In my daily business activities, I receive many questions on cloud computing. One of our subsidiaries http://www.niuhi.com is a hosting company so this subject is very dear to me. As a hosting company we have to always be on the cutting edge, but with cloud computing it becomes more difficult for a custom technology provider to implement.
Cloud computing essentially is utilizing the resources of a large enterprise computing environment which sub leases their resources for use. Imagine a huge corporate skyscraper where you can lease out a floor, you can use the restrooms, elevators, parking garage and other resources. Imagine if you could use this environment remotely. This essentially is cloud based computing.
There are upsides and downsides to utilizing this type of service:
Pros: Practically unlimited resources, no limit on growth, highly stable and secure environment
Cons: High cost, needs more technical know-how, potential security issues
The computing environment of cloud based computing providers is based on virtual computing. An operating system can spam many computing devices which provides for hardware redundancy and practically unlimited growth. And these computing environments are in huge highly secured data centers the same that these providers use for their own businesses. Some of these providers are ones you already know such as Amazon and Google.
These solutions though can cost much more than a privately owned solution for a computing environment that requires a great amount of resources. As cloud based computing is a new technology, it also requires developers with knowledge of how to correctly utilize these environments. One of the biggest issues is security, not physical security but control. Though these companies are extremely large and have a small chance that they will not be around, do you want you’re important data at these third party companies in the event that they do leave this business? What if you are in competition with these businesses are you 100% sure that they are not going to take a look at your solution or customers?
Though a great technology with many uses, utilizing a cloud based computing environment is a case by case basis for implementation. Small projects and extremely large solutions will require much analysis to determine if a cloud environment provides a proper ROI and security.
