The Future Of Cloud Computing
When the likes of Mozy started offering software as a service (SaaS), most people started understanding that they can use such services without having to pay much. For example, a 2GB pen drive would cost $8 in India while with Mozy, they get 2GB for free. If they need more space, they can purchase more storage space instead of having to buy more pen drives. This is the smallest example I can give for explaining clouds.
Are the Clouds Really Good Enough
Following the lead, Adobe is the latest entrant to cloud computing at the time of writing this. Instead of offering disks, it is now offering its software usage at monthly rentals; people need not install entire software to their local machines unless they need full functionality. The same applies to Office Web Apps. Check out the Major Cloud Players For Storage I listed earlier. There are many and they are good. But how good is cloud technology? Is such a model feasible in the long run? While we can say that cloud computing has and will reduce costs by a significant percentage, there is much bigger a picture to it than what the eyes can see. Downtimes and maintenances are just one side of the aspects. These cannot be much big a hurdle to prevent people from using cloud computing. Then what is the major problem? Why people might shy away from cloud computing in the future?
Problems With Current Clouds
Thus not only the clouds serve as a base for hacking and other malicious uses – given the policies and inabilities of service providers but they can also be hacked if not secured with multiple techniques. Then again, multiple security measures may mean inconvenience to the users. Google offers a 2-point authentication but not many of us use it, as it creates problems when we try to use the service from tiny mobile devices. Adding additional layers of security would simply mean many more steps to take just to access your account with the service providers. I was talking to a friend yesterday who said he’d prefer to keep his gold at some safe place in his home rather than some bank as his home is less prone to burglary compared to banks etc. But then that’s just him. Summary Until and unless they work on addressing the security issues in cloud computing and securing their servers and allotting proper firewalls between and among the different sections of the same servers serving different companies, most of the businesses might not opt for cloud computing – leading it to delays in cloud computing.
