You hear a lot today about doing business “in the cloud”. So, apart from being some amorphous internet method of maybe doing things, what is it and how can it benefit you? Over the coming weeks, we’ll explore that and more.
First, a definition: Simply put, “the cloud” can be either owned by you or some other company and normally refers to a group of computer (whether they be desktops or servers) that share resources like disk space, processing power or memory. It can be manipulated to run the programs or tasks that apply to your business. Probably one of the most wide-spread uses of this, and earliest, was (and is) web page hosting, which is conceptually a good example.
Back years ago, Microsoft planned on rolling out a version of Office that was hosted online. There was no software to install on your computer and your documents would be stored. This gave many people misgivings, myself included. I, like many, wanted personal control over my software and documents, knowing what it was installed on and where everything was located. At that time, for whatever reason (whether it was wide-spread objection like mine or the ability to make it happen), Microsoft killed it.
Now, there are a plethora of applications and services to take advantage of. The security aspect is still there, but we’ll look at that later. Right now, the big question is what is there and how does it benefit me? We’ll focus on some basic concepts you’ve probably dealt with at one time or another in your business career.
Stop back on Wednesday for the next part!
If you can’t wait to find out more or for a free technology consultation, contact me!
Aaron Schlagel
Phone: 505-692-4953
Email: info@s2consulting.net
Web: www.s2consulting.net