The latest trend in the world of computers is cloud computing.  This is thought to be the computing standard for the near future.  Already cloud computing and the associative services have received huge thrust from different sectors including consumers and entrepreneurs.  At present a large number of companies deliver a wide range of cloud computing services.  The consumer base is also alluring for investors and entrepreneurs.  Large and influential software development companies are actively developing and promoting cloud based software / applications and operating systems. 

Internet is central to cloud computing

IT professionals use the word “cloud” to refer to the internet.  Therefore, cloud computing refers to the computing activities and processing that are done online over the internet. In a cloud based computing environment, every task or process is performed by a central server that is set online and maintained by the respective provider   of the cloud based service. The subscribers of cloud based services log on to those online servers and get their jobs done by the processing power of that giant online server. From word processing and spreadsheets to enterprise resource planning, every piece of useful software is being replaced by the equivalent cloud based services. 

The superiority of cloud computing over traditional computing 

Cloud computing comes with a number of features that are so beneficial that people and industries are increasingly becoming attracted to this particular kind of computing standard.  The user base of cloud computing is increasing day by day. Naturally a question comes to mind, “What is so beneficial about cloud computing?”

The benefits of cloud computing are as a result of its distinguishing features.  The features of cloud computing include scalability, economies of scale, load balancing, sharing of high involvement computing instruments, and low requirement for owning hardware and software etc. All these features together have made cloud computing immensely cost efficient, which is one of the main attractions of it.

Scalability refers to the facility of scaling the desired level of service on demand.  The subscribers of cloud computing can purchase a particular number of units of any service and upon requirement they can order an additional number of units of the same service. For example, an online shopping portal, which generally observes 500 visitors daily, may find 1,000 visors during the Christmas holidays. That shopping portal, using cloud infrastructures can buy the additional processor speed required for serving 500 customers and during the holidays can simply request for additional processing power from the respective cloud hosting company. This scalability feature results in lower operational costs.

The cost efficiency of cloud computing actually originates from the economies of scale. A large number of subscribers use the centralized infrastructure including the hardware and software; this sharing of centralized resources by multiple parties causes the cost to come down to a considerably lower level. 

Privacy or secrecy of data

There is a growing concern about the privacy or secrecy of data that is kept on shared databases by different subscribers to cloud services. Sharing of a single instrument by multiple parties may result in theft of data by a peer or non authorized party. 

IT experts are working to eliminate any minor flaws, including the privacy concerns, associated with cloud computing.  Therefore, we can hope for a flawless cloud computing platform in the near future.