WHAT IS THE CLOUD?

• The cloud or "cloud computing" is the delivery of computing services; servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and more over the Internet (“the cloud”). Companies offering these computing services are called cloud providers and typically charge for cloud computing services based on usage, similar to how you’re billed for water or electricity at home.

ADVANTAGES

The main advantages why is cloud computing so popular could be  for some common reasons such as: ·         Cost Cloud computing eliminates the capital expense of buying hardware and software and setting up and running on-site datacenters. ·         Speed Most cloud computing services are provided self service and on demand, so even vast amounts of computing resources can be provisioned in minutes, typically with just a few mouse clicks. ·         Global scale The benefits of cloud computing services include the ability to scale elastically. In cloud speak, that means delivering the right amount of IT resources. ·         Productivity On-site datacenters typically require a lot of “racking and stacking” hardware set up, software patching, and other time-consuming IT management chores. Cloud computing removes the need for many of these tasks. ·         Performance The biggest cloud computing services run on a worldwide network of secure datacenters, which are regularly upgraded to the latest generation of fast and efficient computing hardware. This offers several benefits over a single corporate datacenter. ·         Reliability Cloud computing makes data backup, disaster recovery, and business continuity easier and less expensive, because data can be mirrored at multiple redundant sites on the cloud provider’s network. DISADVANTAGES Downtime The clients can become overwhelmed and may even come up against technical outages. This can lead to your business processes being temporarily suspended. Additionally, if your internet connection is offline, you will not be able to access any of your applications, server or data from the cloud. Security Although cloud service providers implement the best security standards and industry certifications, storing data and important files on external service providers always opens up risks. Using cloud-powered technologies means you need to provide your service provider with access to important business data. Meanwhile, being a public service opens up cloud service providers to security challenges on a routine basis. Vendor Lock-In Although cloud service providers promise that the cloud will be flexible to use and integrate, switching cloud services is something that hasn’t yet completely evolved. Organizations may find it difficult to migrate their services from one vendor to another. Hosting and integrating current cloud applications on another platform may throw up interoperability and support issues. Limited Control Since the cloud infrastructure is entirely owned, managed and monitored by the service provider, it transfers minimal control over to the customer. The customer can only control and manage the applications, data and services operated on top of that, not the backend infrastructure itself. TAKING EVERYTHING INTO CONSIDERATION, it is easy to see how the advantages of cloud computing easily outweigh the drawbacks. Decreased costs, reduced downtime, and less management effort are benefits that speak for themselves. CLOUD UTILITIES The list of the cloud utilities that I use everyday are: Storage, backing up, and recovery of data Host websites and blogs Stream audio and video Apart from this, it is very useful in my everyday routine due to the easy access to all my documents from any computer or smartphone. Moreover, I can work with people sharing documents that improves the quality of work at any time. LINKS Here, there are some links that I visited to search information: http://www.levelcloud.net/2014/12/how-to-choose-a-cloud-service-provider/ http://www.levelcloud.net/2014/11/moving-to-the-cloud-great-equalizer/ https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/support/trust-center/security/ CONCLUSION ABOUT USES OF CLOUD COMPUTING In my opinion, the Cloud is very useful in my everyday life. Normally, I use dropbox to share files and photos with peers and family. Thanks to this, I have a copy of them in all my devices.