Everyone now is talking about it. You hear about it on the news. And when you see some new great computer or laptop being advertised, somewhere in the ad you will here the term. The term is Cloud Computing. But what exactly is it?
To be honest with you, everyone is basically using that method right now without even knowing it. When you turn on your computer, open up MS Office and load Outlook to check your email. Then you minimize that, get on Facebook to connect to all your buddies. You open another tab, connect to Linkdin to network with your work contacts and see if that big job your waiting for has opened up, you are in a sense Cloud Computing. For all intents and purposes Cloud Computing is connecting to a myriad of networks and programs through the Internet. But since people love to use buzz-words and add new acronyms to things Could Computing was born. And now with the coming advent of Google's Chrome OS, Could Computing will take center stage in what could be one of the most anticipated launches of an OS since Windows made the big leap from 3.1 to Windows 98! Remember that?
Google is taking advantage of this new buzz word because they are smart. Google has become Google for that simple reason. Some people think it is because their great search engine or their other great products, but basically Google is who they are because they are smart! They have a knack for releasing exactly what people need or want right when it is needed. And Could Computing is really no different. Like I said, we are already using this method right now. But Google's big brains have put a word on all this and added it to their new OS as if it was some great new app or something. And now that they have done that, the whole world will be grabbing a hold of this new way of doing things and giving Google all the credit. And in the end, it is Google FTW!
"So you still have not explained to me what Could Computing is."
"Really? I thought I did, oh well... ok.. I will try again."
Look, it is really simple. When you have the Internet that contains millions upon millions of servers. Each one running multiple apps and websites and anything else you can think of. And then you have mobile devices such as the current smartphone arena - Blackberry, Android (Google again.. hahah), etc.. Then you have the new thing.. the Tablet PC's (and everyone is jumping into this game too). Then don't forget all the laptops and notebooks. So here in this smorgasbord of technological devices that keep you connected to the world. All of these device rely upon the Internet if not for most of their applications, then at the very least for email and basically helping you to stay connected to people with general Internet browsing and social apps.
So when everything is connecting to the Internet, more and more developers are making applications and software platforms to rely on this connection to the 'net in order to fulfill their basic functions. So what you end up having is a complete connection to the net for every application you are running. And to take that one step further to the next obvious conclusion - just make all the applications (the your personal configuration, settings, documents, etc) run on the network. Now you have all your apps running on the net to the point where if you were to drop your laptop out of an airplane at 10,000 feet, you could grab another at the store, log into the "Cloud" and all of your applications and documents, emails, pictures, video, everything is instantly at your fingertips once again. Even though your laptop was disintegrated as it hit the ground in a blazing fireball from 10,000 feet! THAT is Cloud Computing. A bit extreme, but Cloud none-the-less.
So as you can see, we have been going this way for some time. I mean, most of the apps I use both at home and on my mobile device have some sort of link to the Internet. If not for the whole app, then some of the functions that the applications relies on are dependant on the Internet. So the Cloud has always been here. At least for the last couple of years. All it took was for one smart company to slap a name on it and put it all together.
