Ever wonder what Cloud Computing is all about.

I have been reading many articles about Cloud Computing and just now starting to get an idea of what it is all about.

Cloud computing can be thought of in a matrix sort of manner or a flow chart model. Think for a minute where all your contacts come in that you manage such as Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, etc. It is a paradigm shift following the shift from mainframe to client–servers dating back to the 1980s. It simply puts control of these technologies into a third parties control releaving the need for someone or a company to multitask and manage these systems themselves.

Thinking from an abstract point of view each technology becomes a puff in the cloud allowing these platforms to be controled by someone else but allowing more than one computer to access their needs. It is typically the way I seem to understand it is you are renting space and access to each platform that you require use and someone else bears the headaches of managing them ensuring you have access to your files.

Wiki describes it as "It is a byproduct and consequence of the ease-of-access to remote computing sites provided by the Internet. This frequently takes the form of web-based tools or applications that users can access and use through a web browser as if it were a program installed locally on their own computer. The term "cloud" is used as a metaphor for the Internet, based on the cloud drawing used in the past to represent the telephone network,and later to depict the Internet in computer network diagrams as an abstraction of the underlying infrastructure it represents. Typical cloud computing providers deliver common business applications online that are accessed from another Web service or software like a Web browser, while the software and data are stored on servers. A key element of cloud computing is customization and the creation of a user-defined experience."

Now that we have some idea of what cloud computing is all about which appears to be slimplistic in many fashions. Less upkeep from the IT service within a company or platforms to maintain on an individual computer. In my next Cloud Computing post I want to examine how Cloud computing can help inventory or in a Warehouse Management System (WMS) environment. Stay tune!