It's in the CLOUD and not the "fluffy white ones"

HOW THE CLOUD WORKS

We here this question a lot..."Where is the cloud and how does it work?" The "cloud" has actually nothing to do with those fluffy white things in the sky, and no your treasured photos, videos, and emails don't magically live in the great blue sky.

So what exactly is the Cloud? The cloud refers to software and services that run on the internet, instead of being physically stored on a piece of hardware like a CD, computer hard drive, floppy disk or zip drive. The history of computer storage is a fun ride down memory lane, but that's a topic for another blog post.

When you look at photos on Facebook, Instagram, read your email, or listen to music on Pandora or even watch a movie on Netflix or Amazon, that content isn't stored on your computer or smart device; its somewhere else. Facebook, Apple, Google, Netflix, and Amazon (just to name a few) store this content on servers in facilities that are called server farms. We access our data remotely via an interface like Internet Explorer, Chrome, Safari or an app.

One of the advantages of the cloud for personal and business purposes is the ability to access your information on any device with an Internet connection. It’s what allows you to make edits to a file in Google Docs or Microsoft Office on your home computer, and then pick up where you left off when you get to the office. Colleagues can even collaborate on the same document.

Google Server Farm - Photo by Google/Daily Mail UK

CLOUD COMPUTING AND SOFTWARE

Cloud computing allows user to share processing power, software and other resources. This frees users from having to constantly update and maintain their software and systems, while at the same time allowing them to harness the processing power of a vast network.

With Software distribution (SaaS - Software as a Service) SaaS removes the need for organizations to install and run applications on their own computers and data centers, eliminating the expense of hardware acquisition, provisioning and maintenance, as well as software licensing, installation and support.

One of our favorite SaaS we sell is Microsoft Exchange for enterprise grade email and Microsoft 365 for a full range of productivity tools like Word, Excel, PowerPoint in addition to cloud email and Skype. Mix and match plans allow you to choose the features that serve you best.

FILE SHARING AND STORAGE

Cloud storage is one of the best investments you can make. Disasters strike, devices get misplaced and you never know when you'll need access to files on the go. Cloud storage is also the perfect file-sharing tool, especially for documents and multimedia files are too large to send by email. Whether you need a reliable data backup solution, instant access to files wherever you are or a simple way to share files with clients and colleagues.

READY TO DISCUSS MOVING MORE TO THE CLOUD?

We're excited to now offer cloud storage and cloud computing packages to fit any individual or business need. Contact us for your free consultation!