Cloud Computing Can Provide a Safe and Secure Work Environment for our Business

• Power Your Business

The market for cloud computing in India is expecting to grow nearly ten times to US$ 1,084 million by 2015 from the current US$ 110 million.

The biggest consideration causing the shift towards cloud computing is naturally the cost factor. Cloud computing will dramatically cut down your hardware and software expenditure and you will also require less IT support staff. Plus, you only pay for what you use, so this cuts down unwanted expenditure. Also, as your need increase, you can buy more space as require or you can even temporarily scale down usage when you experience a slump in business. Maintenance or even regular updates is no longer your headache as they will be taken care of by the service provider. It even saves you the cost of setting up infrastructure to host servers at your end.

Cloud computing is valuable from the point of view of employees as it provides them with the freedom to access all their files virtually anywhere. It is especially beneficial for those employees who have to be in the field, as they can easily access the documents they require and even make changes if required. Apart from this, it also gives employees the flexibility to work from home, especially on days when they can’t make it to the office due to a strike or other calamity.

Another advantage is higher security and reduced threat of data loss. All machines are prone to breakdowns and a hard disk crash can also result in permanent data loss. Imagine your are working on an important presentation, your hard disk crashes and your IT technician tell you it will take a few days to restore your system. You could have saved yourself a whole lot of trouble if your data was on the cloud, and then all you would have had to do is simply access it using another system.

There are many service providers in the market, ranging from international companies including Amazon, Microsoft, HCL, and Sales force, to local service providers Zenith Infotech, Orange Space, TCS, Wipro and Infosys, who offered cloud computing services.

• Cloud Computing will dramatically cut down your Hardware and Software Expenditure

While moving your data into the cloud is very straightforward, you have to consider a few points before finalizing the cloud provider. 

• First up, it is important for you to determine your requirements and select a plan best suited to you. 
• Secondly, look at the cloud provider’s security and privacy terms. See what kind of technical assistance will be provided as well as their downtime assistance. 
• Also, look for tutorials to familiarize yourself and your staff with the cloud environment for ease of usage. 
• Most crucially, read about the policy regarding retrieval of data in case you want to switch your service provider in the future. 

Cloud Computing Environment

# Cloud computing on portable devices could prove to be a very good way of going green.

Go green with the cloud computing

According to carbonfootprint.com, a PC running for an hour generates 40-80 grams of co₂, while it consumes about 60-90 % of normal workload power even when idle. It’s also surprising to know that even power – saving modes like ‘sleep’ or ‘standby’ can consume as much as 120 watts of power.

With raising concern over global warming, we all want to do our bit to reduce carbon footprint and save the environment. And one way to do this is by adapting green computing. Now we may wonder what has cloud computing got to do with green computing. After all cloud computing at the end of the day requires servers to store all the data. And we keep hearing about how software giants like Google, Microsoft, Amazon and others are building huge data centers to meet the growing demands of the ever-increasing number if Internet-users. So don’t these huge data centers that require massive amounts of electricity increase the carbon footprint?

While this is true to some extent, in reality however the manufacturers of data centers are actively taking initiatives to minimize the impact on the environment. Also the leading players in the industry are taking efforts to reduce their carbon footprint and are even addressing the issue of e-waste.

Considering all this, cloud computing, especially on portable devices, be it smart phones, net books or ultra-low-powered laptops, could computing prove to be a very good way of going green.

# Portable computing devices consumes much less energy compared to a desktop or laptop

In comparison to a traditional PC or a laptop, portable computing devices consume much less energy because they do not need continuous power supply. They just need to be charged not more than once in a day depending on usage. It’s a fact that today, most people don’t really need a high end PC as their usage is limited to browsing, email, social networking, banking, watching videos, listening to music etc. And this can be easily achieved on a smart phone or on any of the portable devices that can be used for cloud computing.

And the trend of mobile computing is here to say. According to a Gartner report, by 2013, the total number of PCs will reach 1.78 billion in three years, the number of smart phones and number of web-enable phones will shoot past 1.82 billion units and continue to rise. This will force more websites to be optimized for usage on smart phones and other portable, while most of the popular websites have already been optimized.

Looking at this trend, it’s very tempting to assume that, with an increase in the number of ultra-portable computing devices, there could be a drastic decline in the demand for standard desktop PC’s. Of course the high end ones would always stay, for very good reasons. Nevertheless, if each one of us takes up cloud computing to perform most of the basic tasks, then we can definitely help in reducing our carbon footprint.