog post. Cloud Computing levels the playing field and is going to act as a great enabler for startups, particularly those who wants to play in the internet services space.

That being said, Azure, and cloud computing generally, are really taking existing technologies and leveling the playing field for everyone else. It is in that sense that i asked "What does cloud computing do that we couldn't do before?" The difference is that prior to the cloud computing movement only a few companies had the capability to perform on the scale that cloud computing is meant to off to everyone. 11/21/2008 5:06 PM | Adam Schepis