Computing is for the birds or at least the clouds....

Have you ever used facebook?  What about iTunes?  These are just a couple of things you deal with on a daily basis that utilize a form of cloud computing.  Facebook uses servers in data centers to process and store all of our data that we can access at anytime. iTunes uses another form of cloud computing in which you might be familiar with, or at least the name of its cloud network the iCloud.  The iCloud helps save storage on your personal devices by being able to access but not have to store all of the information on your devices. You can pull from iCloud to multiple devices. Cloud computing allows the user to not have to be concerned with having crazy amounts of storage space on their phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop.  So what is Cloud Computing?

The National Institute of Standards and Technology's definition of cloud computing is:
"Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources"

What does this mean you ask?
In the simplest form, cloud computing is a way to access, store, and process data and applications on a non local server over the internet.  Really we have the ability to access to all that you could ever want or need, and all you have to have is an internet connection.   

Why is cloud computing important?
For me it saves alot of  memory space on my personal devices and I dont have to worry about connecting each of them one at a time.  Moreover I am very busy so having access to music, email or facebook on the go is nice because I can access all of these from just my phone. 

Do you think its important in your daily life?
http://www.nist.gov/itl/cloud/index.cfm"

Cloud Computing? Who uses that?

Many of us use it.  We utilize it in most of our day to day activities.  Do you ever use web based email?  Do you check or update statuses on Facebook?  What about using iCloud for your music?  These are just a few examples but all of these use cloud computing.     

Not to long ago data for companies and businesses had to be stored in house on servers.  If the servers were acting up or went down then the business wouldn't have access or be able to retrieve the data.  Cloud computing changed and revolutionized that process.  Some companies are using private clouds and some are trusting in public clouds.  Cloud computing allows for companies to retrieve and process data at a much faster speed.  Moreover cloud computing is much more reliable.  If someone tries to access the information from a cloud network, they will have access to multiple servers because the companies data is duplicated across a group of servers.  This creates a more dependable process so business doesn't have to slow down. 

Cloud computing is changing technology and allowing our personal or business data storage systems to become smaller and smaller.  With the growing need for access to data and applications in business many companies are investing a third of their IT budget into cloud computing.  Many companies believe that everything will move to cloud computing over the next few years, because it can be utilized for conferencing, web based email, and data storage.

In essence our world will soon use cloud computing for everything.  What could be next?  Will we eventually not ever have to have a CPU at all?  Will we not have to come in contact with anyone?  Will we never have to have books again? 
 
http://www.forbes.com/sites/joemckendrick/2012/04/11/more-than-one-third-of-it-budgets-now-spent-on-cloud-survey/