Wanderjahre Computing - Cloud Applications

What is "The Cloud?"

You don't have to spend much time on the internet before the term "cloud computing" or "the cloud" crops up.

Right now (March 2011) Microsoft, always happy to jump on any passing bandwagon, are touting "the cloud" as a feature of their latest iteration of Windows, Win 7. Although in fact, no one operating system can lay claim to being more cloud friendly than any other and users of Linux and Apple OS will feel reassured that they too will be able to go "to the cloud!"

So what is this cloud? Essentially the cloud is set of applications or programmes which can be accessed using your browser rather than downloading or installing a client application and running the programme through that. The choice of browser is largely irrelevant and cloud application should work quite happily with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari Opera or any other well supported browser.

To non-geeks the cloud may not seem all that special but cloud computing offers a whole new business model and a completely different way of providing software. To the user the advantages may not initially seem that obvious but behind the scenes much is going on.

Constant Beta. In Beta the application being used is never finished its always one stage before final release. A constant Beta development. This may not sound good but it means that the application is undergoing permanent updating. As the user you will have an application at the other end of your keyboard which is always the latest and best that the developer has to offer.

From a business point of view you have what the developers call scalablity, its just as easy to roll out the application for 1 user or a 1000 users. There is no need to install the application on your computer, all you need is a browser and a reasonably powerful computer.

What are "cloud applications" Practically any application which produces some form of permanent outcome can be described as "cloud"; blogs, Flickr, Gmail, Grooveshark, Prezi and Facebook are all examples of cloud applications and because the application is held on a remote server the applications are accessible not only from your own machine but from any computer using either a simple URL or more often than not a registration/login process.

If you are a fan of Gmail and its integrated services any PC will let you check your emails, your calendar, upload and download Google documents or edit the same online. The not so good stuff. Users of cloud services will quickly come to realise the advantages and disadvantages of the system. Cloud computing needs a decent PC with plenty of processing power for many of the services.

Although something like Gmail will seemingly work with any machine, image editing applications will become very unhappy if they are not given plenty of RAM, a decent video card, modern processor and above all a fast connection to the internet. For many people one or more of these is simply not an option - for many decent internet speeds are still a dream and in some rural areas users still have speeds we associate with good old fashioned modems!

I'll be posting more information about cloud applications on the site. Check out the "Most read" to see what other people are looking at. Happy reading!