Cloud Computing

What is Cloud Computing and What are its Benefits?

As technology continues to evolve and advance, it's sometimes hard to keep up with all that technology has to offer. I know personally, that I feel overwhelmed even as a millennial when it comes to understanding certain abilities and features my phone and my computer have to offer. A very interesting and revolutionary feature with technology that has become increasingly popular over the past 10 years is cloud computing.


Image Source: Huff Post

"What is cloud computing?" Some of you may be asking. Well putting it simply, cloud computing is the delivery of computing services. But what are computing services and who's delivering them? Computing services come in a variety of different forms, these services can include: storage, software, servers, databases, and networking Website Source: Microsoft. What makes cloud computing so unique, is that all of these services are performed over the internet, which is referred to as the "cloud". Furthermore, these services are sold on a pay-for-use basis, which means the more you use the services, the more money you will have spend in order to receive all the benefits cloud computing has to offer. Although considering how advanced cloud computing sounds, cloud computing services are typically inexpensive which is a big advantage for those looking to use the service.


Image Source: Gloss

But what did individuals and companies do before cloud computing? In the past, people would run applications or programs from specific software downloaded on a physical device (typically a computer or server) in their building or home. When cloud computing was introduced, it allowed people to access the same types of applications through the use of the internet, which gave cloud computing the reputation of being much more time manageable, flexible, controllable and surprisingly, more environmentally friendly! Some may find this hard to believe, but when a cloud needs to fluctuate, the server capacity follows up and down to match the fluctuations. Therefore, the cloud only uses the energy you need and you don't leave over-sized carbon footprints as a result Website Source: Salesforce.


Image Source: imgur

One of the rather important benefits of cloud computing is the ability to store, back-up and recover data. Cloud computing helps millions of its users recover seemingly lost pictures, videos, data, research, and text conversations through the use of the data back-up ability Website Source: Huff Post. This is extremely helpful to mobile device users if they were to have their phone stolen, broken, or just simply lost. Cloud computing has the ability to restore and bring back data users may have thought were gone forever. If users did not have a cloud service active on their phone, their only other way to recover this lost data would be to constantly transfer it from their phone, to another less at-risk device, like their home computer or laptop.

Taking a look at the company Apple, they incorporated cloud computing to do exactly this. On the Apple website, they specify that their version of cloud computing which they trademarked as the famous iCloud, securely and safely stores their users photos, videos, documents, apps and more, while keeping each of those features updated across all Apple devices Website Source: Apple. If users wish to have more iCloud storage on their devices, they can simply purchase an additional 45 gigabytes (which is 9-times more than the standard amount!) for a rather inexpensive price of $1.29 per month Website Source: Apple.


Image Source: Gurl

Overall, cloud computing increases efficiency, helps to improve the security of data and information on all your devices, and a whole list of other benefits. It's hard to imagine life without the cloud in this technological world, as it continues to grow and become the new normal.