Good explanation on “cloud computing” on Website Magazine, today. A large shared network of servers allows expandability without the restraints of partitioning.

We’ve seen the biggest advantage of cloud computing for our users who are storing their growing library of email on their webserver rather than locally on their computers, eventually taxing server resources. A partitioned system requires that when a growing business’s online data system reaches capacity, it either be moved or provided with additional resources under separate logins, fractionating resources.

Cloud computing allows massive amounts of online data to be kept together under the appearance of one resource with seemingly infinite capacity for expansion.

Example of this is Google services including Google Mail, Google applications — all provisions that are widely distributed across multiple servers located around the world.

If you’ve considered backing up your business data, off-site, by subscribing to automated online storage services, cloud computing technology comes into play. Equitable online storage providers are well-versed in cloud computing and offer the best prices if their cloud computing systems are already solidly in place. Google, Amazon, AOL, Windows Live all use cloud computing for their primary services and as a result can offer online terabyte storage subscriptions to individuals and small business, at the best prices around.

Disadvantage at the individual level is that you need decent bandwidth depending on the applications you are using. 10 Mb minimum, in many cases. As bandwidth continues to get faster for the average user, we expect cloud computing will grow exponentially. Couple that with decreased storage costs, and bingo!, we’ll all be moving to online storage. Contrast this to the 1980s when desktop computers first hit the market, taking data storage away from the expensive mainframes that ran IT. And, as with the 1980s and shared services, privacy returns as the issue des jour.

Website Magazine — Good Cloud Definition >>

“Google’s Cloud Looms Large“  by Kate Greene in Technology Review published by MIT>>