Helping You Understand Cloud Computing. What It means To Put Your Stuff In The Cloud

Just yesterday I was thinking about how there are some things I say during discussions with people that gives them a puzzled look and make them ask what they mean. Words I have burned into my working knowledge, that I hear everyday on the internet and I already feel everyone has good grasp of. 

Today I am going to take on one of such words. Actually two, but we can regard them as a compound word -- Cloud Computing. 

image: akita.co.uk

Maybe you've heard about cloud computing. Or the cloud, the one for tech guys. And wondered what exactly it is. Is it a company ICT thing? Is it a new technology for the hyper techy? Is it Dropbox? What really is it?

Cloud computing is simply accessing a computer or some functions of a computer in a far away special facility called datacenter right from the internet. So when you save a file in dropbox or google drive just the same way you would save it on your computer's hard drive, you are using the cloud. When you play music from Spotify or Soundcloud instead of from the music folder in your computer, you are using the cloud. And if you are very techy like me, you can have an entire computer set up in the cloud. In fact, I have two. I set up two computers on Microsoft cloud (called Microsoft Azure) and I install Microsoft Windows Server 2012 on them. On one, then I installed my Forex program on it so my robot application can trade for 24/7 as the computer in the cloud always has internet and it never shuts down. I also installed my Twitter automation software on it. Finally, I installed a HR demo software on it, that I use to demo the HR solution I now sell. And that's how same as a regular (touchable) computer the cloud computer is like.

A more familiar example is Facebook. Do you know where all your never ending pictures and posts you make on Facebook go? Well, they are stored in the cloud. Same thing with the videos you watch on YouTube. And the emails you send and receive. Everything is saved in the cloud. Cloud computing is as old as email itself, so it's not as new a technology as you think; it is just now much more popular, especially for replicating a computer. 

So know you know that you are already using the cloud. And when you comment on my blog, your comments are stored in the cloud. The cloud has always been around you and you've been using it long before you heard the term -- cloud computing.

I hope you now feel at ease with having your stuff in the cloud. As long as you've never seen YouTube crash or Facebook disappear, if you go with a reputable cloud provider, you stuff will be safer with them than in your laptop or external hard drive. The cloud is safe and not that new.