Are you on 'cloud'9 ??

It was just a few years, the current tech buzzing word 'CLOUD' blossomed.

Larry Ellison, CEO Oracle, said computing industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven. Even Apple, Inc - not often a follower of industry fashion got into the act. So, does that mean computing industry is seriously on a 'paradigm-shift'?

There are also technologists who argue that cloud computing is essentially an old wine in a new bottle and the big companies are fueling the hype.
As a player in this technology world; are we aware of the present 'cloud computing' trend and its importance?

If your answer is NO.....

then here is my blog which I hope would give you some understanding on 'cloud computing' and also the value it brings in. Let me put my blog as simple as possible.
As I said in my previous blog, 'Experience is the only lesson to learn something in your life'; I learned many good points when interacting with people around me. Here is one point I would like to share with you:

"Questioning empowers your learning". An excerise that is worth to do.
lets start questioning.... ;)

Here are the initial questions we have before us:
1. Whats cloud computing?
2. Whats the architecture of cloud computing? What does it comprise of? Who are the current players?
3. Any reasons why is industry turning towards cloud computing?
4. Offerings of cloud computing?
5. What are the benefits and the challeneges of cloud computing?

If we go with the standard definitions...
Cloud computing provides dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources as a service over the Internet. It is the next generation computing model that allows organizations small to large to tap into a network of compute power, storage and bandwidth resources as needed to suit their businesses.

Oops..technical jargons??....nothing complex [:)],
Its just pool of interconnected IT resources ready to share their computing power over the
web. IT resources can be storage, database, processing power, software services etc.
And these resource can be brought up/used anywhere, anytime on-demand

Understanding the cloud architecture..
It consists of two divisions, front-end and back-end.
a. Front-end includes the client's computer (or computer network) and the application required to access the cloud computing system. Not all cloud computing systems have the same user interface. Services like Web-based e-mail programs leverage existing Web browsers like Internet Explorer or Firefox. Other systems have unique applications that provide network access to clients.
b. On the back end of the system are the various computers, servers and data storage systems that create the "cloud" of computing services.

In theory, a cloud computing system could include practically any computer program you can imagine, from data processing to video games. Usually, each application will have its own dedicated server.

Current leading cloud vendors in market are:
Amazon, Microsoft, salesforce.com, IBM etc.

Knowing the services offered by cloud computing. These are provided by cloud vendors:
a. Infrastructure-as-a-service
Its just like Amazon Web Services provides virtual servers with unique IP addresses and blocks of storage on demand. Customers benefit from an API from which they can control their servers. Because customers can pay for exactly the amount of service they use, like for electricity or water, this service is also called utility computing.
b. Platform-as-a-service
It is a set of software and development tools hosted on the provider's servers. Developers can create applications using the provider's APIs. Google Apps is one of the most famous Platform-as-a-Service providers.
c. Software-as-a-service
'SaaS' is the broadest market. In this case the provider allows the customer only to use its applications. The software interacts with the user through a user interface. These applications can be anything from web based email, to applications like Twitter etc.

If you ask me about why industry is moving towards 'cloud computing', I would say
the benefits its actually providing us. I hope you agree with below statement:
Who the hell in this world would prefer a solution if it is not going to save some pennies for them? Yeah, cloud computing actually saves much of the infrastructure cost. It facilitates us on-demand pay-per-usage model. You will be charged based on the amount of resources and the time you are going to use.

I also see this would help many of the start-up companies to save and grow more.
why late? start a company. Go to a cloud vendor, buy for required computing power, storage, softwares. Dont we see this as an opportunity? :)
Cloud computing actually helps in fast provisioning and de-provisioning your services.

And its not complex. Sharing of such resources on a cloud actually helps us improve resource utilization upto the capacity. Even, complexity of maintenance is simplified.
I would say there are some more such benefits which i have named few out of those.

And last coming to the challenges of cloud computing,
Cloud computing has great concern with security and privacy of users data.
That's the reason banks and financial institutions are not ready to accept solutions
running on cloud.

Although most of the software services industry has dependency on
such banking/finance markets, I would still say other companies should start adopting to 'cloud computing'.