Cloud Computing: What It Was and What it Has Become

The phrase “follow the cloud” started popping up about ten years ago. Even though cloud computing technically started in the sixties, it didn’t really float (pun intended) until around fifteen years ago, when Google opened its doors, says Salesforce. And in the past few years, it has become the way to store and share files (at the very least), and now experts agree that it’s changing the whole computer industry.

2009: Questions and Doubts

Five years ago, Amazon and Google were the big kids on the block while other companies were slowly testing the waters. Skeptics doubted the cloud. Gartner asked: How can you upload as much data as you want to and pay as you go? Won’t the cloud just run out of room, thereby making it more expensive in the long run?

That wasn’t all businesses were worried about, however. Congress wanted to slow the Internet down, not speed it up “in case of war.”

Techtangerine posed a long list of questions including: What if your company was completely dependent on the cloud for its daily activities and the Internet was shut down? And your ISP—what if your ISP doesn’t want you using that enormous amount of bandwidth? And what about personal computers?

And what about privacy? Anybody could get into your files, not just hackers. For instance, Amazon (not telling anyone) deleted e-texts off of users’ Kindles in July of 2009. What if the Kindles had stored everything in the cloud? Nobody would have even known about it.

And what about the people that are pushing for the cloud? Companies are saying they are saving tons of money. Big businesses are showing everybody how to cut costs. Doesn’t it seem like a scam?

The Search engine optimisation company introduced cloud computing by renting storage to websites and businesses on huge computer servers. In April of 2010, Amazon had some technical problems that ended up causing companies like Hootsuite and Quora to completely crash and Reddit went into emergency read-only status. But some companies were unaffected, so no one knows the exact number of people and businesses that were affected. The experts said it was just a failed network connection.

Amazon was supposed to have everybody in individual groups so that if one went down, the others would stay up. But skeptics pointed to that day in April as being yet another suspicious problem about the cloud.

2014: What Do You Need?

The Internet hasn’t shut down, and the cloud hasn’t run out of room. The cloud has evolved into a huge virtual entity that we all use, and will be using more of.

There is the public and the private cloud. The public cloud is for the user that just needs a little storage, a few apps and very little else. The private cloud is for big enterprises that need complete control, tons of storage and better-than-great security. And there are people and businesses in the middle that the cloud is learning to adapt to. Yes, that’s right, the cloud is adapting to them, explains Enventis.

Skeptics had doubts about the storage capabilities, but no more, with the usage of virtual data rooms there is an infinite amount of storage available, so if you need unlimited storage, you can have it. If you need one gig of data, you can have that, too. It’s all about your needs.

So what do you really need from the cloud? Well, again, it depends on your circumstances. What kind of apps do you use? What kind of platform are you on? How large of a company are you? How much money do you have? What do you have planned for the future? There are cloud storage companies that will take care of any needs, and the prices are inexpensive—you just have to shop around. Services like Top 10 Cloud Storage were designed to help individuals and businesses decide what type of cloud service they need by comparing prices, space, services and customer reviews, just how phoenix web design was created to help those who don’t know much about marketing.

After all the debate over the last five years, there is no more backing up your data on CDs. You are no longer limited to 750 megabytes—a mere drop in the space bucket compared to what the cloud can store. Now, people like photographers and music enthusiasts can have all the space they need for their media, and never fear of losing it.

So, just as the experts predicted, the cloud has completely changed our computer lives forever.