Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is the way of using computing resource to provide services over a network. It is more frequently used in business environment in recent decades. There is a trend of shifting from traditional application with software and hardware which are completed and expensive to manage, to an internet platform which helps business to reinforce their business models and improve the business operation systems. For employees, cloud computing can help them to have a better communication and share their resources in a more efficient way. It provides the advantage to business operators to reduce IT operational costs by outsourcing hardware and software maintenance and support to the cloud provider. The cloud-based application can store business software and user’s database in servers through a web browser or mobile application. In Apple’s mobile app, iCloud can be seen as a way of cloud computing in our normal life.

There is an example in the business environment that many companies encourage their employees to use Google apps in the process of working in different teams, with different customers and suppliers. In that way, it is easier and cheaper for them to share information, report documents and store database. Last year, Google introduce the Google Drive which is quite similar with Dropbox for business purpose. The reason why some businesses only take small steps in cloud computing area by using some simple and lower priority applications such as storage and server capacity is that, they want to make sure that it is a strong platform for business use. Also there is a concern of the security and reliability of cloud based service. In some countries, the ability to comply with the regulation will be another challenge to both provider of cloud computing capacity and service users.