Now a day there is hype of Cloud Computing…so we are going to find out what exactly Cloud Computing is all about…
First of all I would like to express here that how the traditional computing used to work in enterprise applications space. There used to be a dedicated application server running enterprise applications and usually these servers were located on same premise where the business office was located. So they were called as On Premise Systems. These system were expensive to implement and maintain. Despite being expensive most of the resources of these systems were unused.
Then the trend moved to Hosted applications, now these applications were installed over web servers but now these applications are accessible over the internet, but there was basic problem here and that was the hardware, software configuration were specific to particular users and it was difficult to scale the system as per requirements.
Now comes the era of Cloud Computing, cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, where shared resources such as software, hardware and information are provided to computers over the internet.
Cloud computing provides computation, software, data access, and storage services that do not require end-user knowledge of the physical location and configuration of the system that delivers the services. Parallels to this concept can be drawn with the electricity grid, wherein end-users consume power without needing to understand the component devices or infrastructure required to provide the service.
In cloud computing you dont actually own the hardware or software, with Software As A Service (SaaS) you actually pay for what you use as monthly subscription.
Cloud computing is a natural evolution of the widespread adoption of virtualization, service-oriented architecture, autonomic, and utility computing. Details are abstracted from end-users, who no longer have need for expertise in, or control over, the technology infrastructure “in the cloud” that supports them
With cloud computing, you eliminate those headaches because you’re not managing hardware and software—that’s the responsibility of an experienced vendors.
The shared infrastructure means it works like a utility: You only pay for what you need, upgrades are automatic, and scaling up or down is easy.
Main headache with conventional enterprise applications model is you need to hire highly technical resources at your end to develop and maintain the enterprise application infrastructure which could cost you lots and lots of money in hardware, software, maintenance, security, upgrades and deployment
Cloud applications can be deployed in days instead of months and years and they cost less as they are deployed on shared resources so they cost you less, with the introduction of could applications even small businesses can opt for industries best enterprise applications at amazingly low cost.
Cloud computing and SaaS is a Win Win Model for all the stake holders and its growing at a rapid speed.