Cloud Computing is the next stage in the evolution of enterprise computing.
By delivering everything from computing power, infrastructure and applications, through to business processes and collaboration as a service over the Internet, it can offer comprehensive and powerful capabilities to your business whenever and wherever you need it.
Cloud computing can completely change the way companies use technology to service customers, partners, and suppliers. Some businesses, such as Google and Amazon, already have most of their IT resources in the cloud, which has enabled them to eliminate much of the space, time, power, and cost constraints of the traditional computing environment.
The “Cloud” can be defined as the set of hardware, networks, storage, services, and interfaces that combine to provide these services, either as separate components or as a complete platform, within a public, private or hybrid cloud, according to your organisation’s needs.
What is attracting enterprise businesses to move to the cloud?
Cloud computing has four essential characteristics:
- elasticity and the ability to scale up and down
- self-service provisioning and automatic de-provisioning
- centralised application programming interfaces (APIs)
- Subscription- based billing and metering of service usage
Who are the key participants in the world of cloud computing?
- The end user, who has no interest in, or knowledge, of the underlying technology.
- The business manager, who is responsible for the governance of enterprise data and services living in a cloud.
- The cloud service provider, who is responsible for IT assets and maintenance and for providing a predictable and guaranteed service and security level to all users.
