What if you were running a multi-billion dollar company and didn't have a need for computer servers? You would not have to pay high priced geeks to maintain them nor would you be burdened with buying (or developing) costly software that needs to be updated periodically. The cost benefits would be enormous.
That's not a fictional scenario. It is happening every day and is apt to become the dominant mode of operation in the near future. It's all done in The Cloud, of course. The biggest of them all is Amazon's AWS network. Microsoft's Azure is in second place and Google is a distant third place player in the Cloud game. The industry is growing fast and furiously and kind of reminds me of America's Big Three automobile manufacturers in terms of structure. Cloud Computing is an irreversible trend and eventually will filter down to us PC users.
The attached article is an interesting read about the three giants who want to control the world of cloud computing. The most amazing fact I got out of it is that there are times when Netflix can take up more than a third of all the internet traffic in America. That goes a long way to explain why clouds make sense.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2 ... he-future/
Servers Not Required`
Re: Servers Not Required`
Excellent article Yogi!
Even old die-hards like myself are beginning to use various Cloud services and programs.
I upped my storage space on DropBox, and signed up to use a few Cloud based computer programs.
The nice part about using programs provided in the cloud is you don't have to buy the program itself, and whenever there is an upgrade, it is done in the cloud so again, nothing new to buy, you always have the latest and greatest.
The downside is, you must be on-line to access the programs and data, although you can save a copy of your work to your own computer, you don't have the program available to look at the data if it is stored in a proprietary format. And they may change how the program works in a way you do not like it's new format.
The other downside is cost. Besides the cost of your Internet connection, you now have to pay a monthly or yearly subscription to use certain packaged bundles. Or pay even more to use a program you only need once or twice a year, which could easily exceed the price of buying a program outright and owning it for as long as your OS is supported.
I do see in the not to distant future almost all home computing devices will be nothing more than dumb terminals with only the ability to connect to the internet, and everything will be done on-line.
Even old die-hards like myself are beginning to use various Cloud services and programs.
I upped my storage space on DropBox, and signed up to use a few Cloud based computer programs.
The nice part about using programs provided in the cloud is you don't have to buy the program itself, and whenever there is an upgrade, it is done in the cloud so again, nothing new to buy, you always have the latest and greatest.
The downside is, you must be on-line to access the programs and data, although you can save a copy of your work to your own computer, you don't have the program available to look at the data if it is stored in a proprietary format. And they may change how the program works in a way you do not like it's new format.
The other downside is cost. Besides the cost of your Internet connection, you now have to pay a monthly or yearly subscription to use certain packaged bundles. Or pay even more to use a program you only need once or twice a year, which could easily exceed the price of buying a program outright and owning it for as long as your OS is supported.
I do see in the not to distant future almost all home computing devices will be nothing more than dumb terminals with only the ability to connect to the internet, and everything will be done on-line.